Cascade Handmade

With a new season comes a chance for new scenery, and that includes the scenery of the mind! It's a great opportunity to introduce some books that pack the same punch of excitement that spring can offer in our daily lives. I always look for adventure, transition, play, growth & nature this time of year! Come check out my picks for some fun reading. For  Elementary Schoolers: I love the Ivy & Bean series by Annie Barrows . These are early chapter books with lots of great pictures and definitely recommended for any kids who dreams of adventures with a friend! Ronald Dahl has a huge collection of amazing work, but I will narrow it down to James and the Giant Peach for spring. This is a magical tale about a boy finding companionship among some unlikely bugs in a peach, a perfect spring read to get the imagination going! I always come back to Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cornin . This is a great illustrated book that will excite kids to dig aroun...

Often we look up when taking a walk outdoors, but it can become a wonderful opportunity to look down. Way down under our feet is a pretty cool world of soil, rocks and the many plants and fungus' that turn our landscape green. On my last family outing I adjusted my focus down and quickly found myself stuffing pockets full of interesting finds; old bark shells with lichen, twigs covered in moss, and sticks etched completely around from beetles . Life was everywhere in greens, greys & yellows.   It turns out lichen comes in a variety of colors and is not a plant at all, but a cyanobacteria. One of the pioneer species where it can grow and thrive where there are no plants or soil to attach to. It is usually something I look for having noticed it is absent in my own yard, but lichen is very sensitive to air pollution and is not regularly found in cities. Together my family talked about the texture of our forests in the Pacific Northwest and how it needs al...

Road Trips! Who doesn't rely of those images of a, Face In The Wind-Summertime Drive, every now and then to help get through a bad day. I love them and plan a couple each year. As the years have ticked by the number of passengers has increased until there are four of us tightly packed into a small car all trying to hold onto our own 48 sq inches of sanity that our seat and window allow us. It's an American rite of passage and as I once fondly recall it mentioned, our modern day confessional. When you travel with children, it shifts the carefree spirit a bit...however with a little planning -- who am I kidding, with a lot of forethought and a trunk full of popcorn, you can make multi-day traveling a total success! Here are some Pro Tips I've come to rely on the past many years. Plan the the driving times around the person who will be doing the driving . This may seem obvious, but it was not for me. It took me years to understand that being a morning pe...