Blueberries!

We returned Sunday night from another great, and extended 3-day weekend at White Sky Woods. It was rainy on Friday and a bit overcast on Saturday, but Sunday was simply amazing. 70 and sunny - blue as blue sky. The Sunday theme must have been blue. Blue sky - blueberries. We discovered a month or so ago that there are patches of blueberry bushes on our property...but until they came ripe just recently, we didn't know how many! Wild blueberries - everywhere! They are sweeter and smaller than the grocery store variety - simply delicious. We had a couple of gallon pails up there for just this type of event, so we went picking. After over an hour of picking, we had a full gallon of blueberries. The dogs also ate their fair share - straight off the bush! We have the blueberries home now and all the supplies to make jam. We will reap the benefits from our beautiful day of picking all winter long :) UPDATE: Tim made 10 half-pints of blueberry jam and we still have more blueberries left over which I will make blueberry bran muffins with and freeze so we can thaw and eat as we please.

Cloth Diapering

Upon finding out we are pregnant, we made the decision to try to keep our earth-friendly practices consistent with baby. She deserves less chemicals (food and body products), more natural remedies in life and also the privilege to leave behind a smaller carbon footprint (in a literal and figurative sense!). One of the decisions we made was to choose cloth diapering. In doing research, I couldn't believe how far cloth diapering had advanced since when I was a kid. There were many options and all different styles. These new cloth diapers are no different than putting on disposable diapers, expect that you reuse them over and over again. No pins, no special folding...just put it on the baby and velcro up. The great thing about the type we chose (BumGenius 3.0) is that they are one size fits all...adjustable to your growing baby.

So, we made the purchase and now we have over 30 diapers in a variety of colors to keep us going. No running to the store because we ran out of diapers. No wasteful piling of garbage. No spending thousands on diapers. It's shown that it will cost around $2,000 to diaper a baby through their time prior to potty training. Our cloth diapers were $500, plus the cost of laundering, which is simply water and slight cost of laundry soap (since we make our own). We have drying racks to air dry the diapers which will keep them in good condition longer - so no electricy costs on that front either. We were excited when our delivery arrived via FedEx! We ordered with a special discount that was running through clothdiaperoutlet.com. The husband/wife duo had excellent service and shipping was free. They have many natural products for baby care and other earth-friendly solutions on her site. There a few more purchases we plan to make with them, including wetbags (nylon bag to put dirty diaper in on-the-go) and reusable diaper pail liners that can be washed with the diapers.

It feels good to be eco-friendly and save money :)

Unique Plants

We are blessed to have our piece of paradise in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Although we haven't even seen all our property yet (or is it possible to ever!), we've been able to do some exploring! Tim's seen more than me since he's not pregnant and has much more energy and mental-will to take him around :) A few trips back, we had Tim's Mom, Aunt, & Uncle visiting and Tim when exploring with his Uncle while I napped. Tim came back with pictures of plants that many people might never encounter including lady slippers, rare mushrooms, and the carnivorous plant - Pitcher Plant. I've never seen lady slippers in the wild, but last year Tim and I did see Pitcher Plants in a bog we visited in Minnesota. What a unique plant! It produces a sticky type of material which bugs will land in and then the plant digests the bug. Amazing such thing could even grow in Upper Michigan where 6 months out of the year there is snow on the ground! When Tim saw the pitcher plant on our property, he even saw it when it was blooming. What a beautiful sight!

I saw the pictures and knew that next year I would be able to go back and see them with my own eyes. Well, somehow on our last trip Tim convinced me and our visitors that it was a short/easy trip. Not without complaint, we FINALLY got to a pitcher plant (he had marked it on the GPS). I was the only one complaining...my 8 months pregnant body didn't want anything to do with the trip, and my mind really got at me. It wasn't too bad of a hike for our friends or dogs, but was a different story for me! I can't quite paint a good picture of the trip, but imagine being stuck in a dense jungle with no path to follow. That's what this was like...but less tropical :) Looking back now, it was kinda funny...but I definitely pushed myself a bit too much that day. Anyhow, we found the picther plant, and it was beautiful! We also came across many other cool things - living and dead. Several deer skeleton's and also a pretty big pile of poops...maybe bear? We saw Cedar Trees, Spruce, Tamarak, and some hardwoods. Quigley found himself a deer foot to run around with, so he was happy as pie.

It's simply amazing how many different things you can find when you are looking on just a small piece of land in the realm of an entire region, country, continent, world! I recently read an article that reminded me of how cool it is to discover something. Explorers found the largest pitcher plant yet. It can eat rats! Here's the article: Giant Meat-Eating Plant Found

Here also are some pictures taken at our favorite place - White Sky Woods!

Cedar Trees

Pitcher Plants on the property. This is a grouping of several with some of them flowering!

Pink Lady Slipper on the property.