Amazing Two Ingredient Ice Cream
26 February 2019 • Eat
I realize ice cream is not on the minds of many people this time of year. But I've been making and eating this like crazy the past few weeks so I thought I'd share. And it's so easy! I'd say it even tastes better than anything I was making in my ice cream machine (RIP).
For the base all you do is whip 2 1/2 cups of whipping cream and stir in one can of sweetened condensed milk. Cover the surface with plastic wrap and freeze. Yeah that's it.
I make it a bit "fancier" by first steeping a few Earl Grey tea bags and a tablespoon of dried lavender in the cream over lowish heat. After that I just chill the cream and strain out the tea bags and lavender and then whip it up before adding the condensed milk. I'm dying to stir some goat cheese and berry compote in the next batch. That may just be the baby hormones talking, but that sounds good right?!
I still find this a bit on the sweeter side, but hey it sure beats anything you can buy at the grocery store!
The Eggless Winter
20 February 2019 • Chickens
After what seems like a very long eggless winter we are just starting to get some eggs in the morning again! This must mean that spring is coming soon. Right? (RIGHT?!) We had gotten into the habit of buying our eggs at the grocery store the past few months so it's been exciting to pluck 2 or 3 warm eggs out of the coop in the mornings again.
In other chicken news, about a month ago we lost Nellie in a rather tragic hawk attack. Yikes! We've always let the hens out every once in a while to free range in the backyard and had never had any issues. Being out of the chicken yard is way more stimulating for them plus there's something about doing the dishes and glancing up out of the window and seeing a few chickens wandering around out back.
Anyway on the day of the incident the hens were out and I had let Gus out back. Well he booked it right for the coop and I saw this rather large hawk fly out of the run and perch on a tree above the coop. I was at home alone with the kids at the time and may have yelled "Ah! A hawk!" which of course prompted both kids to run to the window and look. You couldn't see anything from the house but the hawk stayed perched in the tree for a good 20 minutes and Harvey kept pointing to it and shouting "Hawk up high!". Anyway long story short, poor Nervous Nellie met her demise. I kept telling myself as I was getting her out of the run and throwing more straw over the blood (I know) that this was a part of keeping chickens. But man, not what you pictured yourself ever doing!
The other chickens had scattered and we couldn't find them for hours. We thought maybe the hawk had gotten them too but ended up finding Michelle cowering beside the sandbox totally still and Betty and Dolly had somehow squeezed through the back fence and had hidden under the neighbours wood pile. Iris crawled back into the cedar bushes to look for them and Betty came running to her and then Dolly came back once Dave came home and went out to look. Rosa had run into the coop and was squawking her head off (understandably).
So I think we may be done with free ranging for a bit! At least until the weather is nicer and someone is out there with them. We have the "allowed" number of hens now and with a new baby coming this June we don't have any plans to get chicks this spring. Hoping we get another summer of eggs from the ladies we have!
Winter Days (& Nights) at Home
31 January 2019 • around here, Family
Ah winter. I am sure I am not the only one who romanticizes winter during the hotter months then when it actually arrives...yeah. With these extra cold days and nights lately where it's not advisable to be outside (even forest school was cancelled!) it's made for some long days at home let me tell you. We've been leaning hard into fires in the wood stove, lots of tea, hobbies, making art, baking, naps, cooking and obviously lots of Berenstain Bears and Little Bear on Youtube.
We recently enrolled Iris in JK a few days a week in the school down the road. I was really apprehensive about it at first but if you know Iris, you know she is extremely outgoing and chatty so she's been loving school. I've loved meeting all the families in our neigbourhood and I'm excited for her to have friends she can hang out with just down the street. Another nice bonus is that Harvey and I have been getting some days just the two of us. We both miss Iris during those days, but I can't deny that it is much quieter around the house for a few hours. Not better, just different :)
Looking forward to this extreme cold spell being done soon. Harvey stares out the window longingly every morning wanting to go out and shovel.
Winter Reading
6 December 2018 • books, Home, winter
Every fall and winter I love to really hunker down into some good books. Now that my kids are old enough to entertain themselves (for the most part) and I don't have to worry about them swallowing dimes from behind the couch (for the most part) I've been able to actually sit down and read more than a paragraph at a time. Yay! And I would much prefer my kids to see their mama reading all the time than scrolling on her phone.
