Independence Day

 Wishing you a beautiful Independence Day from Mackinac Island!

Happy Worm Day

 Happy Worm Day 2026!

This year's Worm Day is the latest since I've been keeping track, but it's a day to celebrate none the less.

 The first day we find huge numbers of worms on the pavement after a rain means spring is here!

Happy Easter

Easter tends to be pretty quiet at my house - TV, baking, that kind of thing. This year I made these cute little cookies for us to munch on. Let me tell you - I am in love with rolled buttercream. It looks like fondant, tastes like buttercream frosting, and it's easy. The only caveat is you need to have something to mold it with (think cookie molds or embossed rolling pins.) My family does not appreciate the flavor and texture of royal icing, so discovering this has been wonderful. Plus I have a gazillion cookie molds, so I was good to go.

We celebrated today with some cure bunnies for Easter and suns for spring; 'cuz everyone on Mackinac Island is ready for sunny weather!

2025 Student Sewn Ornaments

Somehow, in the craziness of the week before break, I didn't share a picture of the Christmas trees my students made. Sadly, I didn't get a single picture of a finished ornament! Luckily, this one is close enough to finished for you to see what the kids created. 

Each day we sewed, I taught the fifth and sixth graders what to do in the morning. Then, after they completed that step on their ornaments, my students coached the third and fourth graders in the afternoon. It worked beautifully; my kids were such great teachers! Their comments amused me to no end. I heard: "Mrs. Burt, so-n-so just wouldn't listen to me. I tried to explain, but he wouldn't stop talking," and "So-n-so wouldn't pay attention to me - even after I asked him three times!" I even had one student come to the realization that now she understands how her mother feels when she doesn't follow directions. Hopefully, those were valuable life lessons that will stick with them, even if the sewing skills do not. Either way, in this highly digital world, I loved watching them create something with their own two hands to give to someone they care about.

The pattern for the ornament came from the Country Stitches quilt shop in Lansing, Michigan. It was originally a pattern for a much longer wall hanging, but I shortened it into an ornament. I had hoped to share a link for the pattern, but I couldn't find it on their website. The fabric was leftover fabric I had in my stash.

Merry & Bright

To all those who celebrate,

I wish you and yours

the merriest of Christmases. 

Too Close for Comfort

Putting up the window candles for the holidays is typically a fairly dull task, but this year it brought a bit of excitement when the light* pictured above caught fire. Luckily, the fire started quickly and my daughter was still close by. After she came down from her adrenaline rush, she found it quite ironic that the object intended to mimic a flame had actually burst into flame.

She grabbed it by the as-yet-not-on-fire base and ran outside. Luckily, her fleece bore the brunt of the damage, and apart from a scorched spot on the sleeve and some melted plastic on the window, all is well. Thankfully. Had my daughter put that lamp up in a different room and then walked away, this would be a very different post. So, today I am feeling extra grateful for my quick thinking daughter who, while thoughtfully trying to lighten my holiday load, quite literally saved the day. 

*The lamp was UL listed, had the correct wattage bulb, and was plugged into a wall outlet (not an extension cord.)

Happy December

My students have been counting down the days until Camilla the Christmas Chicken returns to the classroom. She came back today - and brought treats! (This year my students have been bringing treats in for their classmates for no reason. One Tuesday, someone brings in donuts, then the next the next week we're getting cupcakes. We've decided to call those days "Random Treat Days," and Camilla decided she needed to celebrate, too.)

Independence Day

It's always a good day when Fort Mackinac flies the Garrison Flag. 

It's a big flag - 38 feet by 20 feet (11.5 meters by 6 meters) - that's only flown when the conditions are perfect. It's so big, it takes quite a few scouts to fold it. (When you see it with people for scale, you get the true feel for just how huge the Garrison Flag really is!) I'm not in the photo below, but I came to Mackinac with Troop 327 as part of the Mackinac Island Scout Service Camp, for five summers.

Sitched

 Every year I try to have my students sew an ornament as a gift for their family. This year they made mini-quilts. And I have to say, they did an amazing job. 

Believe it or not, pictured above is this year's fourth, fifth, and sixth grade class (minus one who left a day early for vacation.) So yes, the entire fourth - sixth grade is nine students (five fourth graders, two fifth graders, and two sixth graders.) Teaching three grades worth of material is a challenge, but at our little school sometimes our numbers force us to get creative. Luckily all nine of them are delightful and make me smile every day!

Bazaar Donations

The Mackinac Island Christmas Bazaar is an annual fundraiser held the first weekend in December. All the money raised at the Bazaar is used to support local organizations such as the Mackinac Island Community Foundation. Since the Community Foundation is a huge supports of the school, the kids and I do our best to support them. 

This year the second - sixth graders folded trees out of tattered books destined for the compost pile. After folding, painting, and decorating, the trees were ready to be put up for sale. Their little forest may have only raised $100 for our community, but the lesson in donating your time to support causes you believe in was priceless.

Hooray

 Let the 2023 Christmas cookie baking begin!

(All of those cookie molds were thrifted for $3.00 or less.)

Only on Mackinac

My friend, Travis, took this picture this afternoon. It's how he got his Christmas tree home from Island's tree lot...

