The Life I am Choosing...

Winter Gardening

2012-02-01T16:10:00.000-05:00

CP and I decided to tackle the green house today. He had some tomato plants that he had started that really needed to be planted, so today was the day. We didn't mop the floor, but we cut out most of the dead plants and watered everything, and swept, and moved empty pots out. We also cleaned up around the little table. All of a sudden smallish people want to sit at it again...

Chopped

2012-02-01T16:05:00.000-05:00

This is what happens when you have 20 minutes before dinner has to be on the table, you haven't been grocery shopping all month, and you spent an afternoon in a Las Vegas hotel room watching Chopped on Food Network (I wish Netflix had food network shows, but it's probably good it doesn't). It's kind of hard to make something fancy in 20 minutes with food storage food, but here it is...

Salmon Patties with white rice and dill sauce, and broccoli. My kids thought it was fun anyway.

Easy Beef Bourguignon

2012-01-27T16:39:00.000-05:00

I got distracted and missed putting in the bay leaf, thyme, parsley, and allspice (nice huh...)... It still tasted great- a nice thick beef stew. I'll try it again (maybe even with the spices next time).

From: Utah Deal Diva

Easy Beef Bourguignon

6 oz bacon, fried and crumbled
4 TBSP olive oil
2 tsp minced garlic
2 lbs trimmed beef chuck, cut into 2-inch cubes, patted dry with paper towels
Salt and freshly ground pepper
about 1/4 cup of flour
1 medium onion, chopped
1 cup sliced carrots
1 1/2 cups of red cooking wine**
2 cups beef stock or canned beef broth
1 can diced tomatoes, drained
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp allspice
8-oz container of sliced mushrooms

**In lieu of cooking wine, you can use grape juice, apple juice or instead, use a total of 3 1/2 cups beef broth.

Directions

1. Fry the bacon pieces until they're crispy. While the bacon is cooking, cut the beef up into 2" cubes and lightly pat dry with paper towels. Put 1/4 cup of flour in a small bowl and add a few shakes of both salt and pepper. Coat the beef pieces in the flour and set aside until the bacon is done cooking.
2. Once the bacon is crispy, set it aside on a paper towel. Leave the bacon fat in the pan and add an additional 2 TBSP olive oil. Once the oil is hot, add the beef and brown all sides. Meat doesn't have to be cooked completely, but you want the sides to get nicely browned.

3. Dice onions and slice carrots. Crumble the bacon slices.

4. Once meat is browned, transfer it to a bowl. Don't wash out the pan or feel like you have to scrape the pan out each time. Add another 2 TBSP olive oil and warm that up over medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the diced garlic, onions and carrots. Toss the vegetables and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the beef back into the pan, along with the bacon.
5. Add remaining ingredients, except for the mushrooms. Start with the cooking wine, adding it in all at once and allowing it to boil slightly before adding in anything else.

6. Stir stew to combine spices with the other ingredients. Cover and simmer for 2-3 hours, stirring once every hour or so. Remove the lid for the last hour of simmering, to allow the stew to thicken.
7. About 15 minutes prior to serving, add the mushrooms.

8. Serve as a main dish alone, or atop mashed potatoes.

How to Host a Spy Party

2012-01-23T12:28:00.001-05:00

A turned 8, which meant this is a "Friend Party" year. He wanted to have a spy party, so I started thinking about what kind of a cake I could make. Most years I do pretty neat cakes (although we've bought the last few since we had either just moved or just had a baby...). I also started looking online for ideas of what we could do at the party. I found a few ideas for party games and began to piece the party together. My most genius idea was the fake cake.

I decided that we'd start the party first thing with the cake. It looked like this:

This is how I put it together:

Yes, that is a giant marshmallow (I cut a little off the bottom to make it not so tall) and then I cut a slice into it to put the licorice in). It's amazing how much easier it is to frost a piece of foam than a real cake.

The kids were all really excited about the cake (I was too- it looked really cool). The foam was harder to cut than I thought it would be, so I actually ended up just cutting the two pieces apart- so I recommend using two half circles otherwise you'd need an electric knife or something to cut a piece of cake.

Once we had the cake cut in half, we acted shocked. "What in the world? What happened to the cake?" Even A had no idea. This note was hidden inside of the cake:

First thing we did was fingerprint all of the children to make sure none of them matched the print on the note- we had to rule them out as the cake thief. Next I handed out cards with several fingerprints on them (fingerprints labeled with names of "known criminals"). Once we had confirmed that the thief really was Dr. Caker, we were able to head to his secret headquarters.

Unfortunately Dr. Caker was a step ahead of us, and had abandoned his hideout. We did discover a bomb and had to diffuse it before we could search the building (our playroom) for clues. The bomb was a special "chocolate bomb", and had to be diffused by putting on special gloves (socks) and unwrapping and cutting it up with two butter knives- and then eating the pieces- all without touching it. The kids sat in a circle and rolled dice, everytime someone got doubles they got to have a chance to diffuse the bomb, when someone else rolled doubles, they had to hand their tools to the next person. (this is The Candy Bar Game that I used to play at parties when I was a kid).

Once the bomb was totally eaten/diffused, we searched the room for clues and found a note from Dr. Caker congratulating them on being better secret agents than he thought they would be, but that he was not going to get caught, so he had moved on to a room "more suited to living". The kids figured out pretty quick that they had to go downstairs to the living room, which was now full of balloons. More bombs- these couldn't be diffused, so they had to be detonated. The kids sat and stomped until the bombs were all popped. They discovered that several bombs had encrypted notes inside. We pulled out the decoder lenses (pieces of red cellophane). I had typed the notes in blues and greens, alternating letters, then added red yellow and orange letters in between so that you couldn't read the note until the red cellophane blocked out the red yellow and orange.

That final clue led to the room where the real cake was hidden. Cupcakes baked inside of ice cream cones. I need to improve my technique with frosting them, but the kids liked them.

We also had bowls of ice cream, opened presents, then the kids watched a couple episodes of Phineas and Ferb since we had some time to kill (those kids finished the clues faster than I thought they would). If we had had a little more time, we could have watched a Spy Kids movie or something (they all really seem to like The Spy Next Door at this age).

As kids left, we handed out goody bags:

Inside was a mini spy kit that I found at the dollar store, some disguise glasses, a magnifying glass and a candy bar. I also used a similar bag to hold supplies for each game:

In the Bleak Mid Winter

2012-01-09T14:54:00.001-05:00

Since we barely got our first decent snowstorm of the winter, it seems a little inappropriate to say it's mid-winter, but I'm ready for spring. My favorite seed catalog came in the mail, so I'm dealing with the winter blues by planning my garden. There are some fun online tools that you can use to make a really fancy plan, or you can get out the pencils and graph paper. Raised bed gardens are meant to pack a lot into a small space, so it's best to plan ahead so you don't end up cramming things in after your trip to the garden store got a little out of hand. Plus, planning now allows you to start your own seeds...

I tried out this free trial garden planner. It's fairly easy to use, although to make all the vegetables the correct size takes a little more work- for me it wasn't a big deal- I know how many tomato plants will fit in my space, so I can just make notes of the exact number and use the cute icons to just mark what area of the garden will be filled with each plant.

My quick test run of the garden planner software had a few minor kinks, but nothing major, and I do like to see things in color...

15 is a zucchini plant or two- on the assumption that my artichoke is not going to survive the winter because the windstorm blew away all the leaves and straw I had insulated it with, and now it's probably dead. If by some miracle it survives, I'll have to find somewhere else to plant my zucchini.

18 and 19 are green beans. Mel Bartholemew's book Square Foot Gardening has a great section that goes over spacing. I use his suggestions, for the most part. His suggestion for bush beans are one seed every 4 square inches. I've had more success by just digging little trenches and filling them with bean seeds- maybe I'm over crowding my plants, but they seem to figure things out, and I get more beans.

17 is a hot pepper plant, and 16 will be as many bell and anaheim pepper plants as I can fit in.

14 are tomatoes, mostly paste, but one cherry and one beefsteak type as well.

7 and 8 are garlic- this past fall was my first attempt at planting garlic, so we'll see how that goes.

12 and 13 are strawberries- this bed started out as about 1/2 strawberries, and they've taken over. The kids love sitting and eating the strawberries, so it's hard to get any to keep, but last year we did manage to eat plenty and even freeze some for smoothies.

9 is peas, which will be followed by 20, a cucumber plant.

10 and 11 are my experiment for 2012 is the potato box. I've tried potatoes in a bucket and didn't have much success, putting the "bucket" (or box) inside the garden bed would fix my watering problems since my garden is watered on an automatic sprinkling system. I may not need as much space as I've allocated, and if that's the case, I'll plant more peas.

6 is asparagus. This is the 3rd year, so I should be able to harvest spears this year.

Normally we do corn (if the raccoons don't eat it all) and green beans (enough to can and eat for the year) and pumpkins and squash in the big garden, but we're going to be building a house on that lot this year, so the garden would get run over by construction equipment. Hopefully we can find somewhere to do some squash and pumpkins.

Butternut Squash Ravioli with Balsamic Browned Butter Sauce

2012-01-08T21:24:00.003-05:00

I've been craving butternut squash ravioli for awhile now, and since we have church at 9am this year, it gives us plenty of time to make fancier dinners (if we feel like making them).

I had some leftover butternut soup but no eggs...

I found a recipe for eggless pasta that I thought would work for ravioli here, the recipe made a lot of pasta, we got tired of making ravioli and turned the last few pieces into thin noodles, which we'll use for dinner tomorrow maybe*.

My Mister ran the pasta roller while I took the leftover butternut squash soup, which had thickened quite a bit during it's week as leftovers, and added a bunch of parmesan cheese. My 4-year old wanted to help too, so I set him up cutting the strips of pasta into little rectangles. I spooned teaspoonish amounts onto the little rectangles of pasta, wet the edges, and crimped around the edges with a fork (on both sides).

When we were about ready to eat, I boiled the ravioli for 3-4 minutes, until they looked cooked, and as my mister was setting the table and draining the ravioli, I made the best part of the dinner.

Online, the suggested sauce to serve with butternut squash ravioli is sage browned butter sauce. I don't like sage, so I looked around a bit and decided to go with a balsamic browned butter sauce instead. I figured I've made a butternut squash dish that had balsamic vinegar in it before, so how could I go wrong? (Usually, when I say that to myself it doesn't end well, but this time it worked out.)

Balsamic Browned Butter Sauce

6 TBSP unsalted butter

2 TBSP balsamic vinegar

The complete recipe can be found here, but I decided I wasn't in the mood for nuts, so I called it good. I melted the butter, and watched and stirred. Of course the second you look away, it will turn brown, so don't get distracted. As soon as it turns brown, remove from heat and stir in the vinegar- be careful it shoots little sparks of hot liquid at you when you do that.

Immediately spoon over your ravioli, add a little salt and pepper and parmesan cheese, and you're good to eat.

*The pasta turned out more like wonton wrapper than pasta. Next time I think I'll need to get the right kind of flour, or make our regular egg noodle pasta, or maybe we rolled it too thin. I'm not a pasta expert, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'm open to ideas.

Over all, it turned out really good. I've thought about what I would use for filling if I didn't have the butternut squash soup, and I think it would be fine (or even better- mine was pretty soft consistency, and I think a little texture would be nice) to just bake a squash and mash it up with some butter and salt and parmesan cheese (and brown sugar if you want it sweet). It would just be one more step that you'd have to do before you could fill the pasta. I loved the browned butter sauce- I didn't measure, and I don't think I put enough balsamic vinegar into the butter, but the flavor was wonderful. Next time I'll make sure to pre measure the vinegar so I don't miss out on the full flavor. With a better pasta recipe, this would really be an amazing make-it-yourself dinner. If you wanted to make it even easier, you could buy the ravioli and just make the sauce- it was really good.

Butternut Squash Soup

2012-01-02T13:47:00.002-05:00

The other day I remembered the shelf full of squash that is out in the garage and decided we'd better start eating more squash so none of them end up wasted. I've been wanting to try butternut squash for awhile, and since we didn't have any other ideas for Sunday dinner, butternut squash it was.

