Gentle Barn

We took a field trip to Gentle Barn today, just 35 min southwest of Palmdale, with other homeschool families.  Gentle Barn is an sanctuary for around 170 animals that experienced abuse or neglect in the past.  Its mission is to rehabilitate them and give them a safe place to live out the rest of their lives.

The kids got the chance to groom cows, feed carrots to horses, hug chickens, and pet goats, turkeys, sheep, and a pig.  It was a neat experience for all.

Welcome to Gentle Barn

Sanctuary to all kinds of farm animals

Brushing Faith

Leaning on Buttercup the cow

Pretending to drive an old tractor

Feed carrots to horses

Petting Claire

Nicknamed Sir Fancy Pants

Jellie

Norma Jeane, the lap chicken

Rory and Claire share a moment

Sassy insists on last minute rubs

Earth Day: Progress and Resolutions

In the past, on Earth Day I would post a State of the Household in regards to how earth friendly we were with our living.  Three children in and a cross-country move later, things are different - a little better here, a little worse there - but overall, our family is on the same journey.

Living in an eco-friendly manner is important to me. I consider it part of being a good steward of the resources God gave us.  I believe our family's choices have saved tons of trash from landfills, have put our "vote" toward greener and safer products for our children, and have had the added benefit of saving us some money in the process.  I certainly don't consider us a poster family for environmentalism, but I do hope that other people would feel motivated to make little changes over the course of time that would make the Earth a cleaner, happier place to be.

1. Cloth diapers - I still love them.  We're using the same ones on Elliott that we used with Taylor and Rory and some of the children we took into our home with Safe Families.  Some have served their life, others just need a little repair, most of them could handle a couple more kiddos down the line (whether ours or someone else's!).  Because we've been doing a bit more traveling out here to places where I can't do laundry, we've had to buy some disposable diapers (which pains me) but I'm hoping to use them very conservatively.
Side note on wipes: I don't really use cloth wipes anymore and only sparingly use disposable ones (I hate paying money for stuff like that), opting most frequently to just wash Elliott's bottom off in the sink at diaper changes.  I like that I don't have anything to throw in the trash, but with California's recent drought concerns I'm re-considering how I might approach that daily routine.

Boron mine and replica of a Twenty Mule Team

2. DIY Laundry Detergent.  We started making our own detergent over the last couple years out of Fels Naptha soap, Borax, and washing soda.  It's simple, cheap, effective, and the kids readily help me put it together.

In November, we took a field trip with a local homeschool group to the Boron mines an hour north of Palmdale, where Borax gets it's supply, as well as the Twenty Mule Team museum.  It was a fun way to see how one ingredient in our detergent is processed - and to see all the other many ways it is used in every day products around the house!

2. DIY Hand soap - NEW! Moving to CA gave us a chance to try something new in our routine, which was to make our own hand soap for the bathrooms.  Mark bought a few Method foaming hand soaps when he first moved here in September and by the time the kids and I joined him a month later we were able to try out this refill solution.  Very simple - Dr. Bronner's castille soap and water.  Voila!  Mere pennies for a fresh and natural (no icky triclosan!) soap refill.

3. Natural shampoo - fail.  I've read on many a eco-friendly message board or blog about eschewing traditional shampoo and going for baking soda/apple cider vinegar, honey, or special shampoo bars.  I really wanted to try a more natural, cheaper approach to cleaning my hair so in November I gave Honey Shampoo a whirl.  I figured I didn't really have to meet up with a lot of people since we were new to the area, so no one would really care about what I looked like during the dreaded "transition period" people always wrote about.  The verdict: I was a hot mess.  I did learn that raw honey is by far preferable to the adulterated honey you get in those little bear bottles, but still after 6 weeks my hair was heavy and clumpy and not styling friendly.  Perhaps I'll be brave enough to try something else in the future, but for now I'm back to the normal stuff.

