{this moment}

A Friday ritual.
A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

apples for sweet cider

with a wonderful day upon us, we just had to get those apples in. my parents joined us and together we worked, we played, we enjoyed the view, climbed trees, ate apples and other snacks, watched the corn being harvested by big machines, listened to the birds and bees hum all around us. we also remembered last years harvest with our friends...
this year we had about triple as many apples and we are so much looking forward to the 300l (~80gallons) of sweet cider, it will still our thirst for a long while through winter.

the misses with her paint

as big sister loves to paint, so those the little one...
the afternoons have been perfectly warm and without t-shirt on painting is just so much better. thea as well as i are happy about this and we both enjoy the moments filled with paint

how it came about...

the family counsel is a meeting we are holding once in a while to discuss family business in any regard... everyone can call a meeting and also bring anything to the table, it is a tool to ensure that all of us will be heard and have the power to make their position and interest known.
last sunday we had an afternoon counsel and discussed the state of our garden, as we have been hauling earth into the future "chicken pasture", which will also serve the people as a spot to put a blanket down and have a picnic or what ever else you would want to do... joel is pondering the idea of putting up a "birdbath swing", and of course this is reason enough to get all of us around the table to talk. as we all warmed up on the big idea of swings and things, we got excited and wanted to find out how to make such a swing our self's or from whom we would have to buy etc.
with this going on and knowing we do have another 2 hours before evening church would start, we ended up going to eulachpark, as we all love the place and know that those very swings and nests we would so much love in our garden are to be found and enjoyed...
ending up to pedal over there and play and totally enjoy each other and the warm autumn sunday afternoon!


the park is a wonderful recreational area at the outskirts of winterthur



a big water-sand area, o how wonderful to spend a warm afternoon just playing and watching what happens when sand is moved this way or that way...

treading the good earth

it has been saturday afternoon and evening, when joel and i were bringing the good earth from the driveway around the house to the chicken pasture to be. we both got blisters on our palms and saturday afternoon was hot, there was lots of sweating going on. but it is done now, about 50 wheel barrows have been dumped on the empty patch of not really any thing yet. we didn't get to spread it out evenly or smoothen it yet, that will have to wait until a moment can be stolen away to do so. and then the grass seed, everything should be out before the cold hits, in order for the seed to germinate before winter hits...

the fun part was on sunday afternoon, when i noticed that the girls spent long moments to tread around in that uneven patch, they both loved the feel of the cool soil and could not be stopped to feel the good earth. it was then as it dawned on me, that good earh must feel great is somehow soothing and fun to walk on. of course then i also remembered how much i liked to run up and down the field, when my dad plowed and dug up the harvested fields. finding all kinds of lively beings crawling and looking to dig down again into the dark. in autumn when the the plow went through, the steam was rising from the warm soil, as the air was already cooled down. seeing the bare feet on the fresh earth made me once more happy and thankful, for the space we do have around our house in the city. thankful for the opportunity our kids have to connect with the very earthly matter we live from.

{this moment}

A Friday ritual.
A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

enjoying dinner

today's day might have had it's peak in and around dinner. the last days of summer are wonderful warm and sunny, we can still have dinner outside without grabbing a cardigan first. still quickly running bare feet to the table straight from play or work for that matter. sitting down and enjoying a pasta salad with all kinds of fresh veggies in it, some left over green beans, cheese platter and of course some of us can't be satisfied with any of these.


for them it must be bread with butter and jam.



and as if we would not have run enough and played enough and enjoyed the summer enough, more of all that is going on as the sun set today...

a wednesday afternoon

some of the kids are taking off, playing at their friends houses. it's good to have friends!


it's a good afternoon, sunny and warm, autumn is in the air and i will sit behind the house to do a bit of knitting, while thea is enjoying the sandbox...


having joel home is perfect to study french, reporting the weather in french is a fun and enjoyable exercise for elias.
"a berne, il fait mauvais temps. il fait chaud." etc...

summer is fading

we enjoyed a nice big pool in the back of our house and now it's gone, all gone...
i'm scrubbing and drying it, putting it this way and the other way, stretching and pushing it. i must admit i very much hesitated to get started with the clean up, but now almost enjoy the work. its a warm sunny afternoon and it's ok to get wet all over.

the weekend in the country

we are again and again aware of being city dwellers, some days i would love to just run away and don't worry about anything or anyone around the house in our city...
as for the moment the roosters (two of them) are getting louder, they discovered their voices and at the latest at 7am it's getting loud behind our house. not all my neighbors like this, so we have to come up with a solution for the situation within the next two weeks.