My Mister was skeptical, but once he tasted it, he was converted. It wasn't quite as good as the carrot soup we had at The Farm in Park City, but it wasn't too far behind in taste. I may try the recipe with less squash and more carrots sometime...

I used this recipe from AllRecipes.com with a few alterations based on what I had and the reviews which suggested adding some things to make it not-so-bland. Not-bland soup seems like a good thing.

2 tablespoons butter
1 small onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 medium carrot, chopped
2 medium potatoes, cubed
1 medium butternut squash - peeled, seeded, and cubed
1 (32 fluid ounce) container chicken stock

Melt butter in soup pot. Add chopped onion and celery (unless you're using dried onions and celery, in which case, you can just add them at the same time as all the other vegetables. Also, my addition- add 1-2 cloves of garlic, minced. Chop and peel carrot, potatoes, and squash (it would probably be easier to cook the squash first, but you have to cook the carrot and potatoes anyway, and peeling the squash with the potato peeler wasn't that bad). Add chopped veggies to pot, cook on high stirring constantly until the veggies are browned slightly (I didn't cook mine that long- I waited until they started sticking to the pot, then decided to just go ahead and add the chicken stock- which in my case was chicken base and water). The recipe says to add just enough broth to cover the veggies, but it took all of it for me- I guess my squash was bigger than "medium". I also sprinkled a shake or two of curry powder. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer on low for 40 minutes. (after 25-30 the veggies looked soft enough to me, so I didn't keep cooking them). Next, you blend portions in the blender (or a stick blender would work, right in the pot) until it's all blended. Serve with salt and pepper, and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. And crunch bread. You could use vegetable broth if you want to make it vegetarian. My kids actually ate it without complaining- too much. I was surprised. It turned out to be a very nice consistency and the curry wasn't overpowering- I didn't add much, but I could just taste a hint of it. I like butternut squash when it's not covered in brown sugar (I like it sweet too, but this was a nice savory change).

Spend Nothing Month

2012-01-01T15:23:00.000-05:00

Sort of.

I like the idea of a spend nothing month- figuring out how to make do with what I have, and really thinking about what a necessity is. Of course, it's not really practical (or possible, depending on your situation) to spend absolutely no money, bills will come, and we have to eat, but for the month of january we're going to spend as little as possible. We'll get our milk delivery, and set aside a small amount of cash for groceries that we need- and once it's gone, it's gone. The idea is to really consider where you're spending your money, and whether it is improving your life enough to be worth the cost.

There's one SIL weekend planned that I'm not counting (though I'm going to be careful with expenses that weekend).

Kind of a cleanse for the budget and the influx of stuff (most of it wonderful and much loved) at Christmas.

Anyone want to try it too?

My First New Year's Resolution

2011-12-28T15:08:00.004-05:00

Now that Christmas has passed, my brain has started to think about what comes next. I know some people refuse to set new years resolutions, because they always get broken, but I like the idea of starting fresh, trying something different, and setting goals. Even if some of them only last for a week or two. Here's an easy resolution: Clean the microwave more than once a year...

I stumbled across this website on pinterest, and after looking around a little, found something that made me get up from my computer and do some cleaning. It seemed like such an easy, quick job, that it would be silly to NOT get up and do it. In fact- go do it now! You can get started and then come back and play on your computer for 8 more minutes until it's ready to wipe...

How to Clean Your Microwave

1) Put 1 cup of vinegar in a glass microwaveable bowl and microwave it on high until it's boiling and has covered the walls of the microwave in vinegary condensation. (this takes about 5 minutes in mine)
Let sit 3 minutes.
2) Carefully remove the bowl of vinegar. With a cloth or paper towel, wipe the surfaces clean. If there are some really stuck on messes, use a scrubby suitable for non-stick cookware.
3) clean the turntable in warm soapy dish water. Dry and put back.
4)Wipe down the outside of your microwave with a damp cloth.

Kelly (the blog author) also suggests sprinkling some baking soda down your kitchen sink drain while the vinegar is in the microwave, then you can pour the vinegar down the drain when you're done with it. You end up with a clean microwave AND fresh drains.

My addition would be to just use your rag that is now covered in warm vinegar and wipe down the outside of the microwave as well- I guess if the inside was really bad, you might need a new rag, I just folded my rag in half and used the clean side. I just did mine, and it looks great and was really easy. I used a microfiber rag. I would recommend not trying to breathe when your face is in the microwave, with all that vinegar. :)

Christmas News Letter

2011-12-14T22:16:00.000-05:00

J is in fifth grade this year, and can now wear my shoes. His interests are soccer, electronic games, beyblade (although I’m told that beyblades are no longer “in”), and origami. At school he sold origami creations as part of his class store, and got really good at folding ninja stars. Mom got really good at folding boxes. For his birthday this year, he invited his whole class and had a movie outside in the field, and found out what happens when you put mentos into diet coke (we did that on purpose, we were’t just feeding kids diet coke and mentos...).

A is in second grade, and is still just a happy kid. He loves his teacher, his friends, soccer, and legos. His smile is infectious, and his teacher has told me several times that he really knows how to make her heart melt. There are few things better than knowing your child’s teacher loves him as much as you do.

CP is in preschool this year. When I pick him up he likes to ask me, “so, what did you do today?” He also played on his first soccer team this year. Preschool soccer is fun to watch, since most of the kids don’t know what’s going on, and are busy climbing their coach or playing house in the goal net. CP, thanks to his older brothers, knew what was going on, and we got some good footage of him running down the field to score a goal. In a few years when the other kids figure it out, that may be a little trickier.

E is finally walking, at 15/16 months. His favorite things are going down the slide, being carried around, and playing fetch, I mean catch. He’s a happy kid, except when he’s teething, and we’re so happy he’s part of our family. CP especially likes having a younger brother to play with (and carry around- E is not so fond of that). Time is going by so fast, that we’re just trying to enjoy his babyness as much as possible before it’s gone.

This year I’ve discovered that I have hobbies again! I had forgotten about them for a long time. I ran a couple of half marathons and my very first full marathon this year (after which I promptly stopped any form of exercise- I’m still recovering- I’ll get back to it one of these days...). I also rode (and finished) a 100 mile bike ride with some of my friends. I felt great until mile 70 or so, after that I was grateful to my friends for keeping me going.

Kyle had a pretty busy training schedule earlier this year when he was training for the St. George Ironman. He finished, and is crazy enough to want to do it again in a couple of years. He’s decided that triathlons are more fun that single-event races. (I tried a sprint tri this year, and am unconvinced.)

We’re still working on getting our houseplans ready for building in the spring, and are keeping our fingers crossed that everything works out to proceed as planned. Hopefully next year I’ll be writing this letter from the comfort of my very own home. Maybe you can all come visit. All Our Love, Kyle, Alice & the boys.

Track the progress of our house at http://flaglotliving.blogspot.com

Crunch Bread

2011-12-06T15:45:00.001-05:00

CP calls french bread "Crunch Bread". He likes it dipped in oil and balsamic vinegar.

CP, ever since he was a baby, has done this thing where he sucks on his pointer and middle finger, and holds his ear with his other hand, when he's tired. Tonight, he told me that he can't suck on his fingers because he had chap stick on, and that he couldn't hold his ear because they were warm. He can only hold his ear when it's cold. It's hard to go to bed with chap stick and warm ears... Funny kid.

Damage, Round One

2011-12-04T15:54:00.001-05:00

Notice the pine tree. I'm not sure what happened there, but it looks like something took a bite out of the side.

A couple of the posts for the grape vines have fallen over.

The corkscrew willow in the front yard has been dying/falling over for a couple of years now, so it was decided to cut it down to prevent it from falling on any houses/cars.

Snapped branches on pine trees in the field.

Strawberry bed is missing a side.

Screen door at grandma's house.

The rest of the screen door- looks like it was more glass than screen...

Porch support.

Oops, one more piece of door.

Siding on a shed.

The new backyard, minus some trees/bushes. Maybe grass will grow back there again?

Firewood!

Good thing we didn't have a dog living in here anymore.

Fruit tree in the garden. I think this was a peach. Not too sad, because it would have had to come out anyway, it's where our house will be.

Broken fence, where the tree broke off and crushed it. The clean up crew had the fallen part chopped up and hauled away amazingly fast this morning.

New, flat roof, on the chicken coop. Hopefully it will work until spring. We can now call it the chicken cube.

Siding damage from the coop roof hitting the shed.

We'll need to get a new boat cover. The boat looks okay, maybe a little scratched up. We haven't looked under the cover to be sure.

There's the roof! It put some nice gouges in the back corner of our camper too.

Siding damage, so that's where the wasps were coming from.

Up high there's siding damage where the cable wire was pulled out of the wall. The cable is now laying on the ground.

Wind speeds reached 102 mph. That's class 2 hurricane. School was cancelled Thursday and Friday. Church was cancelled today to allow everyone to go around and clean up the debris before the next round starts tonight. It's not supposed to be as bad, but who knows. I moved the cans into the garage, and picked up as much as I could so there are fewer things to blow over to the neighbor's house (or beyond). We still need to put the small sailboat somewhere safe so it doesn't blow away again (last time I grabbed it before it went too far- that was fun), some big pieces of plastic, and maybe do something with the wood from the former chicken coop roof and the dog run. Probably ought to clean up as much as we can with the door next door too. The boys are hoping school is cancelled tomorrow, we'll see.

It's been a really great feeling to see all the neighbors out working together to get things cleaned up. They're piling stuff up at a church building down the street, and from there it's being hauled to the dump. I'm not sure how the dump is going to keep it there, but at least it would have to blow a long way before it hit anything from that point. Kyle brought home a load of pine for our wood pile when he came home for breakfast/lunch. I'm not sure when they'll be done.

The majority of trucks going by are full of pine branches. It's surreal.

UPDATE: Round 2 of the wind storm petered out, so YEA. No more damage.

Baby E learns to slide!

2011-12-04T12:48:00.003-05:00

Can I go back to last week?

2011-11-28T17:35:00.002-05:00

Last week I dropped Taja dog off at the vet, where she was being kenneled while we went to Oregon for Thanksgiving. That was Friday. I took her bed, and a chew toy, and handed her over. I was a little sad when I climbed into the car. I love that dog, and I was going to miss her.

I had no idea.

Monday morning the vet called to tell us that Taja had died in her sleep. Her heart just stopped. I'm glad it was quick, but my heart hurts that she was not home with her family.

She was a stinky, drooly dog, with floppy ears and a wiggly bum, and we loved her. It seems a little silly to grieve so much for a dog, but she was really a member of our family. We're going to bury her in the yard, and plant a tree to mark her grave.

Well miss you, puppy.

Taja Harley Quinn

(she was AKC papered, and they require ridiculously long names)

AKA Taja, Taja dog, or Puppy.

April 2002- November 21, 2011

Puppy Taja

We have a lot of pictures like this. Taja was always kind of in the background of whatever was going on.

Taja loved playing soccer with us.

Two Christmases ago

Camping

Chewing a bone, enjoying the sunshine- one of her favorite ways to spend an afternoon.

Part of the family.

Photo Update

2011-11-03T13:25:00.001-04:00

A teaching CP some sweet soccer skills.

CP at his preschool Halloween Parade.

Our shelf of squash/pumpkins- many of these are now carved and sitting on the porch.

Kyle's getting this area all cleaned up- no more weeds and wood scraps and yard tools jumbled together.

I love watching chickens run across a yard.

J and neighbor B herding the chickens back to their coop.

This was a lot of work. I did it with the rotary mower. I was SORE the next day. The grass hadn't been mowed in a long time, as I mentioned in the previous post- I had to have the boys come out and lift the grass up with rakes so the mower would even catch it- it was so long and matted down.

Not a huge grape harvest this year...

