Boreal Witch

A few weeks ago when I asked Arthur what he'd like to take to preschool for a snack he said (without hesitation): "Granola bars! With chocolate chips!" (You can bet that the next time I parent volunteered I took a closer look at what his peers were eating.)

I found a couple simple recipes for granola bars and modified them to suit my own tastes. Since these bars contained chocolate chips, I immediately cut out some of the sugar and added some ground flax seeds. Arthur liked the chocolate chip granola bars, but I liked the dried fruit bars even better.

Which got me thinking...couldn't I just make granola using this recipe?

Yes. Yes, I could.

The preparation is a bit involved, but one batch of this granola generally lasts my family a week. It's just sweet enough and packed with healthy additives.

Granola
Makes approximately 12 servings
Adapted from Ina Garten's granola bar recipe; original recipe here

2 cups oats
1 cup unsweetened coconut
1 cup chopped nuts (we like cashews best, but pecans or almonds would work well)
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
2/3 cup honey
3 tbs butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried apricots
1/2 cup dates
butter or coconut oil for greasing pan

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place oats, coconut, and nuts on a large pan and toast in the oven for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, chop fruit. Grease large cookie sheet or pizza pan. Put honey, vanilla, salt, and butter in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Mix fruit, flaxseed, and oat mixture together. Add honey mixture and stir well.

Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes. When cool crumble into bite-sized pieces and store in an air-tight container.

Blessed be.

Early this year I decided to have a craft table at Ryan Middle School's spring craft fair/garage sale.

It went horribly, horribly wrong.

It's polite to say that it was more rummage sale than craft fair (Robinson would have just said it was all crap).

For a few days I moped around before I decided that I would try again, but this time during one of the holiday bazaars around Thanksgiving or Christmas. On a whim in early September I went to the UAF Women's Association page and found that the deadline for renting a table was...September 8th??? Less than a week away!

I gathered everything I'd need to get my table and sent it off. About two weeks later, I received a letter saying I was ready to go.

For the next two months, I sewed like a mad woman. I made octopus. I made starfish. I finished up a few carriers. Robinson even got a Square and set up my account so that I could take credit cards.

And...?

It was great!

I met a lot of nice people and sold a lot of merchandise. After all was said and done, I made about $300.

I've also found a few other cool ideas online...

So does this mean I'll be doing it again?

Yes, I think it does!

Blessed be. 

When I was a kid, I didn't know anyone who didn't celebrate Halloween. My sisters and I loved dressing up and going door-to-door. We greatly anticipated sorting through our haul afterward, trading candy and discarding the items we didn't want. (These pieces were usually eaten by our father. The pieces he didn't want sat until the following March...just in time for Easter.)

As I got older and started to mingle with a younger generation of kids, I became completely baffled by the number of children who didn't celebrate Halloween. "It's evil," they'd say.

Evil?

Really?

I couldn't fathom what was so evil about dressing up and Trick-or-Treating. I thought the whole matter was utterly ridiculous.

As it turns out, the rise of Evangelicalism has brought about more than a wave of ignorance. It's brought back the Harvest Festival.

Brought back? you say.

Interestingly enough, Halloween is more of a Christian holiday than it is a Pagan one. Many European groups (most notably the Celts) celebrated Harvest Festivals as a time to celebrate the end of fall and to prepare for the beginning of winter. As the Christian belief system started integrating with the local Pagan customs, new rituals emerged: wearing costumes to prevent soul-snatching and requesting treats in exchange for prayers.

Different traditions continued to meld until Halloween was eventually formed into the holiday we know and love. It seems that many avid Evangelicals have forgotten its Christian roots and instead have claimed it as Satanic.

Here in Fairbanks I don't recall a church that didn't have a Harvest Festival this year (except for the Mormons - we attended their Halloween Canival and Trunk-or-Treat Extravaganza - rock on, Mormons, rock on). Signs broadcasted that on the night of October 31st, there would be no Halloween - just the Harvest Festival.

The whole situation is deliciously ironic: Christianity, in its attempt to stomp out Pagan rituals, has re-kindled the very rite they tried to extinguish. I smile knowingly whenever I see a "Harvest Festival" sign.

Additionally, we also had the pleasure of seeing a Halloween picketer on the corner of College and University just a weekend ago. His sign read, "Halloween is Satanic. America will be judged."

Apperantly he didn't get the memo either.

