Papa’s Birthday Surprise

Fabien and the boys

Happy Birthday Papa.  A day to celebrate a special husband and precious father.  Always around to help in every way he can to make parenting easy for me (he’s now become an expert cook like his mother). When Sasha was born, I still often remember Fabien putting Sasha in his sling and walk him through the garden whilst still dark so I could catch up on much needed sleep. When Sasha turned three we made the decision to move to our farm in Dominican Republic, leaving behind his business and our urban lifestyle. Fabien could now spend his time with the children.  An amazing adventure it’s been, my children know more about farming, animals and agriculture at 4 and 7 than we knew when we came here.

How fortunate we are that the children have their papa with us every day.  All meals are shared with the most wonderful conversations of the day’s happenings, strengthening our bond and their social skills.  Fabien spends much time with the children taking them on adventure walks, jumping on the trampoline, swimming, playing, cuddling, building and creating.  The boys have an amazing bond with him. he cares for the children just as any mother would.  I’m always amazed at the patience he has with them and how he finds ways to always accommodate them under any circumstance.

Happy Birthday we love you

The gifts we made and put them into the little felt boxes

The boys felted wool over their wooden blocks to make a small capsule to hold the gift they made.  A leather string with a wooden bead for a necklace and leather for a bracelet

Papa's birthday table

The beautiful cards the children made

For the cards the children put magic wool into a plastic bag with some water and soap to felt it.  The I cut out some watercolor paper, they painted it and stuck the wool to the inside with a glue gun.  So pretty.

A drawing Sasha did for him

We baked a delicious chocolate cake

Felted Needle and Recorder Cozy

Felted Needle and Recorder Cozy

I found the project of the felted needle cozy and decided to make a similar cozy for Sasha’s recorder.    Basically you cast on the amount of stitches according to the length of the knitting needles you want to cover or recorder. Alternate knit and pearl change colors every 2 or 3 rows, adjust for width.  Sow it up, leaving one side open, put it in the washing machine to felt the wool, then twist it around to make the spiral.  Be sure to use wool otherwise it won’t felt.

“A Second treasury of Magical Knitting” by Cat Bordhi don’t know how to add the image of the book just yet, still figuring out how everything works on the blog.  There are some funky projects to make in the book some a little advanced for me.

Sasha's first knitting project in Grade 1. A little purse for a girlfriend

Three little kittens we made for Sania's birthday

My husband even learnt to knit to inspire my son.  We each decided to make a kitten for Sania’s birthday, Sasha loves preparing gifts for everyone, he loves hand made ones best of all.  Sasha knitted the little black one, I helped him put it together and my husband knitted the one on the right.

The Children’s Nature/Play Table

This is the children’s play table – the scenery is changed almost every day.   They bring in treasures from the outside or we create something from felt or magic wool.

Little wooly sheep I needle felted

Petite Chenille

The farm animals and the snail

Snail Sania made from Clay and a real snail shell

Another day….

Beautiful red bark of the Caoba tree, probably the same family as the redwood

This morning Sania’s bike broke down so he called on Sasha to tow him.  We’ve been building our new house on our other property and because of all the rain the trucks have been getting stuck and need to be towed out by a grader, the children have enjoyed watching it.

Sania preparing his pony before our trail ride

At the stream

Papa came with us.  He always gives his hands and affection for both his children, at any moment.

More mud in the afternoon

Papa singing beautiful French songs in the early evening

Beautiful Sand Art

Beautiful Sand Art – Endless hours of fun and creativity,  we bring in a truck load of sand and the children spend most of their days building dams, castles, tunnels, roads, volcanoes etc.

Catching little fish

This morning Fabien prepared his delicious whole-wheat buttermilk waffles for breakfast.  He prepares the batter with whole grain flour and fresh buttermilk left over after making butter the night before and leaves the batter overnight.

Served  with bananas, fresh cream and agave or maple syrup. Recipe below post.

The children realized that their teddies that they fed Molasses to the night before were covered in Fire Ants.  They popped them in the washing machine for a good bath, whilst waiting for them we began preparing a gift for Papa’s birthday next week.  We have made a few things already but I can’t post them just yet.

Sania had a desire to go fishing.  The fish are so little and are an easy catch.  They like to observe them and then we set them free again.  Small pine cones as floaters.  The ducks are always curious.

We had many worms left so made a little worm box with soil like my dad did when I was little, (they were his pets).  Feed them vegetables every day, it makes amazing compost.

The children made a little fort around the sofa’s with sarongs.

Late afternoon we admired the horses swimming back home to their night pasture.

Recipe for Waffles from the book “Nourishing Traditions” by Sally Fallon, my favorite recipe and nutritional information book.

• 2 1/2 Cup Spelt, Kamut or whole wheat flour (I prefer Spelt)
• 2 cups buttermilk, kefir or yoghurt
• 2 Egg yolks, lightly beaten
• 2-4 Tbs of maples syrup
• 2 Tablespoons melted butter (preferably raw)
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 4 egg whites
• pinch of sea salt

Soak flour in buttermilk, kefir or yoghurt in a warm place for 12 to 24 hours.  Those with milk allergies may use 2 cups water plus 2 tbs whey lemon juice or vinegar in place of undiluted buttermilk, kefir or yoghurt)  Stir in egg yolks, syrup, melted butter and salt.  In a clean bowl, beat egg whites with pinch of salt until stiff.
Fold into batter.  Cook in a hot, well oiled waffle iron.  Serve with melted butter, fruit, maple syrup, raw honey.

Note: these waffles are softer than those made with white flour.  however, they will become crisp if kept in a warm oven for several hours.

“Soaking whole grains and flour overnight in a medium like cultured milk or warm acidulated water activates the enzyme phytase, which then neutralizes phytic acid.  Studies show that salt added to the soaking medium inhibits this process, so the time to add salt to porridges and batters is just before cooking not during the soaking period.  Under the right conditions, phytase is also activated in the human intestine, which explains why some people do not develop mineral deficiencies on a high-phytate diet while others do.  However, extrusion – which is a high temperature, high pressure process used to transform whole grains into breakfast cereals like bran flakes and shredded wheat, totally destroys phytase but leaves phytic acid intact.  Therefore cold breakfast cereals deliver a double whammy of mineral blocking phytic acid without the phytase that can deactivate at least a portion of phytic acid in the intestinal tract. This renders certain proteins very toxic, essentiail oils rancid and many vitamins useless.  Cooked breakfast cereals are far more nutritions, even when not soaked beforehand.  Best of all soaked with quality fat of butter or cream.  The fact that phytic acid is a strong chelator has led to claims that phytic acid can be used to remove toxic metals.” Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

Trail riding fun with their ponies

Pony Love

We have five horses and five ponies on the farm. I’ve been a Parelli Natural Horsemanship follower for a while and my children share the same passion.  They have an incredible relationship with their ponies, Coco and Mitzi.  They are amazing little creatures and follow them everywhere.

I take the children  on a 3-4 hour trail ride every week , they love their wild adventures.  When it rains one of our pastures fills like a lake so they have fun swimming with them.

We found these at the stream during the trail ride.  When I was little, (in Zimbabwe) I used to play with the “Chongololos” all the time. I haven’t seen them since so was surprised to find them – the children were quite amused and brought them home. They spent quite a bit of time watching and playing with them.

"Chongololos" Millipedes

Sasha and Sania’s cute pony video was a featured video on Parelli Tube just recently, it’s wonderful that they can be an inspiration for all.  Enjoy!!!