We're already figuring how many we can drink each month to make them last a year. :)

Fall Clean Up (part three)

2011-10-29T18:57:00.001-04:00

I didn't take pictures again. But, we forced the boys out the door this morning and they did great picking grapes until the first bucket was full, after that it was painful to keep them working. We ended up with four buckets to put in the steam juicer.

While we were picking grapes, my Mister mowed the field, pulled the hoses from the big garden and stretched them out on the cement to get warm so he could coil them up and put them away, then he mowed the garden. We didn't plow because we're not sure if we'll be able to garden there next year when the house is being built. He did plow the neighbor's garden while I sat and visited. Our neighbor gave us some horseradish, a huge banana squash, a turkey egg, and some walnuts. It was a fruitful visit. :)

Next, I wanted to get the yard mowed, so I pulled out the rotary mower and made the boys come out to rake the grass up so the mower would catch it. It was really long and matted down, so that took awhile.

My Mister cleaned out the boat and laid the cover out to dry. We need to cover it with a more waterproof tarp this winter so we don't get water build up inside it. He also weed whacked around the driveway under the grapes.

Next up: making grape juice. I also need to clean out the black raspberry patch, but I'm not sure I'm going to get to that.

Fall Clean Up (Part Two)

2011-10-24T12:36:00.001-04:00

Saturday we had a lot of non-yard stuff to do, so we didn't get started on any of the yard work until close to 4pm.

My Mister started weed whacking around all the fruit trees while I pulled weeds from the strawberry bed, and cleared a place for garlic in another bed. I added compost, and got nearly a pound of garlic cloves planted. We planted Music that we ordered from my favorite seed company, Seed Savers Exchange, and covered the garlic with a thick layer of straw mulch.

Next was to weed whack all the strawberries down to nubbins and cover them with a thin layer of straw. Next spring the plants will grow up through the mulch. By weed whacking the plants now, the plants will be healthier and have better air circulation next spring.

We also gathered up the watering lines from the raised beds and pulled the tomato plants that don't have tomatoes on them still.

My Mister checked on the bees, and there aren't a lot of them. He's a little concerned that last month when he cleaned out the crooked comb, he might have killed the queen. We'll continue to watch the bees to see if their numbers continue to decrease, or if they build up again. There were some brood cells, but not many. Worst case, we may be buying bees again in the spring. Hopefully we learned enough this year, that we can avoid the crooked comb in the future and don't have to do such invasive work on the hive.

My Mister shucked all the corn, and put it in a bucket in the chicken coop storage area, the birds have already eaten/scratched all of the grass in their new run area, so they'll appreciate the corn cobs to play with.

The big pumpkin is finally starting to turn orange, but I don't think it will be orange by halloween. We'll see.

We moved the leftover hay into the chicken coop storage area, and will try to keep the kids out of it so we can use it in other areas. I want to use it to mulch over the artichoke plant once I cut it down. I'm still waiting for it to flower so I can collect some seeds. If I could get five or six plants to survive a winter, we'd be pretty set for artichokes.

Fall Clean Up (part one)

2011-10-15T19:40:00.002-04:00

This wasn't part of fall cleanup, but I had the picture, so here it is... I tried out a new french bread recipe and we all liked it quite a bit, plus it was less work overall than the "artisan bread in 5-minutes-a-day" recipe that I was using. It made three pretty nice sized loaves.

We pulled out all the corn. The cobs that were still on the stalks we are saving to feed to the chickens. They're mostly dried out, but the chickens don't seem to mind. So we'll let the rest of these dry out and give them out a few at a time. Our corn patch actually produced quite a few ears, but I never thinned it, so the ears are all tiny, and it was hard to get into it to pick much. We also cut off the sunflower heads. I'll save some seed to plant more next year, and the rest I think I'm going to try roasting. If it turns out well, we'll plant them more seriously next year.

I was hoping for a better butternut squash harvest, and there were only two jarrahdale squash, but we ended up with more pumpkins than I thought we'd get, considering our watering system didn't work out quite as well as we hoped it would.

We picked the dried beans, we'll let them finish drying out, and shell them, and save the seed for next year. This is my first year saving bean seeds, so I'm not sure how much I need, I'll post an update when we shell them.

We cleaned all the wet, gross, smelly wood shavings out of the chicken coop and replaced them with new, clean, dry shavings. It smells so much better in there! We also added a roost bar to help them get to the two side nesting boxes. They were piling up in the middle box half the time instead of going in the other two. Silly birds.

My Mister ran the corn stalks through the chipper, and we added that, and the poo/shavings from the chicken coop to the big pile of grass (from when we mowed the field and RAKED THE WHOLE THING (that was fun). Now we just need a rain to moisten the whole thing and it will really get hot. There is already some nice compost in the bottom from just the grass.

Here's a before shot of where the chicken run used to be:

And here's where it is now- we moved the run and the little feeding area lean-to so that the chickens could scratch a new area, the whole thing was getting stinky, so hopefully some fresh land helps, and lets the old area recover a little. In the spring we can move them back

I left two pumpkins in the garden since they were still green. A smaller one, and then this HUGE one. I don't think it will turn orange in time for halloween, but I'm hoping we can get it pureed and in the freezer.

Things to do another weekend:

Weed whack strawberries, and cover with mulch

Clean out raised beds

Save seeds from artichoke plants (if the things would ever flower!)

Pull the last of the onions

Put away watering system tubes

Prep and plant garlic bed

Clear out blackcap bed, and add compost

Mow

Pick grapes and do grape juice

Check bees

Pasta with Roasted Butternut Squash and Sausage

2011-10-09T20:46:00.004-04:00

Inspired by our recent trip up to Park City, and our dinner at The Farm, My Mister and I decided to branch out a bit from our regular meals, and try some new recipes using food from our garden. (The Farm uses mostly local ingredients.) I found the recipe at allrecipes.com and made a few changes based on what we had available and what sounded good. It turned out really well, so we'll probably make this one again. CP loved it and gobbled it up, A and J weren't fans of the squash, but ate it without too much coercing. The squash and onion came from our garden. See the link for the original recipe, below I've written it based on the changes we made.

2 TBSP Olive Oil

1 Butternut Squash cubed and peeled

1 Large Onion, chopped

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 box rotini pasta (14.5 oz)

1/2 lb hot italian sausage (we used buffalo, but pork or turkey would work well too)

1 TBSP flour

1/2 C milk

1 clove garlic, minced

2 TBSP balsamic vinegar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a glass oven safe dish with the olive oil. Place the squash and onion in the pan, and season with salt and pepper. Roast 30 minutes, or until squash is tender. (Don't overcook the squash or it will be mushy, ours was perfect right at 30 minutes)

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Place pasta in the pot, cook for 8 minutes, until al dente, and drain.

In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the sausage until evenly brown. Mix in the flour and garlic. Transfer the cooked squash and onion to the skillet. Pour in the milk. Continue cooking until heated through and milk thickens slightly. Gently mix in the pasta. Transfer to a large bowl, and toss with balsamic vinegar to serve.

Top with Parmesan cheese.

2011-10-06T12:55:00.000-04:00

Thanks again to Home Storage Skills for the idea. I washed and quartered the pears (and I took the stems off since stems in grape juice does affect the flavor of the juice), and cooked them for 2 hours in my steam juicer. With grapes 2 hours gets jut about all the juice out, but the pears had hardly cooked down at all. I could have given them another hour, but I decided to call it good. I didn't want to cook so much of the juice out that the sauce had no flavor left. After they cooled a bit in the juicer, I scooped everything into the strainer, and ended up with 4 quarts of juice (plus a little that we drank already- it's delicious) and 6 quarts of sauce- which is still on the runny side. I really probably should have cooked the pears for another hour in the juicer. The sauce was still plenty sweet.

Things I've been doing

2011-10-04T13:03:00.003-04:00

While playing out in the yard, I discovered a few HUGE peaches (I posted a picture in an earlier post), we canned those and got one canner full of quart jars. Not a lot, but it's more than we had before.

I also discovered that the apple trees had a few apples on them. My Mister picked them and we had a bucket full. Most of them had some bad spots to cut out, but after all that we still ended up with 6 quarts of applesauce.

I've been dehydrating more plums, and made a batch of plum/pear jam. It looks just like the plum jam, but you can taste the pear in it. I like it, but I don't love it so much that I think it's a good use of my small supply of pears.

I attempted pear sauce in the victorio strainer, but ended up with a slightly thicker juice. Not quite what I was hoping for. Searching online revealed the best way to make pear sauce is to peel and chop the pears, then cook them down. Pear sauce was my idea to avoid having to peel them (otherwise I would have just canned the pears). Now I'll either can the rest, or dehydrate them. I'm looking for the easiest option here, since I'm running out of time before the great grape deluge of 2011 kicks in.

When I was picking the pears, I was trying to think of a way to store them so they didn't bruise while they were ripening, and I thought of these cardboard crates the raspberries came in. They worked great. I just wish I had twice as many. If you have any, or ever get any, save them for me! They're not quite big enough for storing winter squash in, so I'll have to think of something else to use them for over the winter, so that I don't have to justify the space they'd take up sitting empty somewhere.

UPDATE: Thanks to the powers of Google, I discovered this blog post that talks about juicing pears in a steam juicer and canning the juice, then running the pulp through the strainer for the sauce. My only concern is that with the juice removed, the pulp will be bland, but I think if I don't cook the pears until there is no juice left, it should work out well.

While picking pears, I noticed that the old "weed" rosebushes are covered in rose hips. I've been reading up on rose hips and am currently deciding what to do with them, they're not ready yet, so I have some time. I have fond memories of eating rose hips while sitting on the roof of the old grainery that used to be behind our family home.

As far as a new camera goes, I've been holding off. I do have my iphone that can take pictures, but I'm currently trying to decide whether I want a fancy camera or if a point and shoot will serve my purposes...

Oh Dear, and Plums

2011-09-26T17:09:00.001-04:00

My 4-year-old dropped the camera. I asked him to get it for me so I could take a picture of putting italian plums on the dehydrator. I shouldn't have asked him to get it, but he does manage to carry things most of the time without dropping them. So, there won't be pictures of the plum project.

In addition to the dried plums (prunes), I'm also making some pureed plum jam-we discovered this two years ago when I had pureed plums to make fruit leather, but decided, last minute, to make jam instead, and we all really liked the texture of the pureed fruit jam, so we've done apricot jam this way as well.

Update

2011-09-22T20:38:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted in nearly a month. We've been busy with soccer and stuff around the yard, and, whenever something interesting happens, I post about it on facebook, so my mom is right, facebook reduces blog posting.

To finish off my last post, we got the honey strained, and here's what we ended up with:

We've already eaten most of one pint. The boys LOVE J's recipe for biscuits (that he got out of the Magic Thief book) with "fresh, homemade" honey.

It's a bit of a sad fruit year, the trees don't have much on them (with a couple of exceptions), the apples all fell before they were ripe. There weren't very many nectarines, so we ate a couple and dried the rest.

The peach tree finally has ripe peaches on it. Just a few, but the bonus of not-very-many peaches is that you get ones like this:

And here's a picture for my mom. Baby E has discovered the washing machine. He likes to watch the water and clothes swirl around. It's pretty funny to watch him bounce up and down in excitement.

I'm just a little black rain cloud, hovering over the honey tree...

2011-08-29T23:12:00.001-04:00

The other day I noticed the clump of bees hanging on the outside of the hive. Today my Mister finally had some time to go investigate. He opened the thing up and decided that the crooked combs had been rebuilt crookedly again really needed to be cleared out.

He cut quite a bit out and spaced the now-empty bars in between straight comb so that they hopefully rebuild straight this time. This is the picture where I got a little too close and got chased away by a couple of angry bees. They don't like people stealing their honey. After getting the combs cleared up, the bees were too riled up for him to do anything with the bees on the outside of the hive, so we're hoping it's not a major problem. We'll let them calm down for a few days and take a closer look then. I'm hoping they were just running out of space inside, and had started building comb on the outside- and not that they are getting ready to swarm... With how much honey we had to cut out, we're a little worried about winter anyway. We'll see how much they have left and how much more they can produce between now and winter.

