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!

the garden bounty

it is late summer and all the wonderful veggies and flowers are in full swing, we get cherry tomatoes by the bucket, eat zucchini in every possible form, from cake to latkes, grilled, in mixed salads, stuffed with lentils, cooked spicy and my friend is planning to put some away in jars pickled sweat and sour...


the zinnia in front of our house are in full bloom, and i love them. the more i cut the more flowers appear


meat loaf for lunch, old bread in milk with ground chicken and beef mixed, egg and lots of herbs. of course garlic and onion, salt and ground pepper


a full oven for lunch, baking at once potato casserole and meat loaf. o yes and then i also served some green bean salad, yummy. i love to cook, i love to try out things and i'm gratefuller for all my 10 people sitting at the lunch table today and savoring it.

unterwegs mit der dampfbahn

elias hatte die moeglichkeit einen tag mit einem freund zu verbringen, der lockifuehrer ist. er hat elias eingeladen die dampfbahn des DVZO von hinwil nach bauma zu fahren. natuerlich beinhaltete dies auch die vorbereitungen, einfeuern und schmieren der dampflockomotive, dann fahren im fuehrerstand und nach der fahrt auch wieder putzen...
ein ganz toller tag und begeistert von seiner arbeit und all das neu gesehene und gelernte kam er leuchtend und muede heute abend zurueck. danke j das war ein ganz tolles geschenk.

weekending

it has been a good and vibrant couple days. sometimes saturdays feel more like a beehive than anything else around the house. this saturday was quiet in it's own way, our family was home alone, that's very seldom but it does happen once in a blue moon. it also was unexpected and we did enjoy it. the wonderful weather invited us to get some chores done in the backyard. the two "kornelkirschstraeucher" needed to go... too much shade and really not much use for the garden. we will be planting some other shrubs and i'm sure the apple tree is much happier now.


our neighbor stopped by to see and help with work in the garden and she also brought a very delicious watermelon. yummy treat in the heat, thank you m for being such a caring neighbor.


and then there was the reopening of our neighborhood library. of course amos was spending lots of time at "roessligass", there was the opening reception, a comic reading performance (very very good presentation of "lucky luke and the psycho doc" with guitar music. and of course spending some time reading in the renovated building. it is a wonderful place, it's historic and modern apearance is inviting. and there is a cafe added in the "living room" of the library. i'm sure i will tell a bit more in the future.


the late afternoon was spent with joel's parents, swimming in the toess and picnicking at it's banks (toesstal, the valley at our doorsteps). it is such a treat living close to family. over and over again we do take advantage of this, as we are very aware that we missed out on this while living in boston for over a decade.


of course music was being made and even elias our robin hood had to try his new bow. that bow was the result of our cutting down a hazel bush alongside the kornelkirschen in the afternoon.

{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.

living the life

yes school is already old again (we started 10 days ago), kids love it and had no trouble to adjust their schedule. i'm very glad and thankful for this. naomi is recovering quickly from a bad fall yesterday. (she fell from a hammock and hit her head hard ending up with a light concussion). it's not easy though for her, to lay down and rest. there was nothing else she was allowed to do, so she had to give in and take it easy and was not allowed to go to school for today...


it has become kind of a habit, at least i think it so, or maybe it just feels so...
sitting down when thea takes a little nap and the kids are back in school for the afternoon, that i sit down and enjoy a little dessert and a few lines of the book i'm actually trying to read to the end.
it's good and makes me feel in control!


sometime dreams are coming true and i do sit there and farming is going on around me. in a little way at least, "citygardenfarming", it's good to stop and watch the kids play. o they need those play times soooo much


play times are important for me too.
i just could not resist buying 5lbs of green beans. so excited to see them in our grocery store, labeled very clearly, that they have been grown just within the 30km range! this is exciting as during the off season the green beans we i see in the grocery store, believe it or not they are imported from egypt! i took the opportunity and got a load in the freezer, there will be more of these greens go that way... (it is fun to "play" in the kitchen)


the temperatures came down a bit, that's so nice as bread baking is fun again not just heating up the kitchen even more.