A Trio of Summer Salads

Like most people, our repertoire of meals changes with the seasons. We have some new favorite salads to share.

This is a quinoa salad made with tomatoes, sauteed onions, basil, avocado, toasted pine nuts, and a vinaigrette. Every adult we've shared this with has raved over it.

The children are newly fond of a curried chicken salad. I poach chicken in the morning. Later in the afternoon I mix it with a curried mayonnaise and grapes. I serve it on lettuce and often offer a muffin or some cornbread with it.

Another favorite hearty salad involves grilled lamb chops, pepper and red onion placed on a bed of greens and white beans which have been drained, rinsed, and mixed with a vinaigrette.

Do you have a favorite summer salad to share?

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Our Ramble

Last weekend we went on a ramble to Harrisville, NH. It used to be a mill town where they spun yarn and wove fabric. Here is one of the old mills.

There are lots of mill ponds so that the water could flow through all the different mills to power the looms.

Here is the passage which allows the water to go underneath the mills to make the waterwheel work.

Tasha Tudor based her book, Corgiville Fair, on this town.

Helen got felting wool and I got a ball of yarn at the weaving store. I used a spool knitter to make a long cord.

Here is the result.

It was 57' and 9 1\4".

written by Lou

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Solstice Weekend

Father's Day weekend always brings a balloon festival to our town. It seems like such a perfect festival to celebrate the breezy, languid days of summer--the height of the year.

We are fortunate to live in a spot from where we can see the balloons launch. Here they all are on Friday evening.

On Saturday morning we could hear them, but not see them--the propane tanks are very, very loud. Nels and I headed out to the dump and look what we saw....this one was landing at the end of our road:

And this is what we could see as we looked out over the valley--balloons landing.

And as we drove down the road to the dump, we discovered chase vehicles everywhere. The yellow balloon landed right in this person's backyard--exciting for them as the tradition is for the balloon pilot to bring champagne.

As we drove up the farm where we get our eggs....

Here was another one. In all we saw 4 balloons land along the road.


At dawn this morning, Nelson called to me that he could hear the balloons. It sounded like we were being invaded. The wind was just right to bring the balloons over our house.

It was heavily overcast and windy, so the balloons were hugging the hills. They kept popping up into our yard.

So we began the Solstice weekend with these beautiful balloons and ended with this beautiful table created by Hels for a lunch with her Father and Grandfather.

Balloons, lupine, a summer lunch, strawberry pie. Summer is here. Now if it would only stop raining! I would like to see the sun as hot and bright as this card Hels painted for her Grandfather.

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Rainy Day Journaling

Nan, at Letters from a Hill Farm, recently shared a beautiful Mary Oliver poem about rain. We spent a couple of hours today exploring the poem in our journals.



Some of our journal inspirations come from A Trail through Leaves and 1,000 Artist Journal Pages.

What else for a rainy day?

A summer quiche

A flourishing garden.

....and a movie. We're actually having a bit of a struggle settling into summer. It's such a transition. How to balance working at home, children at home? Getting exercise. Staying away from too much media? Tricky stuff.

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Waldorf 4th Grade

Here are some pictures from Lou's 4th grade main lesson book.

Local Geography

Animal Study

The Lion

Box Turtle Habitat

Math Class

Form Drawing

French Vocabulary

German Vocabulary--her favorite class

I'm in love with this queen!

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7th Grade Work

Life in our household continues to be pretty busy with work. I've been in Washington, DC, all week so have no fun activities to share. I thought I'd share instead some highlights of Helen's work this year.

Venetian Cityscape--study of perspective

Orchid Study

Spring Tulip

Age of Discovery

Creative Writing

Physiology

Chemistry

Physics

Geometry

It was a great year! I think I need to find some frames.

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Year-End Handwork

Hels spent much of the spring making this jester's cap as part of the Renaissance theme.

Lou fell in love with it and declared: "this is so cool--I'm going to wear it every day of 8th grade!"

Lou enjoyed cross stitch this year. Here is a pin cushion she made me.

Here are all the pencil cases made by her class. Aren't they lovely?

Finally, here's a bench the 8th grade made as a gift for the school. Each back has a different scene sculpted into it. My favorite is a snail with the earth sculpted into its shell. I couldn't show it to you because someone was sitting on it.

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