Just a couple of fatalities.

We tried some of the honey comb. The kids were not a fan of the wax. The honey was so sweet that I had a hard time eating my spoonful. It needed a good biscuit or fresh bread or something.

With top bar hives, you don't use an extractor, you mash all the comb up in a big pot.

Scoop it into jars.

Cover the jar with a mesh-material. We used cheesecloth, but I think tulle would work a lot better. (UPDATE: the morning after setting the jars up, very little honey had dripped into the bottom jars, so I stopped by the fabric store and bought 1/2 yard of tulle- it should last for quite awhile- the difference was amazing, at this rate they might be done in a few hours!)

Place an empty jar (with ring) on top of the jar with mashed honeycomb.

Tape them together really well.

Invert.

It's supposed to be done by tomorrow morning, but I think the cheesecloth is slowing things down. If it doesn't look like there's been much progress by morning, I'll go by the fabric store to get some tulle to try again.

Raspberries

2011-08-28T18:39:00.001-04:00

When I was younger, I used to climb this doorway just like CP is doing in the picture (A taught him how). I'd get to the top and my siblings would say, "RAAAASSSBERRRIIIIEEEESSSS". If you've seen Thoroughly Modern Millie you'll know why that was funny enough to make me fall. That's not what this post is really about, but that's how my brain works..

Thursday, some friends from my former neighborhood posted on facebook that they were getting a really great deal on cases of raspberries from their produce coop, I ordered three cases. We ate a lot (it was nice to have enough that I could just let the boys eat away without feeling like the fruit scrooge), we gave some away, I froze a gallon bag full for use in smoothies, and made a batch of jam. We debated making more jam, or freezing more, but thought we'd try something different.

A couple of weeks ago I took the boys to the county fair, when we walked through the 4H building, I noticed there were several entries for canned raspberries. I thought about some of the things we'd use frozen raspberries for- cooked for a topping on ice cream or cheese cake especially- and thought that would work with canned ones, minus the risk freezing seems to carry around here (we haven't had the greatest luck with freezers, combined with children who like to leave freezer doors slightly ajar for some reason). Canned raspberries are beautiful. I wish I had bought several more cases (assuming they taste okay in whatever I use them in- I don't plan on eating them plain).

Ratatouille (AKA More Things to do with Zucchini)

2011-08-24T22:27:00.002-04:00

My sister gave me an eggplant, and some unusual-type tomatoes, so I thought I'd try making ratatouille. Turns out it's pretty similar to my italian summer stew. I've just never added eggplant before, because I think it's disgusting, and don't ever buy/grow it.

Turns out it was pretty good. The kids even sort of ate it. Baby E LOVED it, and I had a hard time scooping it onto his tray fast enough. I started out just giving him slices of zucchini, since he's had that before, but before too long, I was just scooping piles of everything and letting him have at it.

I sort of got my recipe from the Joy of Cooking and a recipe a friend posted on facebook awhile back, but I don't follow recipes very well, and also thought that instead of chopping the veggies, everything should be sliced thin like in the movie.

Ratatouille

Thinly slice onions, and sautee them in a pan with lots of olive oil and garlic until they're almost carmelized. Remove from pan and set aside. Layer thinly sliced eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes (tomatoes don't really slice thinly, but do what you can), and some of the onions, some chopped bell pepper (red would be pretty, I only had green anaheims, so I used those), and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Repeat until your pan is full or you've run out of veggies. Top with a liberal splash of olive oil. Cover and cook on very low heat for 20-30 minutes. Add a little water if necessary- if things dry out, the bottom will burn... Remove lid and simmer for 10 more minutes if there's a lot of liquid in it still.

I served mine over pasta (with parmesan cheese, of course), because I knew the kids wouldn't eat it as the only thing for dinner. It worked out great. The best thing is that a large portion of dinner came out of the garden right before I cooked it.

(I'm thinking I should relabel my blog, "things to do with zucchini". We tend to eat it just about every night at this time of year...)

Another thing to do with zucchini

2011-08-11T21:21:00.001-04:00

Slice it thin, and lay it on top of a pizza. Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top (because zucchini is so good with parmesan). This pizza was about my favorite one we've ever made (My Mister made it- he's getting to be quite the pizza chef). It had sauce, mozzarella cheese, bacon, green peppers, zucchini and parmesan cheese. The other pizza (the one that the kids ate) had bacon and pineapple. (Obviously this is not a vegetarian dinner like the label says, but leave the bacon off and you're good (maybe slightly less good)).

July 24th (observed)

2011-07-26T00:37:00.000-04:00

Since Pioneer Day fell on a Sunday, it was "observed" today, and my Mister got the day off work. He went for a bike ride in the morning while I ran hills on the treadmill (he got the better deal this time...).

Other things we did (I just realized that several of the pictures are from Saturday...):

These apricots are actually from yesterday. He picked them saturday and we didn't get to them. The mushy ones we pureed and then canned. 8 of each kind.

We did beans on Saturday, and also had some chicken broth from the home raised chickens we ate last week, chicken broth and green beans have the same processing requirements, so we put the broth in jars and canned it. Two and a half pints.

The boys decided to move their fort from the bush by the front door to this pine tree.

My Mister spent a lot of Saturday organizing the garage. He finished (for the most part) today and we can now park in it! He also built a bike rack out of pvc pipe so we won't have bikes thrown down all over the place anymore.

His other major project was mowing. He mowed all around the garden, while I played with Keiko dog, she liked sniffing in the weeds, so I think she was a little sad to see the whole thing mowed.

He mowed the field. There is so much cut grass that we really need to go rake it up. Who knows when that will happen though. Taja dog enjoyed the clipped grass. She made herself comfortable in a shady spot and watched Kyle clean out the garage.

We also got 3 eggs today. They're still pretty tiny, but seem to be getting bigger.

Saturday Morning Chores

2011-07-23T14:14:00.000-04:00

I went for a run while my Mister picked one apricot tree clean. The trees are a bit sparse this year, so even though these aren't the prettiest (they're pock marked), we're canning them anyway.

He also worked on getting the dead bees out of the wax from the crooked combs he had cut off before our vacation. He was using a fork to scoop the bees out, when I got home and saw what he was doing, I suggest we get a solar wax melter. Ours was pretty pricey. Here's a close up:

Our solar wax melter seems to be working pretty well.

Still just one hen laying, although others have been in the nesting box off and on, so I'm guessing the others should start soon.

We let the chickens out to free range a bit, they like eating the weeds.

We have several more projects going on today, so I'll post about them later. I also picked the black caps again. My Mister finished up the last little bit of drywalling in the garage, and fixed the garage doors.

2011-07-21T23:17:00.001-04:00

J starting out on his 1 mile fun run.

J Finishing his run

A in his 1/2 mile fun run. He's wearing a dark blue shirt and looks back at the camera after he's passed.

CP in his 1/4 mile. My Mister had a hard time finding him, so he doesn't show up until toward the end. He's wearing a bright green shirt. He managed to avoid all the crashes. I love CP's gait. 4-year-olds are adorable.

The good things about coming home from vacation

2011-07-21T18:38:00.000-04:00

A neighbor picked the blackcaps for us while we were gone, but there were still more ready.

I knew the beans would be more than ready, since they started blossoming a couple of days before we left. I got a 5 gallon bucket full this morning. We'll eat some for dinner (is it okay to have a dinner be JUST green beans?) and can the rest. The first picking is usually smaller than the rest, so I'm expecting a lot of beans from our patch.

There is one tiny artichoke on the artichoke plant. I'm watching to see if it gets bigger. Hopefully it starts producing more so we can eat them for dinner soon. One day I'm going to plant several down the middle of a raised bed. They'll take up the whole thing, but I love them enough that it's worth it.

The squash plants are flowering and sending our runners. Some of them are now touching each other, which is good for my plan to hopefully keep rats out of my corn.

The indoor volunteer cherry tomato has two red tomatoes on it.

The outdoor tomatoes are still green, but getting bigger.

Apricots need to be picked. It's a small crop this year thanks to the weird spring and some late freezes, but we'll take what we can get.

Garden Update 7/12

2011-07-12T12:34:00.000-04:00

We've gotten three tiny eggs in the last three days, so just one hen is laying still. The top two eggs in this photo are ours, the larger egg is from the store. We need to make sure our hens are getting more greens, the yolks should be much darker than the store bought egg.

The nesting boxes that my Mister built. We worried they'd be too high, and that we should put in a ladder, but before we got that far, we found an egg in the center box. It's amazing to me that the chickens knew where to lay the egg even though the nesting box had only appeared in the coop the day before we got our first egg.

It had been awhile since my Mister checked on the bees, so he thought it would be a good thing to do before we went on our camping trip....

This one looks good. The bees are capping the honey.

This one doesn't look so good. We had the follower board blocking the last third of the hive or so. The bees filled up all their available space and got into the back area, where they started to make some comb that crossed several top bars. My Mister had to cut those combs off, then he moved the follower board, opening up the entire hive, so hopefully the bees rebuild straight. They weren't too happy with what he was doing, and he got stung once on the leg. He came in and got some long pants on (maybe a duh thing right there...) and was fine. He left the comb he cut off in a bucket outside the hive so the bees could gather the honey in it and move it back inside.

We set up the automatic watering system in the big garden. No more watering by hand!

One of the zucchini plants in the raised bed garden is blossoming. I bet we come home from our camping trip to some zucchini.

I found this weird mushroom. The big parts were in a ring around a smaller center part, like a flower. We didn't eat it.

Cherry tomato.

Paste tomatoes.

Bees were on the onion flowers. I think I'm supposed to knock the stocks over so that the bulb gets bigger, but it's hard to when the bees are enjoying the flowers so much. I wonder what onion honey tastes like...

It's hard to see from this picture, but there was a lady bug on the artichoke plant. I noticed aphid-looking bugs the other day, and sprayed them off with the hose, so I was glad to see the lady bug. Hopefully her friends are around and they're taking care of the aphids. The good things that come when you don't use pesticides... Which reminds me. When I was a kid, my parents hired a neighbor boy to come do some yard work for them. As a joke, he used round up to kill a big Y in the field (his family were all BYU fans, my family were UofU fans). For the parade, we had most of that family sitting next to us, and they joked about using round up to put another Y in the field. My comment was that if they could find an organic way to put the Y in the field, they could go for it. I just didn't want to cause problems for the bees and ladybugs and all the other beneficial insects that help us maintain our garden.

Obligatory First Egg Photo

2011-07-09T17:03:00.001-04:00

My Mister got the nesting boxes built for the chickens earlier this week, and installed them. They're up kind of high, so we were thinking of adding a ladder so the ladies could get up there easily. Well, this morning we thought we heard the "I just laid an egg" clucking, and I went and looked, and sure enough, there was a little egg inside the center nesting box. It amazes me that they know what it's for even though we just barely stuck it in there. Smart chickens.

First eggs are always small- here it is next to a grocery store egg. Hopefully the other ladies start laying soon. I only have five eggs left in the fridge (plus the tiny one), and I'd love to not have to buy eggs anymore.

Garden Update

2011-07-07T12:58:00.000-04:00

The apricots are starting to turn. There aren't very many of them this year, so we're watching them closely to make sure we get them all.

The artichoke plant is getting big. No signs of artichokes yet, but we're ready.

The tomato plants (most of them anyway) have finally started growing. They sat and did nothing for quite awhile. There are even little green tomatoes on most of them.

The peppers are just now starting to get bigger. They're still pretty small. We haven't had a really good pepper crop in a few years, so hopefully these do better.

The peas are starting to die back, and I need to pull them out so that these sad little cucumber plants can have the trellis (and get a little more sun).

My edamame experiment is going well. No blossoms yet, but the plants look good.

I picked and ate ONE blackcap. It was the only one ripe. The rest are getting close (please let them ripen BEFORE we leave to go camping next week!). We're going to eat them and put the rest in the freezer for smoothies and ice cream and stuff. The blackcaps are the healthiest they've been in as long as I can remember. I think it's partly due to the wet spring, me remembering to water them regularly, and the bees.