A few winters ago I re-read the entire Harry Potter series. Never gets old. I cannot wait for our kids to be old enough to really get Harry Potter. We've tried with Iris but she had a hard time keeping all the characters straight and you could tell she was totally boggled by why the Dursley's were so mean to Harry. Bless her. We'll try again next year ;)
Last week we all got the stomach flu so we had a lot of time (between all the laundry and fun stuff that goes with the stomach flu) to sit and read and I ended up reading books 3-7 of Harry Potter again. Like I said, Harry Potter never gets old!
Last winter I tackled just one book and that was Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. What a brick of a book! But so wonderful! Not gonna lie, sometimes that Levin character would just go on and on about peasant farming methods and I would doubt my choice, but I just loved the timeless insights into family life. And I feel kinda weird saying this but Tolstoy really captured the complexities of motherhood so well.
Anyway, this snowy season I've started in on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy which I've never read before. I just finished The Hobbit last night and wow was it was better than I thought it would be! I also have Gone with the Wind sitting on my shelf and it's looking pleasingly dense and perfect for a winter read.
If you have any book series to recommend, hit me up!
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On an unrelated side note: doesn't the wood stove look great?!
Getting Back To Our Normal
27 November 2018 • Family
Well as you may have heard we have a new Nunn arriving this June! Baby number three, oh boy! We had planned this baby but once the hormones kicked in and the dreaded "Pregnant Natalie" returned I had some second thoughts on what we were possibly thinking. Life was just starting to feel kinda "easy" again, why did we throw Pregnant Natalie and a soon-to-be-newborn into the mix?!
The past two months have been hard. So so very hard. I am happy to be pregnant and excited about this new kid, BUT pregnancy is not a fun time for me. We kind of forgot how hard it is, not just on me but the whole family. For me, I get really sad, feel nauseous 24/7 and disengage from the entire family. I don't want to parent, I don't want to cook and I cannot bring myself to really contribute in any way. It's rough! I felt like a total failure and burden. Poor Dave, he really had to become a single parent for a while there all while trying to keep me from falling completely into a dark and hazy state. Thank goodness for our parents! I honestly don't know how we would have survived without all their help. And help from friends! People who dropped off food or just sent me a message to see how we were doing or to even commiserate about the trials of growing a person. All of it was so appreciated.
During those two months we completely abandoned all of regular crunchy routines. Cloth diapers? UGH too much work, just put Harv in a disposable when we go out. Using the cloth wipe spray? Well as soon as that ran out I didn't feel like making more. Getting outside every day with the kids? I could cry just thinking of the process of getting two kids dressed and outside. Nope, unlimited Netflix it is! Making bread and food from scratch? HA! The kids lived off PB and J, cereal and fruit for 8 weeks. Things I did not have to cook or think about. It made me realize how living a more hands-on life really requires a certain amount of privilege. As soon our home life became stressed and I became unwell, all of those things immediately became unattainable.
At one point during a day where were eating cereal for lunch, the dog hadn't been walked in over 3 weeks, I had just finished crying at the table, and the kids were whining about watching even more Netflix after lunch Dave looked at me and said in a half joking way, "You know, I think this is a real low point for the Nunn family. We're barely functioning right now!"
Now I'm slowly starting to feel more like myself which we are all incredibly grateful for. When I ate a full dinner for the first time at my parents house recently I thought my mum was going to cry tears of joy lol. I'm getting cookbooks out at the library again, seeing friends, cooking real food, and saying no to Netflix more often. I cry, tops, once a day! Life is starting to feel good again and I'm starting to look forward to each day rather than dreading it.
I hate to get cheesy here but you know the saying how you can't appreciate the good times unless you have the bad times too? It really is so true. Sometimes the bad times seem to go on forever but then you slowly make your way back to the good times and it's like being able to breathe out of your nose again after being stuffed up for weeks. You suddenly get to appreciate all the little things you took for granted before. Like having an appetite. Actually enjoying your kids. Having the energy to walk the dog. Helping someone else instead of being the one being helped. I could go on forever.
Here's to new babies and making it through hard times!
The night after I wrote this both kids came down with the dreaded barfing flu. Ha! Back to the hard times I see for a while yet! Ah such is life.
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