this past weekend was spent at my parents. with the special event of the cow pageant going on. i don't feel particularly close to the town i went to school the people i was in school with. no they mostly don't recognize me anymore and neither do i. but the kids as we all i, love seeing the way they keep the traditions. we love going there for the "viehschau". most of the farmers bring their best cows to the town grounds some of the farmers get all dressed up in traditional cloths and bring their cow's to the show in traditional fashion, like my grandpa did many many years ago.


and then of course in the rink, those ladies are getting ranked and praised for their looks as well as the milk they produce.


and the farmers kids have their own place in the rink. they present their calf with a verse or a song. and of course this all is so well worth the labor and moments of being nervous. a big junk of work has being done by all the family members, especially the wife's and mothers of those families.


never the less it's end of summer and it's getting cooler and wetter. the girls were not to be kept indoors, all three had to get out and enjoy the moment


while the boys stayed indoors and kept on doing some geometry, math and colouring mandalas. a busy and very enjoyable weekend. thank you mam and pa for hosting us once more, we love to stay at your place.

{this moment}

A Friday ritual.
A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

an off day

i was at a daylong seminar, the big kids were all having lunch at a school friends house of their choosing, of course that was super exciting. thea was being picked at 8am and enjoyed a day at the grandparents house.
and then i hoped on the bike across town to attend the seminar, "Resilienz an Widerstaenden wachsen" (Resilience - growing on resistance). it was put on by C-Leaders an institute for leadership training.
it is just about 25 years since i have enjoyed school lectures, so this was a real treat.

no photo, it will be one up tomorrow...

this afternoon in our garden

there has been lots going on in our garden...
just a few days ago we got rid of two "kornel kirsch" trees and i was starting to turn the soil and take out as many roots as possible. then today we got a rototiller and worked the soil. it was a hard job, but together we managed. and we did have the chickens absolutely loving our work. as well as a fascinated bystander...
and the chicken's will have even more fun as soon as the grass will be growing, o yes we will have our own little chicken pasture!


and an hour later 60 people arrived and enjoyed a neighborhood party more then half of them kids, lots of fun and wonderful food. we will do it again.
i'm tired and will roll into bed in a few minutes. it was a good day.

no cooking today

with elias at camp (from school with his class, up in the mountains), naomi and amos doing a one day hike with all the kids from their school house, thea and i decided to go out and about.
although there were those started pants for naomi, i could not just run away. so i finished them up, only leaving the little task of putting an elastic in tonight when the girl is present to try them on.


the sky is blue and the bike with trailer ready, so we biked into the city. the library was on our schedule, the museum for applied arts, the time piece collection and a stop at the music shop notenpunkt and lunch at the "Grand Cafe de Musee"


coming home, having a sleeping child in the trailer and sitting on the front steps of the house, enjoying the flowers and feeling so free to do and not to do. i love today. i love those moments of being a mama to school aged kids being at school, knowing they love it there too.
i do not get those "not doing anything" moments, it's part being me, seeing what needs to be done at any given time. it's harvest time, apples having to be cut and dried, italien plums arriving tomorrow....
such is my life and i love it fully and enjoy it totally.

the mister tweedy quilt

i have been working on this quilt for a while, as there were different kinds of projects going on beside and the quilting was not that easy with my regular sewing machine. it would have been a lot easier to either quilt with a long arm machine or quilt each square before putting them together... i guess with each quilt i do i learn a lot. i don't really had a plan to start out with, it was a recycling project, each square has old and some used fabric on it, the off white backing is an old bed sheet of my grandma's.
the binding is a very soft wool, it feels just perfect against your cheeks. i'm happy and elias loves it so much that he wanted it to take along to his school camp this week...

{this moment}

A Friday ritual.
A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by SouleMama. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

the first apple slices of the season

our apple trees are in a little corner, a bit out of the way. it's a scenic little spot and every time i stop by i have to look up there to the castle tower of the "moersburg"


the trees are laden with apples, three are boskop and one is a "sauergrauech" (an old kind of apple which has it's home in the bernese part of switzerland, very well known for its high content of juice mostly used for cyder, as it is very tart)


the boskop is probably the best know cider apple, also excellent for cooking and drying. right now there are just few of the fruit fallen


i collect them and use them up as we go, dried apple slieces, apple sauce, apple cake apple what ever


the first load of slices in the oven to be dried, and yes friends we will bring you some, you know who you are. i'm so happy to carry them along on our travels across the ocean in october!