This is the weeded half of the corn. The half to the left of the photo isn't weeded and looks, well, less nice. You can also see the squash/pumpkin plants. I put these around the perimeter in hopes that the prickly vines would deter critters and varmints (apparently critters and varmints are not the same thing- the things you learn from netflix).

The beans. They just started to flower yesterday. Bean canning will be in the near future. We did so many last year (I picked and picked in hopes of going into labor on my own- so glad it's this year and not last year...) that we still have a couple of pints left.

The ladies are enjoying the peace and quiet now that the meat birds are gone. We kept six hens. They haven't started laying yet, but they should, any day.

Summer so far...

2011-07-07T12:34:00.000-04:00

The boys have been busy with various day camps. They took a sewing class one week, and made pillow cases and these backpacks, they loved it and want to do it again next year.

We all (except Baby E) ran the Centerville Fun Run. Mister and I ran the 5k (he took 3rd in his age group, and I was 13th in mine- with a personal best- 8:36 minute miles), J ran the 1 mile, A ran the 1/2 mile (he fell at the beginning, but got right back up and finished with bloody knees), and CP ran the 1/4 mile (which was the cutest thing ever).

A couple of parade floats were passing out otter pops, which Baby E was really happy about.

A and his friend S show that BYU and Utah could be friends if they really wanted to (although A says he doesn't like BYU anymore, phew...) They're wet because they went down a big inflatable water slide at the carnival at the park.

Here's CP going down- he went down 3 times in a row.

J going down.

A couple of weeks ago J and my Mister did the Tsunami Tri over at the rec center. J did the novice 150M swim, 3 mile bike, 1 mile run. He took 2nd place in his age group! My Mister took 3rd in his age group (he likes 3rd apparently).

After the Tri, we came home, I went for a run, we did some garden work, then we headed up to Park City for a Mtn Bike race. J won his race.

Happy (early) Father's day Dad.

2011-06-13T18:24:00.000-04:00

I'm off somewhere. Yesterday, we all woke up, and I felt bad that I didn't make my Mister a special Father's Day breakfast (because I was sick). It was only today that I realized I was a week off. In case I forget, or get off again, I thought I'd post this while I was thinking about it.

Some of my memories of my dad:

Sometimes I think my dad buys too many gifts, I used to try to stifle it more with my kids (and I do still encourage non-purchased gifts with my kids- like reading or playing with them) but I've learned that buying presents is one of the ways he shows love.

Once when I was sick (and this happened pretty much every time I was sick, but this one really stands out), he brought me a My Little Pony play set, that included a cloud that really rained. It really made me feel better.

In Montessori school, someone had made fun of me, and I came home crying. My dad told me I didn't have to go back if I didn't want to. I did go back, but it was nice to know that my dad wasn't going to make me.

Once when I was too old for my dad to be carrying around (I thought anyway), I tripped while out on a walk with him, and skinned my knees pretty bad, my dad picked me up and carried me home.

I had invited my friend Jessica to sleep over, my dad drove me up to her house to pick her up, but instead of going on the road, he cut through the dirt field behind our house. To get up to the street (and back down again) he had to maneuver a sharp 3-foot-high incline. It was awesome.

As a teen, I was jealous of all the cool activities the young men/scouts got to do, but not to worry, my dad took all the young women and leaders backpacking in southern utah (twice I think). We called them, the "It is fair, hike".

In college, my dad drove an hour and a half just to take me shopping and out to dinner at the nicest restaurant in town. Daddy/Daughter dates were the best.

On one Daddy/Daughter date, (well maybe more than one), he took me shopping for some new clothes, I tried on a huge stack of things and when it came time to pick what I wanted to buy, he suggested we buy them all.

I always thought my dad had amazing taste in clothing. Turns out he used to just buy whatever outfit the mannequin was wearing.

The only time I questioned my dad's taste in clothing was when he wore his maroon shirt with red suspenders (he's colorblind, and thought they were the same color).

My dad is always helping those around him. His heart hurts to see anyone in pain, or going without.

One of the nicest examples I can think of of what kind of man my dad is: At book club last week, I was talking with some of my friends, and one (who has known my parents for a long time) told me about a funny article written by LDS satire columnist Robert Kirby. Five Kinds of Mormons and I'll give a short overview (but for the full thing, read the link):

Liberal Mormons-not necessarily politically liberal, just not considered mainstream by the other mormons.

Genuine Mormons- practically invisible because of their low-key approach to the gospel. That and because they are rarely found at home, almost always being off helping others through some trial or other. GMs operate out of love instead of guilt. (there's only 12 of these in the world, and four of them are the three Nephites and John the beloved)

Conservative Mormons- the largest group of the 5 categories. Most mormons, especially in Utah are this type.

Orthodox Mormons- if "no dating until you're 16" is good. "No dating until you're 18" is better.

Nazi Mormons- Those of the "God is a BYU alumnus" sort.

ANYWAY, my friend said, George is a Genuine Mormon. It's true, whenever he hears about a problem, he asks what he can do to help. He cares about people.

Thanks for teaching me to care about other people. Thanks for showing me that I can love the Gospel, even when I don't have answers for all of my questions.

I love you Dad!

Garden Update/Happy Friday

2011-06-10T15:44:00.001-04:00

I haven't had my camera around lately, but I finally went out with my phone and took some pictures. The corn and beans are up, a little (although I just chased some boys (not my own) out of my garden, what was up with that?). A couple of squash plants around the perimeter are up, but I'm getting a little worried that not more are sprouting yet. My plan was to have a barrier of squash vines surrounding the corn and beans to discourage critters from going in and eating all the corn again this year...

One of the few pumpkin plants that are up.

Black Caps. They've liked all the rain apparently, because I haven't seen them so healthy in years. I need to make sure I continue to water them so we get good berries. One of my longer-term goals involves getting starts of these berries for my own garden. It's a very old variety, they're seedy, but they taste sooo good.

Our bees are loving the black cap blossoms. Look close, lower, middle of the picture.

Artichoke plant- I'm counting on lots of artichokes. (I'd better get one good sized meal out of it anyway.)

Peas. I planted these early, and they didn't do anything, but they're finally taking off, and blooming, so we should get peas here soon.

Strawberry patch. It's nearly filled the whole raised bed. The berries are looking nice, shouldn't be too much longer until we're picking strawberries too!

Chickens. They must sense what's coming, they all tried to hide from me.

My Mister found this in the free section of KSL classifieds. We'll hook a hose up (and clean it really good) and use it for our work station tomorrow when the roosters buy the farm. Taja is enjoying sniffing around the garden, it was hard to get pictures, because she wanted to be in so many of them. Silly dog.

Remaking a College Standby

2011-06-01T09:25:00.003-04:00

In college one of the "fancier" meals my roommates and I prepared was creamy chicken on rice. With a side of green beans, and rhodes rolls.

I have several happy chickens that I cooked in the crock pot recently, that are or were waiting in the fridge to have the meat pulled off the bones, and this dinner sounded good.

The original dinner is made by cooking chicken breast in the george foreman grill, then smothering it in a can of cream of chicken soup, and putting the whole thing over white rice. Here's my grown-up version (I do sometimes use cream of whatever soup, but they're really terrible for you, and don't actually taste all that great, so I try to avoid them).

4 TBSP Butter
4 TBSP Flour
2 TBSP Chicken Base (I like this better than bouillon, I get mine at costco)
4 C milk
2 cloves Garlic, minced
2 C shredded chicken
Rice

Melt 4 TBSP of butter in pan, add 2 TBSP of chicken base, Add flour until all the butter/base is absorbed (somewhere around 4 TBSP). Slowly whisk in 4 C of milk, a half cup or so at a time, stir over low heat until thickened. Add minced garlic to taste (I used one clove, but two would have been better). Add cooked chicken (about 2 cubs shredded, but adjust according to how much chicken your family likes) and heat over low until chicken is warm. Don't let it boil or the gravy will be lumpy.

Serve over rice, I used a mix of 2/3 brown rice and 1/3 wild rice mix. Serve with a vegetable (we had broccoli and peas, separately, because I had tiny amounts left in the freezer of both...). I had a little, then went to a meeting, then on a bike ride, and when I finally got home, it was all gone, so I guess everyone liked it. Next time I'd increase the recipe a bit for my family of 6 (even the baby ate it).

For my Mom

2011-05-10T19:30:00.001-04:00

A mowing paths or possibly bike parking, for his "spy club".

The soccer field.

Part of the maze.

IronMan to BeeMan

2011-05-10T11:26:00.001-04:00

We spent the weekend in St. George where my Mister competed in his first IronMan. It was a crazy weekend, but pretty amazing to consider what he did. 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and a marathon. 140.6 miles total. He finished in a little over 14 hours. Pretty amazing. Even more amazing is that he'd like to do another one. He figured he'd do a lot better on the run if he took some Ibu after the bike ride.

The volunteers at check-in gave us extra swim caps. The boys can't wait to wear them to their swimming lessons next month. J keeps saying that he wants his teacher to teach him "extra" stuff because he's going to do his first triathlon this summer.

Taking the bike to the swim/bike transition area.

This is where the 2 mile swim would take place.

Just coming out of the bike to run transition, he's looking pretty good.

Halfway done with the marathon. He's hurting. Luckily he heard another runner's advil bouncing around and asked for some. After they kicked in, he finished strong. We missed him coming in at the finish line because he sped up so much the last few miles.

I did get this picture of him with my cell phone after we met up with him at the finish line.

Our friend did get this clip of my Mister Crossing the finish line, he's pretty pleased. He said he smiled the last several miles because he felt so good about what he had done.

We arrived home on sunday night, and on monday we had to head to Orem to pick up our bees. This is the hive minus the top.

The bees. (and my mister)

The queen

Installing. This was freaky. My Mister got stung twice, and several bees chased us into the house. I 'm kind of wondering what we're thinking. Hopefully they calm down now that they're not getting violently shaken into the hive.

Photo To Do (or I did) list:

2011-05-02T17:42:00.000-04:00

Today I fed the little chickens, they're still in the garage and will be until we think they're big enough to safely mix with the older chickens, if that time ever comes.

CP "helped" me mow the little area of lawn just outside the door. Even the small area was a lot of work, but it felt good. I love my reel mower.

I checked on the older chickens, they don't want to come outside, even though it is such a nice day. I picked a few up and pushed them out the pop door, but they looked around and went back in. Silly birds.

I put the cage over the peas. Something (and by something I mean quail) has been chewing them to stubs. Hopefully the cage protects the peas and they recover from their munching. CP didn't think I could move the cage, but I told him I was pretty strong. Afterward, he thought I was pretty strong too.

Here are the chewed on peas. Kind of sad looking.

I uncovered the asparagus, and found several coming up. I love spring.

I uncovered the artichokes, and I'm not sure any of the plants survived. I'll give them a few weeks and see if there's any sign of life, then I'll plant something else in that spot. The onions look good though.

I had lunch. Leftover stir fry on brown rice. I didn't post about it at the time, but it was really good. It was just olive oil, garlic, (would have had onions but I was out), carrots, broccoli, canned tomatoes, cashews, edamame, teriyake sauce, and a little curry.

I made bread.

While the bread was baking CP and I went back outside and worked on mowing a little soccer field in the top half of the big field. We're going to let the grass grow high around the edges to keep the ball from rolling where we don't want it, and also mow a maze into the bottom half.

Another Vegetarian Dinner Recipe

2011-04-09T21:54:00.003-04:00

Feminist Mormon Housewives has a post up announcing a presentation about meat and the word of wisdom at Utah Valley University (it's really hard for me to think of the school as UVU, not UVSC...) the comments following the post talk about whether Mormon's ought to eat meat or not, based off of various scriptures, some which say we shouldn't eat meat, except for times of winter and famine, and some say not at all, and some say we shouldn't tell other people not to eat meat.

