Still no spots. Galen went to bed with puffy eyes and Elijah woke up with them. Iain has been weepy and short tempered all day, which is a sure fire sign that he’s not feeling well. They all look sleepy, padding around the house, in their little pajamas, wool socks and cotton caps.

The beans and squash are long gone as is the nettles infusion. I’m about to go and heat up some more soup. I just received a very polite request to “please make some more kale crisps”, so I’ll probably do that while the soup heats up (the earlier, less polite, request was met with a very different response…).

Caring for sick children is just an endless succession of food and herbs, conjuring up quiet amusements and waiting. Waiting for them to get better and watching to see if they are getting worse.

Today I have a crockpot full of stew. It’s probably too rich for sick little ones, but tomorrow is shopping day and this is what I have. So much for planning ahead! It’s one of those perfectly random, whatever happens to be around, kind of stews; organic grass-fed beef, parsnips, turnips, rutabaga, leeks, lots of garlic, butternut squash, dulse, kelp, kombu and nettles. I’m thinking that it might need some thyme. I’ll add in some peas and sea salt closer to dinner time and thicken it up with kuzu. In my mini-crockpot I have carrots and squash cooking for Galen’s dinner.

I’ve keep a pot of water on the wood stove all day for tea. I made an infusion with the last of my tulasi and I’m sad that it’s gone. This morning I took the last of the blackberries from the freezer and stewed them with rose hips, a bit of honey and a cinnamon stick. Once everything was very soft I tossed the cinnamon stick and pureed it. Then I added in some echinecea and elderberry syrup and served it warm to the big boys for a snack. As it was well received, I’ll have to bare it in mind for the future.

We are the last family in our homeschooling group to get the chicken pox, if the kids do indeed have it. I just found out this morning that one of the children from another family had some pretty serious complications. He developed pneumonia and was hospitalized twice. He seems to be doing better now. Normally, this wouldn’t worry me too much, but Iain just got over a respiratory infection. I will be watching these little ones very carefully.

This is another one of those times when it is so much more difficult to live the way that we do. It was 2 degrees the first time I went outside this morning, with a windchill well below zero. Still I need to make countless trips to the old house and the wood pile, and what am I to do with sick children who should be in bed and not out braving the elements??? I’m glad that Steve will be home tomorrow. Having two adults around really makes a big difference.

For the better part of the week now I’ve been trying to post pictures of various projects from the last couple of months. However, our computer has some sort of strange virus that’s making posting pictures impossible. So, I suppose it will just have to wait until Steve figures out how/has the time to fix it! (If we wait until *I* figure out how to fix it, there will never again be another picture posted on this site…guaranteed!)

Meanwhile we are keeping busy. The kids were exposed to chicken pox two weeks ago, yesterday. The incubation period is 10-21 days, but usually just about 2 weeks. Yesterday, all three boys started with some mild cold-like symptoms. No one has any spots yet, so I can’t be sure this is “it”, but it seems like it might be headed that way.

One of the hardest things about caring for a bunch of sick little people is still finding the time to make nourishing things for them, and at the very time that they need them the most! Since I had a bit of advanced notice this time, I decided to use it to my advantage. Two days ago, I made a large batch of chicken broth infused with healing herbs. Now I have a huge crockpot set on “warm” and full of good chicken soup, with rice noodles and lots of veggies (both sea and land). This morning a made a double batch of kale crisps. I had planned on having them around for snacking when needed too, but they barely made it to the table! Who would of thought that two bunches of kale could go so fast?? Elijah has been trying to convince me to go make more ever since! I have a huge jar of nettles infusion that’s just about ready to be strained. If everyone is still feeling alright this afternoon I’m going to take the time to make so more extras to have around. I’m thinking I’ll probably start some black beans and squash in my other crockpot. Maybe I’ll make a nice rose hips lemonade while I’m at it.

Yesterday, Steve went to the herb store and gathered me up a long list of herbs. After our school work is done for the day we are going to mix up some lovely tea blends and hopefully make a couple of different sorts of healing salves.

Sadly, Steve was unable to track down any plantain (why, oh why did I not take the time to dry some myself this year??? You can be certain I won’t make that mistake again next year!) or homeopathic varicellinum. The two things that I would probably most like to have on hand. Still, all in all I think we are pretty well set. Bring it on!