Where Our Food Comes From

Although most of our food is not grown by us, it does come from local sources. We have a few things growing in our yard right now.

 Okra.

 Peppers.

and tomatoes. However, for right now most of our vegetables come from our summer share in Home Sweet Farm. Here is what we received for this week.

Most of our milk, cheese, eggs, and meat come from Gramen Farm. Here is what we picked up today.

Although we still have to go to the grocery store for some things, we are trying to phase it out as much as possible. Thankful for our local goodness and happy eating!

While Wandering

I started documenting the beauty while on our walk with my yard. I knew it might be slim pickings once we rolled on out of our driveway.

Okra flowers are in bloom. Other than that, tomatoes and peppers are about all that's growing in this heat....for me. 

I was pleased that someone sprinkled the sidewalk with flowers for us! However, after turning the corner...

I remembered I forgot my trash bag. Our squirrel friend was waiting for us in the same tree!

Also in wait were a pack of cigarettes and an empty condom box. Really?

This fatty patty thought he was real tough.

A reminder to

We decided to head over to the neighborhood playground only to learn that we were obviously crossing onto someone's territory.

My kids didn't really seem to mind.

Heading back towards home...

We really don't live in the slums, I promise. Houses in my neighborhood go for anywhere from $80,000 to $130,000. Now I know that probably sounds really cheap, but Houston is a really cheap place to live. There's mainly just a lot of working people here and a few trouble making kids. Anyway, we decided to save the best for last, our horse friends.

Time to head on back out of the scary streets (just kidding) to our refuge, home. There wasn't much shade on our walk and we were hot! So, now for a dip in our luxurious state of the art swimming pool!

Thanks to cpcable at A Life Sustained for this great idea of documenting our wanderings.

Yarn Along

Yes, I realize that wrapping yarn around sticks is not knitting or crocheting. However, my son, as I said yesterday, dropped my yarn into a pan of cooking oil. So, my kids and I created a bouquet of sticks. We also created this work of art. The books are just some random ones we picked up from the library on Monday. Because of my exceptional ability to multitask, I am still reading Prodigal Summer. I am liking it! Check out others or post your own Yarn Along over at Small Things.

A Work of Art

I'm so excited with the work of art my daughters and I created today! Primarily because we had no intention of creating it. First, Taven dropped a skein of yarn into a pan of oil I had fried okra in. I knew I was probably not going to be making a hat or a....well that's all I really know how to make. Anyway, I got the idea to take some branches from a fallen tree limb in our back yard and wrap them in the yarn. The girls had a hard time doing it by themselves so we came up with this ingenious method where one person holds the yarn and the other spins the branch.

After Taven fell asleep for his nap I decided I would let the girls play with some clay that we found at my mom's house last weekend. After playing around with it a bit, we decided to make some beads. I wasn't really too sure what to do with the beads. I initially tried to string them all on one long piece of yarn and hang it on the wall. I was then planning on hanging the kids' artwork from it. However, the yarn broke and the beads went flying. So I nixed that idea. After thinking for a bit, we came up with our masterpiece!

Yay!

Houston Audubon Society

We went on another nature walk today! The heat is really not so bad. We went over to the library where I use to work to say hello to everyone and then we went to one of our favorite spots nearby, the Houston Audubon Society's Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary.

We attempted to stalk butterflies.

We collected feathers.

Eaden told me she wanted to hang on this tree and then got very upset with me when I let her go.

We checked out the view from "the big bridge."

Taven wanted me to hold him most of the time.

We watched the tadpoles.

And we spent a lot of time pouring water over each others' heads.

More summer nature walks coming up!

A Half-Sister

Feel Good Fannie now has a half-sister!