4. Gardening - ups and downs.  Mark geared up for growing some herbs and veggies this spring/summer, day dreaming about all we'll try to grow back at our house in St. Louis, but so far we're off to a rocky start.  We started a pot of some watermelon on the back patio and some seeds in a little starter grid inside.  The watermelon is sprouting a little and I'm hoping I won't forget to water it because the sun outside is so intense every day.  We had several seedlings came out (radishes, carrots, and more) in our starter grid, but then Mark accidentally left them outside for too long and roasted the whole lot.  We're at square one with those.  And, back to the issue of water conservation, I want to make sure we're doing the right things and not wasting water.  Mark was thinking we might get some 5-gal buckets from the hardware store to catch the shower water normally wasted when we're waiting for the water to warm up (it takes a long time!) and we could probably make use of the "gray water" leftover from the kid's baths as well.

Overall, we're doing okay.  We're using more paper products than we used to - out of convenience from the move and due to some extended sniffles, but if we just get back to reaching for a cleaning towel instead of a paper towel and our new handkerchiefs (planning to embroider and decorate those for fun) instead of the tissue box I think we'll be better off.

Looking to the future: My goal for this year is to try harder to buy produce in season and grown locally, or raised locally in the case of meat and dairy products.

What's something you'd be willing to change in your life to make the Earth a happier and healthier place this year?

Jan-Feb

Finally a chance to sit down and write, as brief as it'll be...

It's a Small World - closed for a while

We kicked off the first month of 2014 with a couple of trips to Disneyland to make the most of our annual passes.  They were quick, down-and-back-in-one-day trips where we'd throw the kids in the car before dawn and leave the park in the early afternoon.

It was the first time to attempt it as a small family unit (only 2 adults for the 3 kids now!) and it went surprisingly well.  With ample snacks, a double stroller, and the only things on the agenda being "family fun," we had a pleasant time.

Teacups - a favorite of the girls

Mark and the kids

And as an added bonus, IKEA is on the way home from Disney.  Mark and I enjoy browsing the store, but the kids seem to be in extreme pain at even the thought of stopping there.  We learned the hard way to time those visits carefully, as three tired, hungry, screaming children do not make for the most ideal shopping experience.

On Jan 21st, Elliott turned 1.  We celebrated with a Skylander-themed strawberry cake (the girls'  idea) decorated with naturally colored frosting (using spinach, turmeric, and berries).  The turmeric made the yellow frosting taste strange, so we didn't use much of that, but the rest of it was very good.  Elliott loved it and ate so politely.

Happy 1st Birthday, Elliott!

As a birthday bonus, Elliott began walking that evening - 10 or more steps at a time.  It was a really exciting double milestone day!

Just 12 days later, on Feb 2nd, we celebrated Taylor's 6th birthday!  Since we still didn't really know enough children to make a good birthday party, we got some fun butterfly cupcakes from Sam's Club to share with the girls on her gymnastics team.

We did a "Spa Day" at home with mud masks and cucumber slices for our eyes, fizzy lemon water and crisp apples, a bubble bath, a back massage, and movies.

When we returned to Disneyland the next weekend, we let Taylor go through a salon treatment at the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.  I didn't think I'd ever let my girls do that considering how the bizarre I thought other little girls looked after coming out of there, but we tried to go with a more conservative up-do and with the annual pass discount it wasn't so bad.  Taylor love love loved the chance to have her hair and nails done and a little bit of make-up brushed on and sparkles and a bag of fashion goodies afterward.  For her, it was definitely the highlight of her birthday celebrations.

The rest of February involved lots of exercise on the rowing machine for Mark (a huge Christmas/anniversary/birthday/etc gift), many more Fitbit steps for Andrea (Disneyland really helped with that!), the introduction of an art curriculum into homeschool, and a trip to Colton, CA to see my uncle and his family.  The girls begged to stay longer with my relatives, as they played Hide-and-Seek for about 4 hours straight the day we were there.