I think regardless of which scripture you're going off of, it's probably pretty safe to say, that, as a whole, we members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints (Elder Packer said we should use the whole name, but it really is easier to just type "mormon") eat way too much meat. I like meat. Every once in awhile a quality hamburger really sounds good, and every once in awhile i actually want a steak. I'm also kind of a lazy cook, so making vegetarian meals is actually less work. No killing and plucking the chicken first... (or defrosting the package of ground buffalo). Whatever your view on the amounts of meat we should be eating, or your reasons for eating it, or not, a nice quick vegetarian dinner recipe is handy (plus it's good for your budget to skip the meat now and then).

my 9-year-old took this picture

Tonight's dinner was a variation of one of my summer stew recipes, but it turned out really good.

Saute a small, chopped onion, and one or two cloves of garlic, minced, in some olive oil. Add sliced yellow squash, two cans of diced tomatoes, a couple shakes of dry oregano. Cook over med. high heat.

Bring pot of water to boil, and add pasta (we had linguine).

While linguine is cooking, stir sauce, and add salt and pepper to taste. As a last minute addition I threw in some pine nuts and a splash of balsamic vinegar. OH MY, did that balsamic vinegar make a difference. Yum.

Drain pasta, add sauce, and top with liberal amounts of parmesan cheese. I think it would also be good with some red pepper flakes added to give it a little kick. My kids are not so appreciative of the kick yet so we skipped that.

J and A reported that it was not terrible (they didn't want to taste it at first, because they thought it looked terrible), but not great either, just okay. I thought it was so good, that even though I'm full, I'm salivating and thinking about having another plate.

how come my 9-year-old can take pictures that are clear, and then 1 minute later my picture, using the same camera is all blurry?

Using Kale

2011-03-29T21:49:00.001-04:00

My produce coop included kale in the last basket, and after doing some googling on what to do with it, I decided to make a variation on my Moroccan summer stew. It turned out really good. The kids ate it okay, just minor complaining. They're allowed to pick out one item from any stir-fry type meal which they don't like- but they do have to taste at least one of that item, in case they've started liking it since last time. They all picked the green peppers not the kale, which surprised me.

Blurry, but delicious.

(amounts depend on how many people you're feeding)

Saute onions and garlic in olive oil.

Add a liberal amount of cumin.

Add green peppers, and pine nuts, continue to saute.

Add chopped tomatoes, and drained garbanzo beans.

Turn down heat to low.

Prepare kale by rinsing well in a bowl of water, draining, then cutting the leaves off the stem, and chopping into smaller pieces. Add kale to the saute pan, and a little water if it's dry. At this point if you can't smell the cumin, add some more (I'm not sure it's possible to add too much cumin...). Cover and allow kale to steam for 15-30 minutes (depending on how cooked you like it, and how tender the kale was to start with).

Serve over quinoa, and salt to taste.

Update

2011-03-24T17:32:00.000-04:00

This is what happens to a $20 bike from a superstore when your kids like to take it "offroading" and off jumps. (Yes, my 3-year-old goes off (small) jumps. He'd go off bigger ones if we let him, but we're good parents and make sure the jumps are very small.)

Close Up... The tires were solid foam of some sort, and the spokes were plastic. Several spokes broke. CP was still trying to ride with it like this, until he got too frustrated, and brought it to us saying there was something funny with his tire. You think?

Thanks Grandpa (and Grandma) for sponsoring his new (well-built) bike from our local bike shop. He opted for the next size up, which is good, it will last longer, although his older brother is a little jealous that CP's bike is the same size as his. The only down side of the bigger bike, is that it will probably take him longer to learn to ride without training wheels since it's bigger. Where's that kid's helmet?

Phew, there it is..

Other things I've been doing:

Pruning the grapes. You can't see how much better they look from this angle, but you can see the piles of vines I cut off.

Taking care of the chickens. They're getting big. They also go through their water dishes fast. We need to get the big one out so they're aren't so thirsty when I go out to refill things. These chicks are 5 weeks old now. Maybe 6. Old enough that they're moving outside as soon as we can get the coop done.

The babies are two weeks old now.

Years gone by...

2011-03-14T08:45:00.001-04:00

My friend Connie saved a sea bird while on vacation, and it reminded me of something I was going to post last year but didn't ever get around to.

When I was in 6th grade, there was a tradition for the 6th graders to release helium balloons on the last day of school.

My sister had told me about helium balloons getting into the ocean and killing turtles and other animals who tried to eat them, so I made flyers and passed them out around the school. A lot of kids were unhappy about losing the tradition the year it was their turn, but someone paid attention to my flyers.

We ended up planting trees and all the 6th graders put notes in with the roots instead.

Last year when my boys were in their first year at this same school that I attended, I was sitting outside on the playground with my 3-year-old and my friend's little boy while she volunteered in her older son's classroom. I looked over toward the playing fields and saw the tree that I helped plant, and was reminded to be grateful for my peculiarity. Years later, the tree provides shade for my own kids, and no sea turtles were killed. :)

Miscellaneous Happiness

2011-03-04T19:06:00.001-05:00

Today I was sitting wondering why I am generally pretty happy when there are so many things to be overwhelmed and frustrated about. Here are some of the things I thought of...

My kids are outside riding bikes in the driveway, and laughing.
My peas are planted (the garden bed was frozen a few inches down, but there was enough defrosted to put peas in).
Progress with the city to get permission to apply for a building permit is moving along at a decent speed.
The chicks are entering their awkward teenage weeks.
The chicks are playing angry birds with each other. Running, flapping their wings and bowling into everyone else.
The chicks are establishing a pecking order. Some are getting aggressive, guess which ones will go in the canning kettle first... (Should it bother the feminist in me that chicks adhere to traditional gender roles so much?)
I'm married to someone I really love, and I would rather spend time with him than anyone else.
I've been getting regular exercise and have some big races this year!
The Girl Scout cookies arrived today.

It's a March Miracle!

2011-03-01T16:57:00.003-05:00

I posted back in January about our indoor gardening. It was pretty much a big flop. Mainly because I stink at watering things. The only reason I'm halfway decent with outdoor gardening is because of a happy little invention known as the automatic watering system. The peas actually were in a self watering container that we WAY overfilled, and I think the seeds rotted. We do have a nice crop of some kind of weed growing there now. It looks nice, so I'm leaving it where it is. The lettuce and stuff grew, but not very well (plants do need regular water). The grape vines sat and sat and did nothing. NOTHING. The website I learned about propagating grapes from said they'd sprout in a couple of weeks. Well, today my 3-year-old wanted to water the plants (he waters them more regularly than anyone else does), so I said sure! I was a little worried he'd spill water everywhere, so I followed him into the greenhouse to help him out, and I saw leaves on two of the grape cuttings.

Of course, my camera is still MIA, so here's a picture from the website I got the idea from. Of course, my grapes aren't this big yet, they both just have one tiny leaf, but they're growing! I'll have my old unknown* grape variety when we move. Nothing makes grape juice like these babies!

Picture from http://www.gardenhive.com/fruit/grapes/propagate/stem-cuttings/

*Officially unknown. As I wrote in my earlier post, they're called Agwumps, but I can't find any information on any grapes with a name anywhere close to that. They've been growing in this location for more than 40 years. I need to find out more information about them. Why do you always think of things you'd like to ask your grandmother when she's not around to ask anymore?

Doing the best we can- the hummingbird challenge

2011-02-27T11:40:00.001-05:00

So often I feel overwhelmed with what I see as unfixable problems. There are a lot of things that I, on my own will never be able to fix. But, like the hummingbird, I can do the best that I can.

This clip was from the documentary Dirt. It was really interesting, and I think I could (and will) watch it over and over again. It talks about what dirt is, and our relationship with it. As we forget its importance, and allow it to become damaged, it stops nourishing us with healthy food. I was talking to my aunt and she mentioned how her stepson wouldn't eat carrots for a long time after seeing our grandmother pull them out of the garden. We've become so accustomed to seeing our food in neat little packages at the store that we've forgotten where food comes from. In an effort to produce more to meet the endless demands of cheaper food, the quality of our soil has decreased as we pump pesticides and herbicides into it. Our way of life is not sustainable, and eventually we will be forced to make changes.

I believe that God put us on the earth to learn and to grow. Part of that growth and learning, is learning to be good stewards of the life around us. That includes the dirt.

It's not practical for everyone to stop buying corn fed beed, or switch to organic foods. However, like the hummingbird, even if we can't completely change how we eat, we can do what we can. If that means growing our own garden, great! If it means buying locally produced meats (Christensen's Family Farm in my side link sells grass fed beef and pork!), then do it! If it means you switch one meal, or one meal more, each week from a meat based meal to a vegetarian one, it can make a difference (plus vegetarian meals are often cheaper). If it means you find organic gardening and yard care solutions, great!

So my challenge to all five of you who read my blog, is be a hummingbird. Find something you can do to put out the fire. How will you respond to the hummingbird challenge?

Honey Whole Wheat Bread (that isn't too sweet)

2011-02-24T18:57:00.001-05:00

I've been looking for a good whole wheat bread recipe for a long time. I've gone through a few different recipes. Some have been good, but didn't have a great texture. Others seemed to go stale too fast. This one was a little too sweet for anything but pb&j's so I reduced the amount of honey in it. The proof of the goodness of the recipe is that my 7-year-old doesn't pick the insides of his sandwich off and leave the bread like he was doing with my last recipe (it was really good, nice texture, but had no sweetener in it, and did tend to go stale faster than we ate it).

I can't find our camera (thanks to my 3-year-old I'm sure!) so I stole this picture off of the food.com website where I got the recipe.

Another bonus of this recipe is 1 fewer raising times than my previous recipe.

Ingredients:

4 1/2 tsp yeast

4 C water

1/2 C butter, softenend

1/4 C molases

1/4 C honey (the original called for 1/2 cup but it was too sweet)

2 tsp salt

10 C whole wheat flour (the original calls for 6c wheat 4c white flour, but it tastes good with all whole wheat)

1/4 cup vital wheat gluten (my addition since I'm using whole wheat flour)

Dissolve yeast in warm water.

In a large bowl comine butter, molases, honey, salt, and mix well.

Add yeast mixture, then gradually add flour.

Knead until smooth (I just do this in my kitchenaid)

Raise until double (about 1 1/2 hours) in a warm place.

Punch down and let rest for a few minutes.

Divide into 4 parts (I do 3 because my bread pans are extra long) and shape into loaves.

Place in pans (it says to grease them, but I don't) and let rise for an hour or so.

Bake at 375 for 35-40 minutes.

What to do when you have the winter Blahs, and a greenhouse...

2011-01-16T11:11:00.000-05:00

Plant some peas with your 3-year-old.

Fill some pots with lettuce seed.

Hopefully we're eating lettuce before march... I can't remember how long it takes to grow.

Finally get those grape propagations going.

Clean the greenhouse so that you don't have to put on work boots just to go in it.

Clean out all the dead tomato plants and be thrilled to discover that the still-living parts have new flowers.

Dream about how tall your peas are going to get. (if they grow, that is...)

My Mister and I were trying to figure out where we'd do stuff like this in our dream house... It won't have a greenhouse attached to the living room. We're thinking something like this would be a combination mudroom/living room project. Dirty work in the mudroom, pots in the living room (which is where the south facing windows will be).

Baked Ziti (or Penne, rather)

2011-01-11T21:21:00.000-05:00

Dinner tonight was just something I kind of threw together, but I have to say, it was really tasty, so I thought I'd share...

Cook pasta, drain.

Brown ground beef, some garlic and a small chopped onion (I cooked probably a pound or so, and put half in the fridge for another day)

Add 1 small can of tomato paste, and 1 regular sized can of chopped tomatoes (I used some that had italian seasoning in them already, so if you just use regular tomatoes, add a tsp or so of italian seasoning, or a combination of basil and oregano.

In a separate bowl, combine 1 carton of cottage cheese, or ricotta cheese, some shredded mozzarella (Maybe 1 cup or so?), and half a cup or so of shredded parmesan, add 1 tsp salt.

