28Oct 2022 by catbird
Brown Butter Fennel Cookies– Guest Blogger!

Brown Butter Fennel Cookies– Guest Blogger!

Recipes, Winter, Winter Solstice
A huge thank you to Summer Crosby Hennessy for today's guest post!! Check out her beautiful shop Acorn Moon Mercantile and her IG feed here. She is sharing her recipe for Brown Butter Fennel Cookies with us-- take it away Summer! These are dense, chewy, decadent, not even kidding around, brown buttery avalanche of yum in your mouth, with just a slight holiday spice vibe. Fennel is a favorite of mine, but truthfully, I consistently forget about it until it’s put in front of my face and then I just gobble it all up and think about it for a week. Fennel is traditionally used in banishing spells and rituals. It keeps away negativity and ill will. I read that sprinkling Fennel seeds in doorways and windowsills will protect the home…
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28Oct 2022 by catbird
Milkweed Skull Seed Bombs for Samhain/ Dia De Muertos

Milkweed Skull Seed Bombs for Samhain/ Dia De Muertos

Garden, Nature Art, Samhain
Samhain is the time of year that most plants die. The trees are starting to look bare and skeletal and in olden times it’s when many animals were slaughtered for the winter. It’s not really hard to put together why this time of year is often associated with death and spirits. There is some kind of primal anxiety this time of year left over from when we worried we wouldn’t have enough food for the winter. I used to always find myself overwhelmed and sad. Then I had an epiphany of sorts… about soil. Soil is made of millions of years worth of decayed organic matter. Leaves, plants, animals, microbes have all died and become soil. All of this death gives rise to new life. New life couldn’t exist without…
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03Oct 2022 by catbird
Elderberry Syrup Jam/ Caramel

Elderberry Syrup Jam/ Caramel

Autumn, Recipes
This recipe was a series of happy accidents. It’s elderberry month with the Plant Wonder Collective and initially I was pretty stumped for what to make other than my usual elderberry syrup. Despite the best efforts of my local catbirds, we had a nice harvest of fresh elderberries this year so I concluded that I wanted to use them fresh rather than drying them like I usually do. I settled on old fashioned elderberry jam, but flavored it the same way I would typically flavor my elderberry syrup so it had some of the same health benefits while being more appealing to my kiddos. So I added honey and all the usual herbs and spices to my jam mixture. (click on the link above for the full syrup recipe) It’s…
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19Sep 2022 by catbird
Mushroom Foraging Badges!

Mushroom Foraging Badges!

Autumn, Craft Project, First Harvest, Free Printable, Nature Art, Nature Journaling, Play, Summer
I have been promising my kids that I would make them "badges" for each new mushroom they find while out hiking, this is not all of them, but it's a start! Print them on cardstock and cut them out, or if you are feeling adventurous print them onto fabric and sew them onto felt circles. Check out my mushroom foraging hike if you need suggestions for this fun activity! Click on the image above for the PDF!
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17Sep 2022 by catbird
Foraging for thankfulness

Foraging for thankfulness

Autumn Portfolio, Foraging
On ethical foraging and thankfulness. It’s important to help kids understand the ethics of foraging- why we leave some behind, what animals depend on the same foods that we like, and not being greedy. I’ve struggled with ways to communicate that to my kids- they are too young to get into percentages, and being thankful is still pretty abstract... so recently we’ve started making little offerings to thank the forest for our treats. It gives them something tangible to wrap their minds around and helps them to understand- while also being fun to make! This one is for the spiceberries we picked on our hike- and they reminded me several times to leave some for the animals so I feel like it’s working! 
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16Sep 2022 by catbird
It’s Elderberry Syrup Season!

It’s Elderberry Syrup Season!

Autumn Portfolio, Recipes
That chill in the air feels amazing, but it also means it's elderberry syrup season again! I add it to my tea in the mornings and I have been experimenting with a jam version that is more palatable to my kids. (The gummies are a little too palatable!!) I use a different proportion of honey to elderberry than what I most often see floating around the internet, roughly half raw local honey to half of my herbal concoction. Most recipes I see say 4:1 tea to honey and I suspect that this is in an effort to reduce sugar content, but the honey in this case is both adding benefit (especially for us allergy sufferers) and serving as the preservative in which case reducing it is unwise. One of the…
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15Sep 2022 by catbird
Fall Birthday Countdown!

Fall Birthday Countdown!

Autumn Portfolio, Craft Project
My oldest’s bday is coming up at the end of September and we broke out this countdown I made last year. There are little clip art raccoons behind all the doors (his favorite animal) and now my youngest wants one too! Both my kids are obsessed with counting down to their bday and keep a list of numbers that they cross off until their bdays independently so this fancy version was a big upgrade. You could cut doors on any drawing or clip art piece and make your own! Happy fall!!
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