My thoughts? If you are truly Christian, go on. Wear that costume. Go trick-or-treating with your kids. Enjoy Halloween. Don't worry about whether or not God's going to strike you down. Halloween's been around since the late 12th century. If God were going to punish anyone for dressing up and demanding treats, He would have done it by now.

And if you're Pagan? Go ahead, dress up. Eat some candy. But roast a chicken and braise some root vegetables as well. Give thanks for the fall and make a mental list of all the winter preparations you'll need to do. Celebrate your loved ones who have departed within the last year. Thank them for all that they taught you.

Me? I'm off to get some more Halloween candy.

Blessed be.

Arthur didn't have school on the 26th, so we invited his friends over for a Halloween Party. While some people are not wild about getting a party favor after a party, I love giving out party favors. I think it's a nice way to express gratitude for someone coming over and spending time with you. That being said, I don't always like receiving party favors because inevitably they are little made-in-China-pieces-of-crap that end up shattering when I accidentally step on them. So, when I do give favors, I try and give something small, useful, fun, and homemade.

Thus, the troll booger.

I found a recipe for "gak" online and made some for the party. Arthur helped me stuff the bags and print and stick on the labels. He seemed pretty excited about the "boogers."

As the party wound down, I told the kids that Arthur and I went under our house and collected some troll boogers for everyone. As his friend Jade was getting ready to leave, she asked what the green stuff was. Amanda told her it was a troll booger that we had collected from the trolls under our house. Jade could play with the booger, but could not eat it.

After all his friends left, Arthur asked why we had trolls living under our house.

I wasn't sure if he was honestly curious or if he was playing along with the game I began, so I told him the trolls liked our house because it was just the right size. Other houses on the block were too small or too big or had mean dogs, but not our house. So they wanted to live here.

Eventually I asked him if he'd like to make some bread for the trolls. He screamed, "YES!"

There is some method to my madness. It is customary to make bread for the dead around Halloween for the spirits. I wasn't sure if Arthur would understand that concept (what is a spirit anyway?), but I knew he would (sort of) understand if the trolls were given bread to eat. One day, when he's a little older and wiser, he'll be able to make the transition from trolls to spirits a little easier. I hope.

On the Menu: Troll Bread
Serves 4 Trolls
adapted from Chikousky Farms (recipe here)

Starter:
2 cups flour
2 cups kefir

Bread:
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tbs. sugar
1 1/5 tbs. butter, melted
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rye flour
extra butter for greasing pans
raisins for decorating

Mix together ingredients for the starter. Let sit for about 24 hours in a warm place.

When starter is ready, mix together the rest of the ingredients. Let sit for about an hour or two in a warm place to rise. Knead the dough into troll shapes and decorate with raisins. Put on a greased pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes (or until nicely browned on the outside).

Place on a plate and set outside for the trolls.   

Blessed be.

It's the last three months of the year. My tongue says, "Into my mouth, sweets!" but my waistline says, "No, no, NO!!!"

Even when given an opportunity to throw away those tempting sugary sweets I won't do it. Example: I made too much frosting for Arthur's Halloween party. He begged and begged to squeeze out the rest of the frosting...but I hate to let good frosting go to waste, so I promised to make cookies over the weekend. Sugar cookies. The frostable kind. (You can find the recipe here. Make them with the brandy instead of milk. You will not regret it.)

We decorated the cookies while Balin napped. Arthur loved squeezing the frosting onto the cookies and trying to make designs (even though most of his efforts created little frosting worms instead of actual shapes or designs).

I frosted a pumpkin. Arthur liked it so much he ate it. I find that he has a knack for choosing the "best-looking" thing and wanting it, even if he didn't make it. The boy's got good taste; someday he and I will have to go antiquing and redecorate the house together.

I think Arthur's going to have a blast this year when we create another entry for Fairbanks' annual gingerbread house competition. Not only will he be able to put candy on the house, but he'll be able to use the cake decorating tips to distribute the frosting as well. Balin will have fun decorating (and eating the candy), but Arthur will enjoy making the gingerbread house on so many other levels.

Blessed be.

My friend, Sarah, insists that using a digital camera manually is so easy. All of the settings seemed so intimidating to me: Aperture, ISO, flash or not...WHAT AM I DOING???

Full auto, always full auto.

