Flashback: Organic Farming

This post was written a couple of years ago, at the tail end of apple picking season. It's another great option for picking your own apples this year. Have you been to Ferme Dagenais? by Misty

We made a recent trip to Ferme Dagenais in Embrun, Ontario, and exprienced a little taste of organic farming. Originally slated as an apple picking adventure, we quickly realized upon arrival that all the apples had been picked. We were given a long pole with metal prongs and a bag attached, and told "you might get some if you work really hard!"

farme_dagenais_organic_farming

When visiting a local farm, it's best to call ahead, even if you have taken the time to browse their website (many small farms don't even have websites). Pick-your-own produce tends to go fast, and it's disappointing to make a long trip only to come home empty handed.

Fortunately this trip was not a disappointing one, as we discovered many parts of the farm where our little girl could run and explore.

farme_dagenais_dog

Upon arrival, we were greeted by the sweet dog-in-residence. She followed us around the whole lot, occasionally flopping over for a belly rub.

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Next was the chicken coup, where we were greeted by the two lone geese and countless chickens.

organic_farming_donkey

The donkey had his say, serenading us with extraordinarily loud "hee-haws." The little one found this hilarious.

organic_farming_rabbits

In addition to this, there were pasture and barns for goats, cows, and turkeys, and a coop for laying hens. I also noticed a beautiful experimental garden, bee hives and a little cage of rabbits.

Ferme Dagenais is a biodynamic farm - which attempts to balance the interrelationship between soil, plants and animals, while avoiding any external inputs (e.g. artificial fertilizers and pesticides). Although not every product may be certified organic, all things grown and sold from this farm are deemed "natural." When it comes to produce such as apples - one of the "dirty dozen" for their pesticide residues - it's sometimes worth the trip further outside of town.

As a bonus, we spent some time browsing the on-site natural food store "Le Tournesol," run by Osteopath Sylvain Dagenais.

To find out more about Ferme Dagenais, visit their website.

Rice Art

by Erin

I like to do glitter art with my niece Rhen - you know the kind: draw an image, spread some glue over a part of the image, sprinkle an appropriately colour glitter on the glue, continue with other parts/colours until the image is complete.

Rhen is in school now, and Xavier comes over two days a week to spend the day with Auntie Erin. Xavier is only 20 months old, and glitter is a bit beyond his skill set; instead of making art, we wind up just making a HUGE mess that is impossible to vacuum up afterwards. Another major concern I have about using glitter with very young children: the particles are too fine and could pose a choking hazard if they are ingested or inhaled.

Introducing rice art:

Step 1: Using the technique in the Rice Sandbox Tutorial make some coloured rice.

Other materials required: a small canvas board, a foam art shape, crayons, coloured pencils, markers or paint, craft glue.

Rice Art1

Depending on the child's skill level you will need to help with some or all of the steps.

1. Use the crayons, coloured pencils, markers or paint to create a background on the canvas board. If using markers or paint, allow to dry completely before moving on to the next steps.

2. Adhere the foam art shape to the canvas board with craft glue.

3. Spread a generous layer of craft glue over the foam art shape.

4. Sprinkle coloured rice over the glue-covered foam art shape - get creative and use as many colours as you'd like.

5. Pat down the rice, and allow the glue to set for a short time - a couple of minutes is more than enough.

6. Tip the canvas on it's edge and tap to dislodge all loose rice grains.

7. You may wish to spray a clear sealant after the glue has dried overnight.

Erin Marshall is an Angel Mama and a SAHW. Two days a week she uses her Amazing Auntie super powers to keep up with her 20-month old nephew, Xavier; the rest of her time is split between being an editor/proofreader, artist and blogger. 

Rice Sand Box

by Erin

The end of outdoor sandbox weather is sadly on it's way.  Here's an idea on how to keep sandbox fun going all year round.

Making the rice

Just a quick note: we are using rice and food colouring for this project. Both are non-toxic and edible, although young children should still be monitored since ingesting even a few tablespoons of uncooked rice can be dangerous. A few grains won't harm anyone, though.

