Let's Go Sledding!

Here is our sled trail...it's about 800 feet long and oh so fun!

An interview with...us!

Greetings! We are BirchLeaf Designs - a small family of folks near the Yellow Dog River in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We live off the grid...making handcrafted, natural playthings that inspire imaginations using wood, silk and felted wool. We live, work, homeschool, create, love and play nestled amongst the Hemlocks.

We like to reclaim wood and other pieces parts to make quality playthings for children. We are known to use recycled/upcycled materials like cereal boxes for the flower presses or wood cut offs from other projects; materials found in nature (like birchbark or acorn tops); and during a dying session, we use nontoxic dyes and keep water use to a minimum...with no "running" water, every drop counts!

We currently sell natural, whimsical wood and fabric playthings (like teething rings, bug boxes, flower presses, swords, playsilks and playclips to name a few). Our most popular items include our playsilks, swords, and bugboxes.

We are always looking for ways to improve our products! Comments and suggestions are welcomed! We also do custom orders...is there a product that you would like to see us make? We are open to ideas and challenges!

We work to live simple...off the grid, solar power, solar water pump, wood heat, bees (!) and in return for our work, we get to enjoy those simple gifts...maple syrup, honey, nature...sweet love, sweet life!

Climate Change ACTION Day - October 24, 2009! Do your part so we don't have to depart.

We just attended a conference called the Great Lakes Bioneers Conference. Wow! is what we have to say about it! It was so amazing to get together with a bunch of loving, caring folks. A meeting of the minds, a place to gather to ready ourselves to get down to business and do something about our current state of affairs. We are all fired up!
http://www.glbconference.org

One major issue is that of Climate Change. This issue is so important because if we continue doing what we do without changing how we do things...we will all become extinct! Yes, folks, EXTINCT, like the dinosaurs. We need to reduce our CO2 emissions in our atmosphere to below 350ppm (parts per million)

So what are we waiting for? Let's do something about it! Here is one day that you will for sure want to mark on your calendar:

October 24 is the Global Day of Climate Change! We need to change how we do things NOW or we will not be here to fix the damage. For more information and ways to get involved please, please visit

http://www.350.org/understanding-350#2
http://www.Powershift09.org
http://www.Realclimate.org

*FREE SONGS* by great musicians to help you "Get Down with 350!"
http://www.350.org/350-songs-planet

CPSC *loves* Mattel...this makes me ill.

The foxes are guarding the hen house! Please read the latest going ons with the CPSC and Mattel...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090827/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_product_test

Rick Woldenberg, Chairman of Learning Resources Inc put it so nicely on his blog:
http://learningresourcesinc.blogspot.com/2009/08/cpsia-rich-irony-courtesy-of-cpsc.html

Modern Handmade Child is here! Made by EtsyKids Street Team...

Open publication - Free publishing - More kids

An Incredible Community that Cares

I have tears streaming from my eyes...tears of sadness for a mother who passed after childbirth and tears of joy for a babe who has many "mothers" now in the community, breastfeeding and loving him.

Here is an article about the Goodrich Family and the community of nursing mothers:
http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/524498.html

Here is a link to a project created by Ina May Gaskin...a project to honor all mothers who have died from childbirth. It's called the "Safe Motherhood Quilt Project"
http://rememberthemothers.net/

Here also, is a link to a blog post for Susan's quilt square:
http://snipandsnail.blogspot.com/2009/05/safe-motherhood-quilt-project.html

BeeKeeping 101

Bees and Honey and all things Sweet...May 3rd, we got our bees! We had ordered a "nuc" colony, which contains 5 frames of bees, brood, stores of honey and pollen and most importantly a queen...

Beekeeping lesson #1...it is safer than you think to travel in an enclosed vehicle with a box of approximately 10,500 bees! We chose to take the "back" way home from where we had to pick up the bees. This is a wonderful drive up a dirt logging highway, through some of the most awesome country, in this part of the world. We had to stop and pickup Kiah at the house of a friend, who is a wood fire potter. This all made for about 2 hours of drive time mostly on bumpy, narrow logging roads. Indeed our favorite kind of Sunday drive. Only 3 or 4 bees escaped from their closed box, and they stayed pretty close to the buzz and smell of the nuc box. The bees in the nuc were itchin' to get out of that box though...it sounded like rain in there! We brought them home, took them up to the bee yard and opened the door on the box so thet could get out. They flew rather frantic like for several minutes them re-entered the nuc and settled for the evening.


Bees are Awesome! Pictured here is some of the equipment used to house a colony of bees...Deep super, wax frames, sugar water, pail for feeding , an inner cover and top cover.





Monday afternoon, when it warmed up, we put them in their new hive body, being careful to keep them in the same order, to keep them from being disoriented. We added five new frames, for a total of 10, so they should have a bit more room. In this photo, one frame is in the new box or "super", and the second frame is being removed from the nuc. This frame contained the queen (always a happy thing to find your queen).


This is a smoker. Milo and Mojo experimented and found that the stuff that comes with the smoker smells kinda bad. Then they proceeded to try different materials...like birch bark with pine needles, pinecones, sawdust, and found the best stuff to use was wood shavings from the workshop...cherry wood shavings.

We didn't use the smoker...but we had it ready just in case. To distract the bees, we sprayed the bees with sugar water and they spent a whole lot of time licking the yummy, sweet water off their bodies. They didn't mind us being there a bit. Apparently, the smoke causes the bees to panic and so they immediately go grab their stores of honey. Spraying with sugar water is a much gentler way to distract...we shall see what Autumn brings, the bees tend to get a little more aggressive and protective toward their honey stores in the Fall.

Kiahzzzz entry (age 8):

"Bees are so fun. I love to watch them. I know they will not hurt me as long as I'm calm."

Milozzzz entry (age 5):

"My best thing about the bees are watching them getting pollen. I love the bees' fort. Bees knees. The End."