Recently, I realized that using a camera manually could not possibly be the hardest thing I've ever done. For Goddess sake, I traveled half-way around the world to Israel, got my Master's degree, had two babies without pain medication, and climbed the Golden Staircase. Surely I could figure out my camera's settings.

For the past few weeks, I've been experimenting. These are my favorite (or best) pictures of the bunch.

Arthur had a ticket to the Pioneer Park train that expired over Labor Day weekend. Since we hadn't spent a lot of time at Pioneer Park this summer, we went for a ride on the train and a chance to play at the park before it got too cold. Here are my two little monkeys waiting in line for the Pioneer Park train. Balin was not into the picture-taking and after a while, Arthur wasn't all that excited about it either. The background isn't the nicest, but the expressions on the boys' faces are fun and they seem to be having a good time...sort of.


The one on the left is a new favorite pictures. The feel of movement, his natural smile, and the fun background. The composition of the picture is nice, too - very well-balanced. He looks like he's springing into action!


The one on the right is of my boys. Balin was ready to take off running, and Arthur put a protective arm around Balin to prevent him from fleeing. The colors are beautiful and the boys' expressions are priceless. 

The barrel in these photos is actually what inspired me to take these two pictures. We set Balin on the barrel, hoping he would sit quietly without squirming. He did, but it was quite obvious he didn't want to be there. After Arthur saw how much "fun" Balin was having on the barrel, he wanted to sit up there and get his picture taken, too. He even has a semi-natural smile going on (a rarity for him!).  

If I had taken the time to crop this picture, I think it would be a pretty good one. The light post on the left is distracting, and contrasts too sharply with the antique "feel" of the surrounding objects. I like the penetrating look Arthur is giving the camera. The composition isn't as nice as some of the other pictures, but I think I like it more for the subject than I do the background.


Although the picture on the left appears to be really nice, I did not have the shutter speed set correctly, so one of Balin's hands is blurry. He was signing "all done" because he wanted to play. I'm going to be so sad when he outgrows this little blue coat.

The one on the right was another "accident." We were walking through Creamer's Field and I snapped an over-the-shoulder shot of Balin. This was the result.



Arthur has a certain fondness for bridges. If he had a list of his favorite things, bridges would be in the top four, along with excavators, dump trucks, and pipes. I made him get on the side of the bridge, so he looks a little lost (cranky?) in this picture. The red jacket is a lovely touch.  The picture on the right is him running across the bridge. I also encountered the same problem with shutter speed in this picture as I did with the one of Balin. If you look at Arthur's feet, they are blurry. Still, the composition and color are excellent. It's one of my favorites.

I plan on practicing this winter, too...I think I may have found a new hobby!

Blessed be.

I've been setting little goals for myself over the last year. For instance, I've been trying to be more mindful of how much water or electricity I use. I now consistently take a three-minute shower. I thought I would miss a five or six-minute shower, but I don't.

A more serious issue for me, though, is kinds of cleaning products I use. It all started when I found a book at Gulliver's about making your own cleaning agents. (You can find information about it here.) I've made many of the cleaners in this book and have so far loved every single one of them. I spend a fraction of the cost of traditional cleansers and soaps because most of these recipes have vinegar and lemon juice in them - both of which I can find in bulk at Sam's Club for less than $10. Total. These two items last for six months - at least - and make gallons and gallons of cleaning solutions. Since then, I've gradually tried to rid the house of harsh chemicals and synthetic cleaners.

I've even stopped buying hand soap. I make my own now. I put it in a small plastic jar with one of those foaming dispensers and keep it next to my kitchen sink. It is awesome. I found the recipe online and while you can use it in a regular soap dispenser, it works much better if it's in a foaming one. I know you all are dying to get the recipe, so here it is!

All-natural Foaming Hand Soap
1 cup water
1/4 cup Castile soap
1 tsp. almond, hemp, or jojoba oil
10 drops essential oil of your choice

Since making my own cleaners and limiting my showers to three minutes were going so well, I now have another small goal: to use reusable feminine hygiene products. (Yeah, some may scoff and say that this is too much information, but hey, this is my blog - I'll write about whatever I want!)

I am now in the process of turning some old cloth diapers into inserts for pads. They work great and I don't feel like I'm contributing to the destruction of the ozone or rainforest or arctic sea ice. I've finished half of them and will be finishing the other half after the Women's Bazaar in early November, when I finally have a little more time for personal projects.

Do your part! Find something you can do to cut down on waste and do it!

Blessed be.