FIMBY

Picked pounds of blueberries (hadn't planned to but how could we resist all those berries) on a hike with friends up Bald Mountain this weekend. Read Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey tonight to the kids. I love Maine.

I Am an Artist by Pat Lowery Collins

An easy to read (2-3 sentences per page) and simply lovely book about the artist in each of us. Although it's directed towards young children and their innate curiosity and interest in the natural world, I think more adults should read this kind of book.

Do you see the world in an unique way? Then you're an artist. We're all artists. We should let our children and ourselves embrace and explore that.

One more note, I love this book's focus on the natural world and how we see it. You don't need paints, a camera, a sketchpad or fabrics to be an artist. You just need to get out into nature, open your eyes and ears and appreciate.


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Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow by Joyce Sidman

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
A gorgeous book of science, poetry and art. We love exploring meadows and we loved this book! If we were a book-buying family (we're library lenders) I'd buy this in a heartbeat.

It's everything a good's childrens book should be. Beautiful and engaging to look at, full of lovely language and you learn a lot too. I don't think that last point is a pre-requisite for a good childrens book but it's a triple bonus when all three come together.


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Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Just finished this historical novel about an English village during the plague epidemic of 1666. As a homebirth mama and backyard herbalist I was particularly drawn to the narratives of midwifery and herbal lore. And so grateful that in my place and time in this world, 21st century North America, although I may be considered "alternative" at least I'm not considered a witch.

As much as I enjoyed the book I found the descriptions of disease, death, sufferings and hardship of late 15th century too gruesome. But tragically those were the realities for people in that age and unfortunately, it is the gruesomeness that sometimes gives you a more accurate story of a place and people. I'd like to know if it's possible to gain a real understanding of history without all the nasty details.

As far as the writing, I thought it was well written and convincing up until the epilogue when the setting changed so much in 8 pages it didn't seem authentic.

I'd like to know if anyone can recommend some good historical fiction or non-fiction (novel type) about women, herbs and/or midwifery, always of interest to me.
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Back in the days before I spent all my spare time creating FIMBY I used to respond to family e-mails (sorry guys I haven't forgotten about you), watch movies with my husband, write the occasional blog, take hot baths, make luscious homemade soap, go to bed at a decent hour AND read just for the fun of it. Lots of books, I love to read. A friend had introduced me to Goodreads where I started to keep track, in my spare time, of my favorite books I read in my spare time!

Well I'm very happy to report that the intense start up of FIMBY is coming to an end and I hopefully will be reading once more and going to be earlier than 11pm.

Goodreads has these cool applications called widgets that I imported to the first 5 sections of my blog - first 5 in header menu. Even if you are aren't a member of Goodreads (it's free by the way) you can hover over the book pictures in my blog sidebar and see the title, author and my star rating below. Not making sense?? Just try it and see what I mean.

The Homestead page has Homestead Reads which is my widget for home & garden related books such as cookbooks or gardening. For homeschooling and parenting type books check Mama Speak. Or if you want to know what I read for pleasure see Fine Reads in Finer Points. I have a widget for each main page, check them out.

And of course I didn't want to neglect good children's books which I love just as much as my 'adult' reading material. I haven't put much in here, hard to keep up since I read several books to the kids everyday - that's a lot of books.

The kids and I love the work of author and illustrator Jan Brett. This past week we read The Mother's Day Mice by Eve Bunting (another fav author), illustrated by Brett. Such a sweet read about finding the perfect gift for mother's day.

Anyway, this weekend we discovered Jan Brett's website and Hedga & Hedgie the hedgehog paper dolls. The kids have literally spent the weekend printing, coloring and dressing these cuties. Due to rainy weather and the immobility caused by Celine's sprained knee (a post on this to follow later sometime this week) we were indoors a lot and this activity helped passed the time.

Good old-fashioned paper doll fun with a modern age internet twist.

My blog break was useful for:

Starting a good book, Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. First Wendell Berry book I've read, should of read his stuff sooner.

Watching a great documentary, King Corn with my best friend. I can more appreciate the corn allergy in our family because it's given us better health. If you want to know why our health is better because we don't eat any processed corn watch the movie.

Discovering Flight of the Conchords, more good influences from my best friend, and splitting a gut laughing at their take on life. Particularly long term relationship "business time".