Yes, you can buy a Christmas Tree on Mackinac Island. 4-H brings them over and sells them to fund their programming.

Camilla's Antics

The kids have really enjoyed coming in to

school each morning to see what Camilla has been up to.

She brought them a kindness challenge

to work on for the month,

a joke book and a few great "dad" jokes,

she even asked me to read Rosie's Walk

out loud to them. 

After overhearing the kids wonder if she could bring each of them a million bucks, she brought them one million "clucks" instead.

And on our last day of school before vacation,

the day they knew would be her last day with us,

they asked if they could take a picture with her.

How could I say no?

Deliciousness

Due to a few scheduling constraints, my family and I weren't able to get together for our annual Christmas Cookie Baking Extravaganza. Which, to be honest, was a huge letdown. So much of the fun of that weekend is spending time with a few lovely people I rarely see, and, of course, there are cookies...

Since I couldn't get together with them, I was determined to make cookies myself - so I started early. Of course, I made the family favorites: zimtstern (cinnamon stars), zitronenherzen (lemon hearts), Nurnberger (roll out sugar cookies) spritzgeback (cookies made with a press, Mandlebarge (almond mountains) Scottish shortbread, and springerle (this year with orange essence and dipped in chocolate.)

I also made a few others including Linzer (jam sandwiches), ginger cookies (because we love them), glazed chocolate shortbread cookies (to try out some new cookie stamps), Earl Grey Cookies (because they sounded amazing),  and pretzel turtles (made with Rolo candies.)

Some changes I plan on making for next year:

1. I reduced the amount of cocoa in the chocolate cookies (as per the recipe's instructions) but I will decrease it even more next year. Instead of adding in flour to offset the decrease in cocoa, I will try using powdered sugar instead - at least for half of the flour. I will probably also add in a small amount of baker's ammonia to see how that changes the texture. They also need to bake for a bit more time than given in the recipe..
2.  I will add even more tea to the Earl Grey cookies. (I also glazed them with a glaze made from strong tea and powdered sugar.) Next year we are also going to try making a batch with Constant Comment tea.

In case you are wondering why the names of some of the cookies are capitalized: 

I wasn't sure about capitalizing the names of the German cookies with names derived from cities so I Googled what to do, here is the reason  I chose to capitalize them.

Deck the Halls

I have a thing for ceramic Christmas trees, especially vintage ones. Usually I get them out around Thanksgiving, but to keep my husband happy I don't switch them on until after we celebrate Thanksgiving. He thinks they're tacky, but keeps quiet since they make me smile. I'd actually never seen one until we got married. His mom puts two of them out every Christmas and I just loved them. In fact, she got me my very first one - she spotted it at a garage sale and snaped it up for me.

One of my favorite things to do is to find old ones without lights and bases at second hand stores and bring them back to life. The best thing about the base-less trees is they are generally quite cheap. I designed the white base above in Tinkercad, an online kid-friendly CAD program for creating 3D printable objects. I just print the base in the size and color I need, pop in new plastic bulbs, install a light kit and the tree can shine again.

The big green one below looked awful when I bought it. It was covered in grime, half of the bulbs were broken off with ends still glued in the holes, but a 1974 tree with a base for $10.00 was a bargain. My Dremel make short work of the broken bulb ends and the filth washed right off. Now it's my favorite tree. 

This one I actually bought separately. I found the base in with the lamps (for $4.99) at Goodwill and just held onto it. I figured I'd find a tree to go with it someday, and I was right. I think the tree, without any bulbs or the star was $5.00. Now that these trees are becoming much more popular, I rarely see them.

I think I actually like these better than my full size Christmas tree. They are a lot less work to put up and take down and they brighten up some of the darker corners of the house. What decorations are you putting up this year?

 

Camilla Returns

Camilla the Christmas Chicken has returned to my classroom. I'm not really an Elf on the Shelf kind of girl; instead we have a Christmas Chicken. (Currently, all my students celebrate Christmas, but she'll become a Holiday Chicken when needed, and she is going to bring the kids books about Hanukkah and the Winter Solstice.

She's brought treats and a tree so far, and shared an interesting video on chicken communication. Who knew chickens could make over 30 distinct vocalizations!

It makes me smile to see the kids rush over when they get to school to read her newest note. A Christmas Chicken may be weird, but I guarantee none of there other teachers will have done it!

Hooray!

Tomorrow is December so cookie season will officially begin. Hooray!

Surprise

Just after finishing Thanksgiving dinner my husband's pager went off; the Mackinac Island Fire Department was being sent to the Mackinac Island Public School due to smoke in the building. Thankfully, it wasn't a fire but steam from a malfunctioning boiler. The fire department went back to the school on Sunday afternoon, again for steam. Everything has been fixed now, but the kids and I sure were thankful for our extra day of vacation.

I used my extra time to shop Lands' End's 60% off sale, make a giant batch of Scottish shortbread, make a batch of Spritzgebäck (German spritz cookies), felt a pile of wool sweaters, and to start putting up the Christmas tree. 

Merry & Bright

Merry Christmas from Mackinac Island.

This picture is from a few days ago.

No snow today, instead it was

foggy, rainy and 34 degrees (about 1 C.)

It's Beginning...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

everywhere you go...