Katie’s Fall Favorites

October 3, 2018November 9, 2018 by Katie | Leave a comment

This morning we shared a few favorite fair trade brands. Really we’re using that term as a catch all – kind of how society treats the word organic when it comes to food. By fair trade we mean companies not only providing fair wages, but also doing other great things like honest sourcing, impeccable waste removal, or B-corp certification.

Now we’re back with our comfiest picks for the season. You may remember these images from a couple years ago and while we like to keep it fresh here, Kate and I both realized we would still pick the same exact fall favorites. We don’t buy excessively, instead we choose items we truly love. Pieces that are timeless, work well in most situations, and are made with quality in mind. How do we know these pieces are timeless? All but two of the links still work four years after the original publication of this post! Bam.

See those clogs on Kate’s pic? She’s had them for ages and recently replaced the sole. That’s the kind of quality we’re looking for when we make new purchases. We buy items we love and cherish for years – I actually wrote a piece for another website all about my affinity for great clothing and gear.

As you can see, Kate’s outfit is a little more appropriate for the outdoors while mine would work well under a big fuzzy blanket. Details below!

Affogato

September 27, 2018 by Katie | Leave a comment

Coffee is our ingredient of the season. You can find our favorite cold-brewed coffee here. But if you’re in a rush, try this instant hit. If you’re looking for dinner, how about this chili?

Today we have the simplest of desserts to share with you.

Fall Camping

September 25, 2018September 25, 2018 by Katie | Leave a comment

If you’d like to see more of our Colorado adventures, click here.

Once the calendar turned to September, we leapt into fall with all of our hearts. Granted the days have still been warm, but we’ve found that if you climb high enough into the mountains, then the evenings are cool, the leaves are changing colors, and the mornings are perfectly crisp.

Here are a few snapshots from our recent weekend camping trips. If you feel inspired to hop in the car this weekend, at the very bottom of the post, I link to a few posts to hep you get started, including some of our favorite/essential gear.

Knitting Pattern : Seven Year Stitch

September 24, 2018September 24, 2018 by Katie | Leave a comment

Knitting literally and figuratively takes up a lot of room in my life. You can find previous knitting posts here.

At the beginning of the year, I encouraged our readers to “make with me“. In the Make with Me series, I was sharing the projects that I was working on and/or finished in near-real time. That came to a sudden halt in March. Then, I started working on a few secret projects that really put a cramp in my ability to share. Today’s post is about one of those projects.

I’m excited to announce that I’ve finally put together a self-published knitting pattern!

Slowcooker Chili (with coffee!)

September 20, 2018September 26, 2018 by Katie | Leave a comment

Coffee is our ingredient of the season. You can find our favorite cold-brewed coffee here. But if you’re in a rush, try this instant hit.

When choosing coffee as our featured ingredient, I knew that I wanted to use it in a few ways that were outside of my comfort zone. And using it in today’s chili recipe is definitely one of those examples! I love a good savory chili, but I was worried that the addition of coffee would add a bitter and unpleasant taste. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case and this dish turned out to be a delicious (and easy) dish! Continue reading …

Wildlife Camera

September 18, 2018September 18, 2018 by Katie | Leave a comment

If you’re interested in photography, you can find many of our archived posts here. This is the perfect time of year to review Sarah’s tips for better fall photos. And if you’re curious, you can read about both Sarah’s camera equipment and Katie’s.

It’s no surprise that we’re into photography. We love the art of taking photos and we appreciate it as a form of documentation. We use photos (and this blog) as a instrument for recording everything from favorite meals and drinks to vacations and the mundane.

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Today I’m excited to share with you a new piece of equipment that’s helping me to document (and spy on) the wildlife in our backyard.

Kids’ Nature Books

September 16, 2018July 15, 2019 by Katie | Leave a comment

We know, we know, it’s amazon prime day. If you’re in the shopping mood, below are a few of our favorite nature books for kids.

We feel that it’s very important to have an understanding of and appreciation for the natural world, and we believe that both of those things should start as early as possible in a child’s life.

One of the easiest ways to help children learn about nature is to spend time outdoors. Most children are naturally curious, and as they play and explore in nature, they will begin to ask questions about plants and animals, the habitats and ecosystems where they live, and the larger world around them. This is a great time to begin answering those questions and to work together to research the answers when they are unknown to either of you.

And that leads to our second way to help children learn about the natural world and our relationship with it : books!

Books are obviously a great resource for teaching children. They are a reference when helping to answer a child’s questions, and they can provide insights into places and times that we’ve never been, which is awesome for awakening a child’s imagination. Of course, that will likely raise more questions, and the cycle continues!

Below are a few of our current favorite nature books for kids. Some of these are straight-up reference guides, while others provide that magical view into another world (because how many of us have actually seen the hidden world of animals under the snow or experienced the immense pressure and heat at the center of the Earth?!).

Instant Coffee Frappe

September 11, 2018September 13, 2018 by Katie | 2 Comments

Coffee is our ingredient of the season. You can find our favorite cold-brew formula here. And here’s a list of Sarah’s favorite coffee shops in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philly.

Back in May we went on camping road trip. If you’re interested, here’s info about our visit to Canyonlands, our visit to the Grand Tetons, and camping on BLM land. Back in July I told you about our big camp kitchen snafu during the road trip. The one where we forgot the stove!

In that post, I described how we adjusted our menus so that we were still able to camp and eat well. Without easily accessible hot water, priority #1 was figuring out coffee. We made Nescaffe Frappes. And I may have said that “knowing this recipe is up there with knowing how to escape a grizzly bear attack or how to cut off your arm in an avalanche. Life or death.”

You probably read that and freaked. Then you started stressing about how you’ll get caught in an avalanche because you couldn’t cut the grizzly off of your arm. And the bear only attacked because you were SLOW-AS-F on your hike because of the POUNDing caffeine headache because SOMEONE forgot the camp stove. F*ck.

Ingredient of the Season : Coffee

September 7, 2018September 11, 2018 by Katie | Leave a comment

Every season we like to pick one ingredient and find a variety of ways to love it and use it. You can find our complete ingredient archive here.

I’m sitting here with just a drop left of my morning cuppa joe, and I’m so excited to announce that coffee is our fall 2018 Ingredient of the Season. We are coffee lovers. We love the ritual of a morning cup of coffee, especially when someone else starts the brew and we wake up to the aroma wafting into our bedrooms. We love the flavor of coffee, and we’re always excited to try new beans, brewing methods, and (of course) ice creams ;-). But above all, we love that it’s a drink shared by many cultures, often bringing people together to over communal moment of rest and conversation.

Making coffee our Ingredient of the Season encourages us to learn more about the biology, cultural importance, and many uses of this bean, and we’re excited to share those experiences. Throughout the season we’ll talk about a variety of brewing methods. But beyond drinking, I’m also excited to use coffee in my crafting, cooking, baking, and liqueur making!

Saxis 2018

August 29, 2018March 10, 2019 by Katie | Leave a comment

If all goes well, we’re heading out on our last big adventure of the summer. We thought this was a good time to share some postcards from this summer’s trip to Saxis and Chincoteague. If you’d like to learn more about this awesome area of the Eastern Shore that we love dearly, check out this round-up off our previous Saxis posts.