Hiking and sap gathering...

Pathway lined with moss-covered rocks remind me of The Hobbit, which we are still reading together.  It was very cold, but the sun shone and the skies were blue...

Snowdrops.  I don't know the names of the little yellow flowers, nor the pinkish or white ones...do you?

 The woodstove is hot...and boiler with sap turning into maple syrup...and a pile of wood. 

We met up with my sister's family and a couple friends from church.

Rowe Woods is in Milford, OH.  We helped gather sap and watch as they boil it down to maple syrup....and the best part was tasting it after!

Here are our pictures from our sap gathering in 2010.  It always reminds me of one of my favorite books:

"Laura and Mary each had a pan, and Pa and Ma showed them how to pour the dark syrup in little streams onto the snow."
- Little House in the Big Woods

I guess they switched from using metal buckets to plastic at Rowe Woods.  I'm not keen on the use of plastics.  I know it is not as food-safe as many have thought...and I don't want to take chances.
Learning as we live...we all have to take some chances and make choices.  
It's sure been a cold winter here in Ohio.  I hope it snows one more time!

Raising of the cupola and cross...

There it is...the cupola and cross, on the ground...and now, atop the church building!  Bishop Peter flew in from Chicago.  The NEW church is actually not in Cincinnati, but in Loveland, just northwest of the city.  What a beautiful day!  Sunshine and blue skies.  Afterwards, we stayed and played at the park for an hour with a bunch of cousins and friends.

Carrot salad and dolls...

We ♥ carrot salad.  It's very simple to make.  I used 7 large carrots, and shredded them in my food processor.  Then shredded a small chunk of asiago.  What you'll need is:

• 1 pound of carrots
• 1/2 cup cheddar, parmesan or asiago cheese
• clove of garlic, pressed
• 1 cup of raisins 
• 1 cup of mayonnaise  

Mix up really well and enjoy.  This serves our family of 4.  We ate this with a big bowl of baby greens for lunch.  (Here is a wonderful vegan variation, for Great Lent!)

My girls really love the American Girl books.  I think the historical fiction is great, because it really gets them asking and interested in history, the Great Depression, slavery (and Olivia is studying the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, abolition, right now), etc. These dolls are called Our Generation, they are 18" like the American Girl dolls, but without the $100 price tag.

You can get them at Target for about $20-30.  The past 2 weekends, they've been doing clothes swap...so much fun!  Hannah's doll has the neatest hair.  She does a beautiful French braid. 

Natalia and Pepper.  She helped me collect eggs.  And you can see a little bit of snow there...it has since all melted.

My mom's birthday...

 

Yesterday was my mom's 68th birthday.  I made her a vegan chocolate cake, Hannah sprinkled sliced almonds on top.  It was really good!  Then, we played Upwords together, my girls are pretty good at playing Scrabble, but I think they like this even better! 

At little update on my dad...he needs prayers.  ♥  Last week the doctor took another x-ray to see how his arm is healing (he dislocated it on Jan. 18, 2013 and broke his humerus)...they saw that the piece of his humerus is actually falling down, not staying where it should heal.  The doctor said he would do surgery on anyone else.  My dad has terrible dyskinesia (uncontrollable movements) due to Parkinson's, and recovery would be difficult.  He is supposed to be wearing a sling, but he already feels like he is captive...and that would limit his freedom even more and cause is balance to be even more off...he wears it occasionally.  

The problem is this floating bone, that is falling down inside his arm is causing extreme pain.  He is trying to wean himself off the pain medication, as his prescription is almost out...

Lusy ran around in the snow and tired herself out, while we went sledding!

This is our Christmas tree...we got one with roots this year and planted it in our front yard.  It looks so pretty with the fresh snow on it.

Hannah and her friend Katie made a huge snowball...and then rolled it down the hill.  We thought it'd get bigger and bigger.

A little creative writing inspiration.  See this blog for more (there is a book giveaway, too)!

Horses and hay

Have you ever climbed up a pile of bales of hay?  It's so much fun.  And not too dangerous if you fall. 