Layer the pasta, meat sauce and cheese sauce in a casserole dish, add a little more cheese to the top and bake at 350 F until the cheese is melted (I like it a little crunchy around the edges).

Serve with salad or whatever. :) (the cherry tomatoes in the salad pictured are from the plant that we grew over the summer in a pot and now have inside. It's mostly dead since I never water it, so I imagine these (very tiny) tomatoes will be the last we get from it.)

Goals or Resolutions?

2011-01-01T17:25:00.000-05:00

I'm not a big fan of New Years resolutions. Especially the generic ones that get broken by January 2nd. When the government passes a resolution, we all know it's pretty meaningless. I do have some goals that I'm working for this year however (some of them are kind of generic, but I like having lots of things on my to-do list because then I have more to cross off- especially when I would have done those things anyway)...

Suburban Homestead Goals:

Help my Mister build a safer chicken coop, and order new chicks in the spring.
Bug my Mister until he builds a beehive (before the bees arrive in april).
Learn how to take care of the bees, and harvest the honey.
Learn about things I can use beeswax for.
Grow and can as much produce as possible.

Other Goals:
Learn to ride my bike outside without falling over or crashing into anyone/anything.
Learn to fix a flat/change a tire
Run a marathon.
Spend less than we earn.
Build our savings.
Get rid of clutter (have a garage sale at some point).
Clean365
Find ways to spend meaningful time with each kid everyday.
Do one nice thing for my Mister everyday (even if it's just making the bed)
Try to shop local first.
Plan ahead for dinner.

Bees!

2010-12-30T15:39:00.000-05:00

I've gotten a little behind with my plans for this winter. I had intended to plant lettuce under our grow lights and have not yet. I intended to take cuttings from the grape vines, and haven't. My other to-do project this winter was get bees ordered.

photo credit Petitepets.com

That, I actually did, which means my Mister needs to get hopping (as soon as he is healthy again) and build a hive. We've decided to use a Top Bar Hive instead of the traditional type of hive. The honey production is slightly lower, but it's much easier to use, cheaper (especially since mr. can build it himself) and produces lots of wax that we can use. I'm looking into making those wickless candle square refill things.... The harvesting of the honey is also much easier, since we don't need any special equipment. A potato masher, cheesecloth for straining out the wax, some clean buckets, and the sunshine should take care of the entire process.

The bees will arrive in april, and we're looking forward to adding them to our suburban homestead.

Merry Christmas 2010 in review... sort of...

2010-12-26T16:24:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas to our friends and family! I thought I'd make things easier on myself by putting a link to my blog in our christmas card, and not sending a million copies of our christmas letter around. Also, I didn't write a christmas letter. I sat down to start one, but was interrupted in the first attempt by J throwing up. The next week when I sat down to do it again, my Mister and A had come down with the flu. The funny thing is that I've put off writing anything on my blog because after nursing sick people for two weeks, I am sick, along with CP and baby E.

Due to my lack of sleep/general achyness, I can't really remember everything that happened this year. My most recent memories involve trying to get the binky to stay put in baby E's ear, until it dawned on me that that was not where binky's go, and taking a handful of wet burp rags to the garbage can instead of the laundry. (I caught myself in time). Remind me not to hold the baby when trying to do anything else, or he's likely to end up in the bread box or something.

The second-biggest thing we did this year was, after unsuccessfully trying to sell our home for a year, we decided to try the rental market, and had renters within a week or two. We then moved in with my parents, and are now living in their home while they are on an LDS mission in the Lima Peru Temple. We miss them, but are glad they're doing something they love and serving in a wonderful area. (My Mister also served his mission in Peru, which has J (age 9) very excited about serving a mission in Peru someday also.)

We're currently crossing our fingers and jumping through hoops in hopes of building our dream home on some family owned property adjacent to my parents' house. Send good building thoughts our way, and also to the city council and planning commission.

J (age 9) is in 4th grade this year, and has a wonderful teacher. We love her! He's growing up so much- the other day I looked at him, and couldn't take my eyes off of him. I can see signs of maturity. Luckily he still wants to snuggle with mom on occasion. His favorite things are his wii games, (preferably anything lego), his bike, and books in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians set. For christmas his brother bought him The Heroes of Olympus, Book One: The Lost Hero, by the same author, and he's loving it. J also likes basketball and soccer, and can't pick one over the other, which makes for a couple of crazy weeks when the two overlap.

A (age 6 11/12ths) is loving first grade, although he has decided that kindergarten was "more fun". He's learning to be independent and is testing limits, which has been an adventure, but he's also the first to give me a hug and a grin. A also played soccer and basketball for the first time this year. We're hoping he can pick a favorite, but we're not holding our breath. My Mister has been giving him piano lessons here and there, and he thinks that's pretty neat too. His absolute favorite thing to do is build things, whether it's "paper wallets" (mom has had to be really careful about throwing random papers away in case A has stuck his life savings inside), or working on his miniature tool bench that he got for christmas last year, or building forts around the yard. If you come to our house, you'll see off the front porch an elaborate system of rope, wood and cardboard boxes. A also enjoys playing with legos and does that pretty much anytime he can't go outside to build something.

CP is 3, and continues to be a fun and happy kid. We've enjoyed nearly everything about him for his entire life. He likes to help A build things, and play on mom's ipod. He's gotten pretty good at some of the puzzle games, which has convinced mom that he's going to grow up to be a genius. He likes to "play toys", and will do pretty much whatever his older brothers will let him tag along for.

Baby E (about 5 months) is an adorable baby (he's the biggest thing we did this year!), but we wish he'd sleep more. He likes to be held and played with constantly (I can't blame him, we're a fun family- who'd want to be stuck of in a baby chair at the side of the room!). He can roll over from front to back, and gives the best baby smiles. He was doing pretty well sleeping until we messed up his schedule by taking him to Oregon for Thanksgiving, he still hasn't forgiven us for that car ride, and wakes us up several times a night to remind us not to do that again anytime soon.

We hope you all had a peaceful Christmas.

All Our Love!

Giving

2010-12-17T13:26:00.001-05:00

Perhaps the rest of the year, when I don't think so much about buying STUFF, it's easier to not think about those who can't buy necessities, let alone, STUFF. It hurts my heart to think of anyone sleeping outside right now. I just walked around the corner to pick my preschooler up from his playgroup, and by the time I got home my fingers were freezing.

If it hurts your heart too, consider making a donation to The Road Home. You can donate money online, you can also drop off in-kind donations at:

210 South Rio Grande Street (455 West)

Salt Lake City

Some of the things they need the most are: all sizes of hats, jackets, coats, socks, (new) underwear, blankets, larger sizes of diapers, towels, pillows. There is a whole list of things they are in need of.

Picture Round Up (Thanksgiving and beyond)

2010-12-06T13:44:00.001-05:00

We spent Thanksgiving with my Mister's brothers in Oregon again this year. We went to the Portland Japanese gardens. The gardens were beautiful, and made me wish we could have a yard like them.

J wanted to have a picture of just him in front of this zen garden, but cousins kept popping into the picture. When he finally got some space, he posed triumphantly.

We also went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Here are how my boys measure up to seabirds.

We were able to watch some of the animals being fed, and doing tricks. The trainers said that learning tricks keeps the animals from getting bored. The tricks sure kept us entertained!

Me, my boys (baby E is in the bottom of the double stroller), and A's new best friend, cousin C.

We're in the shark tunnel. Sharks above, and the sides, and underneath. The underneath sharks were hard to see unless you got down for a close-up.

Shark above.

Some boys got eaten.

Baby E, and his cousin Baby C who were born 11 hours apart on the same day.

We had quite an adventure coming home from oregon. There was a big storm, and the road we needed was closed, so we spent the night at the Best Western in Jerome Idaho. It was really nice, if you ever need a place to stay in Jerome, I highly recommend it. The kids had a blast. There's nothing like staying up late, eating microwave popcorn in bed and watching TV in a hotel.

Once we were home and had a week or so to settle down, we got out the Christmas decorations. We bought the tree (in oregon) 9 years ago, for $10. Every year I think it looks pretty bad, and think about replacing it with something a little nicer, and something pre-lit. But, every year we get it decorated with all the things the kids have made over the years, and it doesn't look too bad. So I decide to save my money. My Mister and I wrapped the presents. CP's present is as big as he is, and when he saw it, he pumped his arms up and down in the air. His comment after the decorations were all up was, "Is Santa here YET?!" He's also very concerned about the snow melting, for some reason he thinks that it can only be Christmas time if there is snow on the ground.

We set up my nativity, and pinecone garland on the bookshelf in front of the greenhouse.

It's been a few years since the outside of this house had any decorations. When I was a kid, I remember my dad climbing the huge pine trees in the yard and putting lights everywhere. My Mister declined to do such a thing. (I don't know why, as if he has anything else to do...)

We took down the Peruvian hat that the buffalo was wearing in honor of my parents, and put the santa hat. Hopefully it doesn't scare off the reindeer.

Can you guess what this is?

2010-11-13T22:49:00.000-05:00

These are the things I took out of A's backpack. He was having a rough day and said, "mom, sometimes I feel like running away". He was even packed and ready to go. I'm glad to see he had clean socks and underwear, along with a couple of notepads and a pen- he likes to make lists of things he does or sees. He also packed a bingo card from a Mario Bros birthday party he attended recently, and a tile that he was given by the primary leaders in our last ward. He's such a sweet kid. Instead of him running away, we've been having snuggle time.

Fajitas

2010-11-08T23:00:00.001-05:00

This month, I went to Costco and the grocery store and spent most of my grocery budget. I actually went on October 27th or something. Pretty bad to spend most of your November budget before the month even starts, but I've decided it won't be all that difficult to stick to my budget, even with Thanksgiving. I made a month schedule for dinner every night (including leftover nights, although my Mister has been eating leftovers for lunch so often lately, that we may have to come up with alternatives to leftover night...), based off of things I have in the pantry or freezer. We also have some tomato plants growing in the greenhouse, which yield a tomato here and there.

Tonight's dinner was one I wasn't sure about throwing together out of the pantry/fridge/freezer, but I haven't been to the grocery store since October 27th. (I get milk delivered every week)

I partially defrosted a buffalo rump roast, sliced it, then cut each slice into strips (cut against the grain to make the meat more tender).

Once the meat is cut into small strips, place it in a pan and cook- I don't know if it was the fact that the meat was still partially frozen, but it ended up with a lot of liquid (not a lot of fat though- buffalo is very lean), leave the liquid because it makes the meat nice and juicy without having to add anything to it. Once the meat is cooked, add onions and multi-colored peppers (I had bags of chopped peppers in the freezer- some from the garden and some leftover from a family party a couple of months ago). Season with garlic, chili powder, and a little cumin. Cover and turn on low to simmer until peppers and onions are cooked.

I served the fajitas on corn tortillas (I keep a package in the freezer, and take out however many I need and defrost them in the microwave) with sour cream, shredded cheese, salsa, spanish rice (my easy spanish rice is just rice cooked with some tomato sauce, chili powder, garlic and salt), olives, lettuce and tomatoes. Avocados would have been nice, but they're not really a food storage sort of food.

These were really easy (aside from cutting up meat- I don't like handling raw meat, though having it partially frozen makes it a little less disgusting), and the kids even liked most everything (they didn't like the peppers, and would have complained about the onions, but didn't notice them). Writing this post and looking at the picture is making me want more- they were really good. Maybe I'll have leftovers for lunch tomorrow too...

Garden Clean Up 2010

2010-10-30T17:13:00.001-04:00

We plowed the big garden where the corn and beans were planted several weeks ago. Today we finally got around to pulling out everything in the raised beds. There were a few unfrozen peppers and tomatoes so we gathered them up along with the rest of the asian pears. I'm hoping we can store them in the garage and have the fresh fruit for another month or so.