Get some rice - LOTS of rice. I only used 4 x 600g bags, but for a "sandbox" you'll need 10-15 times that. I suggest you go to Costco.

You'll want about ¾ of a bottle of food colouring for every 500g of rice. The more food colouring you use, the brighter and deeper the colours you'll wind up with - if you want muted pastels, use ½ a bottle or less. You can also mix the food dye for custom colours, you're really only limited by your imagination and your patience. For this sample, I used the Neon stuff.

Rice Sandbox1

Essentially, we'll be combining the food colouring with the (uncooked) rice and kneading it to spread it through as many of the grains as possible. A plastic zippered food storage bag comes in VERY handy for this step.

Rice Sandbox2

TIPS:

• Adding the food colouring to the bag before adding the rice makes it easier to get good coverage (as opposed to what is shown in my image).
• Dye the rice in small batches, DO NOT overfill the zippered bag.
• Dollar store zippered bags won't cut it for this activity, you'll need something sturdier.
• Allow rice to dry completely before touching it with bare hands. The food dye will come off on your fingers and stain your clothes.

Rice Sandbox3

Repeat this procedure as necessary. You'll want to use a fresh zippered bag for each batch. You might want to consider dyeing ½ the rice and leaving the rest un-dyed, for the sake of saving some time, and your sanity.

Containing the rice

Rice Sandbox6

So now that you have made a rainbow of rice grains, dump any un-dyed rice into the bottom of a large, shallow plastic storage container. I like the ones designed for underbed storage because they have little casters making set up and put away easier on my back. Next, add all the coloured rice, you can either dump it all in, or you can artistically arrange it, as I did in the sample container.

Rice Sandbox4

Playing with the rice

I set the sandbox up with typical toys: shovel, pail, dump truck, animal figurines. The toys you add will depend on the age of the child(ren) playing in the sandbox.

Obviously, the colours will not stay separated, but we're not creating an art installation here. Unless that's what you really want, in which case, place your container out of the reach of children, and cats. Seriously about the cats, you do not want to ever leave the sandbox uncovered and unattended. Trust me.

After playtime is over, you will have to vacuum up some stray rice grains.

Rice Sandbox5

Reserve a half cup of each colour to use in future art projects - think glitter, but WAY less messy.  I have another post coming soon on what you can do with this batch of rice.

UPDATED TO ADD: "I found out that you can add a few teaspoons of rubbing alcohol to the food colouring to make kneading it through the rice grains easier. It also decreases the drying time before you can play with the rice without danger of staining your fingers and/or clothing."

Erin Marshall is an Angel Mama and a SAHW. Two days a week she uses her Amazing Auntie super powers to keep up with her 20-month old nephew, Xavier; the rest of her time is split between being an editor/proofreader, artist and blogger. 

GIVEAWAY CLOSED: Beauty and the Beast at the NAC

We're excited to have partnered with the NAC to give our readers access to pre-sale tickets and to give away one family pass for four to Beauty and the Beast at the NAC this Fall (giveaway details at the end of post).

Broadway Across Canada presents Beauty and the Beast

Show Dates – October 30 – November 4, 2012

Where – National Arts Centre

Show Description :

Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, the smash hit Broadway musical, is coming to Ottawa! Based on the Academy Award-winning animated feature film, this eye-popping spectacle has won the hearts of over 35 million people worldwide. This classic musical love story is filled with unforgettable characters, lavish sets and costumes, and dazzling production numbers including “Be Our Guest” and the beloved title song.  Experience the romance and enchantment of Disney’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST at the National Arts Centre!

Presale dates – September 7-9, 2012

Presale link - http://www.ticketmaster.ca/venueartist/131211/1741572?brand=bac

Passwords: Disney

GIVEAWAY Details: We are giving away a pass for 4 to the October 30th show at 8pm.  To enter just leave a comment telling us you're interested!  Giveaway ends September 15 at 8pm.