Koliva or Kutia

I put 4 cups of wheat berries in water yesterday and let them soak overnight.  This morning, I drained off the water (which smells bitter) and poured on fresh water.  I turned my stove on and let the wheat berries and water come to a boil, then turned it to medium-low and let it cook for almost 3 hours, when I noticed that all the water had been soaked up...and then I added a bit more water.  The berries were not like grains of rice any longer, but almost round, full of the water.  I ate a spoonful and found that they were a little rubbery and let them cook a little longer.
All water must be soaked up or drained.  I added organic Thompson raisins, cinnamon and honey.  Mixing it up really well and then put it in a nice bowl and arranged some raisins in a cross shape on top and put a candle in it.
We are taking this to church tonight.  It has been 1 year since Yuliya departed. She was only 42.  Cancer.

Koliva:
4 cups of wheat berries
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup finely chopped walnuts (optional)

This is made for "Commemoration of the Dead,"  as well as Theodore Saturday, the first Friday of Great Lent.  Here's the beautiful story: 

"The tradition of blessing and eating Kollyva at the end of the first week of Great Lent is connected with an event in the reign of Julian the Apostate in 362 AD. The tradition states that the Emperor knew that the Christians would be hungry after the first week of strict fasting, and would go to the marketplaces of Constantinople on Saturday, to buy food. Therefore he ordered that blood from pagan sacrifices be sprinkled over all the food that was sold there, making it "polluted sacrificial food" (food "polluted" with the blood of idolatry), in an attempt to force upon the people the paganism of which he was an ardent supporter.
However St. Theodore the Tyro appeared in a dream to the Patriarch of Constantinople Eudoxios, ordering him to inform all the Christians that no one should buy anything at the market, but rather to boil the wheat that they had at home and eat it sweetened with honey."
from  http://orthodoxwiki.org/Kollyva

Mariah, the cat

Let me tell you about the cat that my sister, Mary, and I brought home when we were 15 and 17 years old.  She was a cute little kitten.  A friend of ours had a cat that had kittens.  We picked this one out, she was a calico with long fur and mewed very loudly and high pitched, so we named her after the singer, Mariah Carey.  In the years that followed, we left for college and worked and got married...

I took pictures of her with a plastic purple egg on Pascha in April 2012.  She looked very good then.  She kept herself clean.

(My mom started and then my husband finished digging a hole for her.  She is now buried right by these wooden planters, where the mint and ground phlox grow in the spring.  It was one of her favorite places to lay.)
My parents kept Mariah at their house.  Now, it's almost 20 years later and Mariah is still mewing very loudly, but in the middle of the night, in the house and even outside, so that it wakes my parents.
Dad has Parkinson's disease and now a broken arm and the hours that he is able to sleep peacefully are limited.  Mom cleans up after Mariah, who in her old age has stopped cleaning her fur, it is matted and knotty, and even has some feces stuck to it...  It's my job, now, to help out.  I wanted to bring her to my home, but she has never known another home and we think she is going deaf and blind.  We also have a young cat, dog and 3 chickens...  I don't think Mariah would like it here.
So, we prayed for her to pass away peacefully in her sleep.  It didn't happen.  After talking about it, we called the vet and made an appointment to have her put to sleep.  When they examined her, they said that her kidneys were enlarged and that her muscle tone was very low...  They were very kind and explained that they would give her 2 injections, the first one, which would let her sleep, as they would give to any cat, undergoing a spay or neuter, then another injection that would stop her heart.  ♥  It was very hard to hear that and to not feel guilty about allowing this to happen.  I told my girls that animals don't have souls, that this is different from a human life, but I still felt badly.

I have to think of the life of an animal, as the life of a tree (maybe it was beautiful and bore peaches for many years and is now dying, shall we leave it or cut it down?) and there I feel like what I did was humane.
She would've been about 90 years old in cat years.  Most cats live 12-15 years, although some live quite long!  Mariah had a longer than normal life.
It was the first time I've ever had to do something like this...
I hope it is the last.