I guess a break from blogging wasn't so bad afterall...

I was so excited to finally get my hands on this fantastic story about one family's year long experiment in growing and raising most of their own food. I love reading about people who think differently, act differently and live differently than the norm.

I think the grow your own experiment of this family is rather "out there" and unaccessible for most of the culture. I'm certain that's one reason I'm so attracted to it but also because it's a life lived with intention and deep conviction. In comparison to the Kingsolver-Hopp family gardening rigors I found our own family's efforts in supporting our local agriculture fairly piddly. This was a reality check since I can sometimes get on my high horse because I belong to a CSA and visit the weekly summer farmer's market.

My basic criticisms of the book are two. Firstly, Kingsolver spends a fair amount of time writing about being a working mother. How over the years she has managed to have a career and still can tomatoes. But from my farm and gardening experience I have a hard time believing that during the course of their grow-your-own year both she and her husband worked full time, yet she leaves readers with that impression. Or at the very least she doesn't exactly expound on her daily goings on except for what she's picking from the garden and special events celebrated with family and friends. What I want to know is how do you raise animals, plant, weed, pick, can and preserve the garden, butcher the animals and cook a home cooked meal every night? All while parenting, cleaning house, doing laundry, running errands, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da AND working full time?? These questions are never answered. And yet growing at least some of your own food is presented as achievable for the average over-worked American family. I believe that unless the American family determines to spend less, drive less and work less, growing their own food (even a small portion) is largely unrealistic. But hopefully books like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle will be a part of the movement that changes our popular fast food, fast life culture. So that more families will choose to grow gardens and shop for local, in season food.

That brings me to the second criticism or perhaps observation. As a plant based eater living in Northern New England if I chose to eat only locally grown foods I'd eat a lot of potatotes and go crazy with summer blueberries (not a bad thing). Our family has chosen to base our diet on plants for improved immediate health and longevity, we want to be hiking with our grandkids. Eating a variety of foods from around the globe (at times) makes this possible. And for many, many people in northern latitudes the only way to achieve the health they want is to eat fruits and vegetables grown elsewhere. A bit of a conundrum if you believe in local sustainable agriculture - which I do. So, I'm thinking this one through. Trying to find out all the healthy foods which are grown here, how we can maximize our consumption of those and perhaps decrease the food we eat that is shipped from long distances.

Overall, the book was a fantastic read. Kingsolver is engaging, funny, convincing and just an all round excellent writer. The book is an eat your local veggies and meat mantra but the narrative of her family keeps it personal and interesting.

Recently a friend loaned us a copy of Hungry Planet: What the World Eats. An essay and photo journal featuring a breakdown of what 30 families around the world eat in a week. The kids and I used the book as a world study curriculum for a couple weeks. Then recently Damien proposed we take the "study" a step farther and suggested our family eat simply for one day each week, following a diet similar to impoverished people around the world. We decided we weren't ready for a whole day of beans, rice, gruel and weak vegetable broths but we were ready for supper once a week.

Tonight was the first night of the experiment. From a cook's perspective I like this experiment. With modern conveniences of electric stoves and pressure cookers I can cook beans very quickly so unlike many women around the world I don't spend all day gathering and cooking food. But a very simple meal of beans, rice and onions, for seasoning, is a life lesson for all of us in simplicity and empathy. We're hoping our kids will grow in compassion and a desire for justice and not grow up to think their parents were wacko deprivation freaks.

by Ginger Plowman

Counting to three... as if. That's simply a sugarcoating for disobedience. [Off the soapbox]

After reading Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp many moons ago this was a great refresher on parenting to the heart of our children. How to draw out the foolishness (in the biblical definition) and replace it with biblical truth. Liked the emphasis on the word of God - knowing it, speaking it and living it in our homes. An easy read in terms of length but challenging. Challenging in that the author places responsibility, rightfully so, on the parents to know their children and seek the answers to their children's discipline issues in the word of God. This is more difficult than following steps A, B & C outlined by the latest child psychologist/family therapist/preacher/counselor whatever. This book encouraged me (kind of kicked me in the pants) in this regard - know the Word, live it & teach it to my children

My friend Emily wrote a great review that introduced me to the book. She also loaned it to me these past couple months (nice friend).