Taking the mourning out of our mornings

by Carly With the possible and occasional exception of my husband, we're not morning people around here.  I think I've mentioned that a time or ten in the past.  And now that the Little Man is back to being on the school bus every morning at 7:40 am, not to mention being gone for a whole day and therefore needing more crap stuff, I knew I needed to get my bum in gear so that mornings wouldn't be a nightmare.

I've got two and half months before my maternity leave ends and I'm back to work full time.  That means two and half months where my only task in the morning (is it terrible that I shudder a wee bit inside every time I type the word "morning"?) is to get just the Little Man out the door and on the bus, clothed, fed and watered.  Come mid-November I'll have to add myself and the Baby Man into that mix.

Knowing this, I started planning ahead for that eventuality.  I may have a hate-hate relationship with mornings (shudder), but I love me some organizing.  Here's what we're doing . . .

1. Must-Do Posters Inspired by a similar poster designed by Kids in the Capital mom, Kim-Anh, I made these:

They're on the wall between the kitchen and the powder room and the Little Man loves checking them every morning and afternoon to ensure he's crossed his "must-do's" off his daily list.  My personal favourite on this list?  Choosing his clothes for the next day the night before!

2. "Make" Breakfast the Night Before We've all heard of making lunches the night before, which we do around here too, but Mr. Tree was quick to point out how much easier it would be for the Little Man if we set out everything he needs for breakfast before going to bed every night.

Since the Baby Man wakes up at the same time as the Little Man, and still needs a grown-up to feed him, I put out what Jake will need for his breakfast the night before.  Thankfully Jake loves a good, big breakfast but dragging stools or chairs to the necessary cupboard to get everything he needs out in the morning is time consuming and leaves us tripping all over each other.  So his bowl, spoon, cereal and honey are put on the table for him, and the milk is left easily accessible in the fridge.  Whenever possible, I get his fruit and yogurt ready to go as well.

3. Making use of the Powder Room Like most kids, Jake is an easily distracted dawdler.  Imaginary friends can suddenly and unexpectedly pop out of anywhere, urgently needing his attention.  Sending him upstairs to floss and brush his teeth every morning was taking anywhere from 3 to 30 minutes.  So we put a second toothbrush (for everyone in the family), toothpaste and flossers in the powder room on the main floor.  Amid the hustle and bustle of everyone in the family getting ready, Jake finds it easier to stay focused on the task at hand.

No running back upstairs (to get dressed or brush his teeth) also ensures he doesn't get sidetracked by the ALL! THE! AWESOME! LEGO! in his room.

4. No TV in the Morning This was a tough one for Jake, as there's nothing he loves more than chilling on the couch first thing in the morning watching a fifteen minute episode of pretty much anything on Treehouse or Disney Junior.  Like a lot of children (and adults), the Little Man has a hard time focusing on more than one thing at a time.  Even having the news on while he eats is distracting so we're working on limiting TV even for the grown-ups to the first 10-15 minutes after the hour or half hour . . . to catch the weather and traffic.

5. No Dishes in the Morning If it doesn't go in the dishwasher (we prefer to wash some of our kid-friendly dishes by hand), it gets left neatly in the sink to be washed later.  Right now I'm doing those dishes once Jake is on the bus, but I plan on teaching my recovering perfectionist self to just leave them there until I get home from work.  Sure it's not always fun to walk in the door to a sink full of dirty dishes, but since mornings and I already struggle to get along, this works for me.

And one of the very important reasons I'm choosing not to do dishes is because I want us to have . . .

6. Ten Minutes to Hang as a Family As I write this we're only on the second day of school and so we're still working on this one.  I'm trying to make sure we're setting aside ten minutes in the morning to just touch base as a family.  Ten minutes for Jake to sit on the floor and be goofy with Noah.  Ten minutes to read a short story.  Ten minutes to express our hopes for the day ahead or just talk about a crazy dream we had last night.

I'm a night owl at heart so I'm always interested in what works for other families.  What do you do to make mornings less mournful?

Carly has red hair and occasionally the temper to match.  She loves potatoes, rainy nights, photography, her husband, her 6 year old son, Jacob and her 10 month old son, Noah.  Probably in reverse order.   She also blogs.