While we were cleaning out the garden, we cut the artichoke plants down, covered them with sawdust, then several thick layers of newspaper, and finally some netting to keep the newspapers from blowing away. We would have used leaves, but the trees haven't dropped enough yet. Now we're crossing our fingers that the plants will survive the winter and really produce next year. The Prudent Homemaker was able to harvest 100+ artichokes last year. (this fact triggers salivating...)

The part without newspaper is where the onions are. We harvested the bigger ones and left the small ones for next year.

Shameless Friend Promotion

2010-10-27T16:07:00.002-04:00

My totally amazing former college roommate is the author of the blog The Great Fitness Experiment. She's hilarious and wonderful, and now you can enjoy even more hilarity in her book (preorder it now-I did-, once it's out, the price will go back up):

Shameless Self Promotion

2010-10-26T20:48:00.000-04:00

I've been feeling wordy lately. Check out my guest posts at Feminist Mormon Housewives and Wheat and Tares.

Getting Through the Winter/Propagating Grapes

2010-10-24T18:15:00.001-04:00

It's supposed to snow.

Yesterday, I sat in the garage loading sliced and peeled apples into jars, and admitted to my Mister, that canning apples (and grape juice) made it finally feel like fall.

If it snows, that means the garden will freeze soon, and there won't be any more fresh tomatoes. I like fall, with the leaves changing color, and the garden in full swing. I like eating squash. I don't really like winter. The only redeeming thing about winter is playing in freshly fallen snow, and drinking tea or hot chocolate by a fire. I'd be good if winter was condensed a bit and we had a week around christmas time where it snowed, and no one had to go to work or school, and we could play and wrap up in blankets around the fire. Then it could be spring again and I could start a new garden.

Since gardening is my main hobby, winter gets a little old fast. This year to get me through, I'm planning on bringing a cherry tomato plant indoors and see how long I can keep it going, as well as a couple of regular tomato plants we have growing in the green house already. We'll also do indoor lettuce again, they were a little leggy last year, but it was fun to have fresh home grown lettuce in december.

The thing I'm most excited about is propagating some grape vines. My parents house, where we are living was build around 1890. There are grape vines that we're not quite sure how long they've been around, but know that they were here before my parents got married. My mom says they're called agwumps. They make the best grape juice. Concord grapes are nothing in comparison. They grow along the driveway, and when we build our new house, we may not have as easy access to them (not to mention that when my parents get home from Peru, the might want to use the grapes themselves), so we're going to take cuttings to plant in our own yard. I got the instructions from this website. It looks pretty easy. Cutting dried stems with three or four buds, dipping them in rooting hormone, and planting them in potting soil and repotting in individual pots as they get bigger. The website says that by spring when it's time to plant them outdoors, they should be around 6 feet tall.

Gotta love conference bingo

2010-10-14T17:09:00.001-04:00

The most fun part about conference bingo (aside from the candy) is hearing the kids yell, "PRAYER! THEY SAID PRAYER" as they're grabbing candy to mark their cards.

I did something right, sort of...

2010-10-14T16:51:00.000-04:00

You may (or may not) remember a post I wrote about growing artichokes. Here is the result:

Out of 12 seeds that came in the packet, I ended up with 5 healthy plants. Out of five healthy plants, one produced an artichoke. (actually it produced two, but the other was so dinky, i'm not counting it.) I debated whether to pick and eat the artichoke or not, but it wasn't huge, and there was only one, and if I picked it and ate it my kids would want some, and I decided it wasn't worth it, besides I'd heard they have beautiful blossoms, so maybe it would be better to just leave it. (phew, sorry about that rambling)

I'm glad I did, the flower IS beautiful. I'll try to save some seeds to start again this winter. I'm also planning on cutting the plants back, covering them with leaves and plastic and hoping against hope that they somehow survive the winter and REALLY produce some artichokes next year!

Getting back to normal?

2010-10-02T16:59:00.000-04:00

Aside from the thoughts that perhaps I now have more children than I can really handle (I really only think that between 3:30 and 5:30 pm on school days), I think we're adjusting to having a new baby. Here's the evidence:

I got new bread pans several months ago, but hadn't ever used them. They're narrower and longer than regular bread pans, which work well for sandwiches to send to school with my boys.

Can you believe these were made with freshly ground 30-year-old wheat? Go food storage!

Baby E at 2 months

2010-09-30T16:31:00.000-04:00

A full belly and a good stretch feels soooo nice!

A DuHa! moment

2010-09-27T15:08:00.000-04:00

I recently had a DuHa! moment. Duh, because I can't believe this didn't occur to me sometime during the previous, oh, 9 years that I've been a parent and Aha! because I think I've had a major realization of what my job as a parent is (maybe that should be Duh! also).

It's not about me.

When my kids "spill" baking powder all over the kitchen floor, it's not about me.
When my kids "decorate" their rooms (walls, blankets, toys, bed frame) with a sharpie marker, it's not about me.
When they have a total meltdown over cleaning up their playroom, it's not about me.
When they have a tantrum over doing their homework, it's not about me.

If it was about me, I'd be angry that they made such a huge mess that they were in no way capable of cleaning up themselves. I'd be mad that they ruined a new bed spread, and left me a lot of work to do with a magic eraser (praise be to magic erasers). I'd be frustrated and feel like throwing their toys in the garbage. I'd be ready to tack on some extra jobs, and maybe do a little tantruming myself.

But it's not about me.

So instead, I show them how to use a measuring spoon without spilling the whole jar (or I keep it out of reach of little fingers), and teach them how to use a broom. I keep permanent markers up high, and kid-friendly markers and paper down low, and get two magic erasers and teach them how to clean their toys. I provide places for each toy to belong, and teach them how to put each toy away before getting out new ones, and sometimes I put toys in time out (but I don't yell, because it's not about me). Finally, I sit down with them and show them how to make a to-do list when they're overwhelmed, and if it helps, we both eat lifesavers to get us through the work.

My Aha! moment was that it's not about punishment for things they do that make me angry or frustrated, it's about teaching them to take care of their belongings, and how to clean things up if they make a mess, and use their words to express frustration, and take a deep breath and take overwhelming tasks one step at a time.

It does my kids no good for me to yell and send them to time out because I'm mad. Time outs are for helping them to calm down and think about things. What I need to do when they do something they shouldn't, is teach them what they SHOULD do next time, and show them how to fix whatever it is that they did.

Seems pretty obvious, but it took me 9 years for the idea to occur to me.

Drying Nectarines

2010-09-23T18:32:00.001-04:00

Guess what I've been doing lately? The nectarine tree looks beautiful this year. We don't usually can the nectarines, I've actually never tried it, but my mom said they don't can well, and she knows practically everything. So, we've been eating them, (yum yum!) and drying them as fast as we can rotate batches through the dehydrator.

Pick and wash nectarines

Cut in half and remove pit. Slice each half into 4 or 5 wedges. If a piece ends up bigger or smaller than the others, you have to eat it. A shame, I know. Place wedges close together on drying sheet. Load into dehydrator. (I recommend this one: Excalibur 9 Tray Dehydrator - ED 2900 Dehydrater - Jerky Maker Food Dehydrator Excaliber)

Dry for somewhere around 20 hours- check occasionally so you don't overdry them.

Store in a airtight container. If you have room, and want to keep them fresh for a longer period, store the bags in the freezer.

The most difficult thing about drying nectarines is not eating them all before winter even starts. I keep having to tell the kids that they can eat fresh nectarines if they want, but we need to save the dried ones for when the fresh ones are gone. (of course, I still eat a few here and there, I deserve it, I did the work, right?).

Zoo Trip

2010-09-23T17:39:00.000-04:00

Before my parents left, while my brother and his 3-year-old were here, my mom and I had a 3-year-old-boy-zoo-trip. Baby E got to tag along also. It was so fun to see CP and LG play together. They're finally old enough that they really interact and have fun together. We were sure sad when they had to leave. Having cousins your age is so much fun!

CP and LG at the zoo.

Isn't the baby Elephant so cute!

Are we in Peru yet?

2010-09-23T17:34:00.000-04:00

We took my parents to the Missionary Training Center this past Monday. They're going to be there for about two weeks, and then they're off to serve in the Lima, Peru Temple. We're excited for them- this will be quite the adventure.

CP with Grandpa and Grandma outside their "dorm".

The older boys were at school, so we had my parents, my Mister, CP, and baby E. As we neared Provo, CP said, "are we in Peru yet?" He knew that's where grandma and grandpa were going, and thought we were taking them all the way there.

Happy Birth Day Baby E!

2010-08-17T17:04:00.002-04:00

Baby E was born at 4:08pm on August 3rd.

My sister helped through the delivery again, like she did with CP. Thanks Mary!

Grandma and Grandpa took the boys while we were at the hospital.

Proud Big Brothers:

Proud Dad

I'm so glad baby E is here and part of our family. He's so sweet, and we are all in love with him. CP even licked him a couple of times (I think he was pretending to be a dog). I'm also glad that I can sleep on my stomach again. :)

Food Storage Alfredo (sounds yummy doesn't it?)

2010-08-17T16:34:00.003-04:00

(This isn't really called food storage alfredo- I just happened to have everything to make it in my fridge or pantry. The name sounds mormony and maybe a little disgusting though doesn't it?)

Lacking inspiration for dinner several weeks ago, I scanned the list of frugal dinner ideas at my friend Jessica's blog.

Here's what I found:

Alfredo Sauce

Ingredients:

3 TBSP butter
1 1/2 -2 TBSP flour
2 cups whole milk (I used 1%)
Half a block of cream cheese {cut into chunks. Low-fat varieties work just as well!}
3/4 cup Parmesan cheese {can use fresh or Kraft}
1 teaspoon garlic powder (I used minced garlic)
salt & pepper to taste

Directions:
Melt butter in a saucepan on medium-low heat. Once melted, whisk in the flour. Gradually add milk, whisking to combine as you go. I generally add it about 1/2 cup at a time, whisk, then wait for the milk to heat up and thicken a bit before adding more.

Once all the milk has been added and it's hot {do not boil!} add the cream cheese. Whisk to combine. Heat the sauce back up before adding the Parmesan cheese. Simmer this until all is melted, and mixed well. Add salt, garlic powder and pepper to taste. Serve over noodles, with chicken, in a pizza, or however you like it! Tips: I normally double this recipe, so that I can use the whole block of cream cheese. I freeze about a cup in small containers, for future dinners. I love this sauce and use it in a variety of ways, however my favorite is in the pasta dish described below. It's so easy and versatile! If it's summer, add zucchini, cherry tomatoes and fresh basil. In the winter, I add eggplant, collard greens and frozen bell pepper. Really, I use whatever vegetables I can get inexpensively! I don't actually have a recipe for this, I just toss things in and call it good!

I mixed the sauce with some green beans and tomatoes from the garden, and some frozen broccoli, and tossed that with the pasta. A little sauce can go a long way, and makes for a light summer dinner. Next time I'd put about 40 times the amount of vegetables in it that I used this time. Other than that, It was a big hit!

July and August... Where did the summer go?

2010-08-17T16:26:00.002-04:00

We've had a busy summer, and I haven't had time/energy/desire to update my blog. I've been thinking about getting it printed in a book as my journal, so I thought I ought to do better at keeping things up to date.
A few days after we got home from our Ferron Reservoir camping trip (and did I mention I couldn't sleep at night while we were there? The elevation made it hard for me to breathe), we left again for Baumgartner, the yearly trip we go on with my Mister's side of the family.

We left friday after work and stopped for the night at a truck stop. I can't believe some trucks idle all night long.

My Mister and CP floating in the river (it was REALLY cold this year. I had pictured myself floating in the cool water, and how good that would feel, being large and pregnant and all- but I didn't get in further than my ankles).

All the kids in the hot pool trying to sink my Mister.

We got home from Baumgartner and started swimming lessons the following Monday. J and CP both passed their levels. A will take level two again next year- the boys always repeat the same level several times before advancing.

Next up: Back to School time. We have school supplies in abundance, new clothes as needed, and we're all getting rather tired of each other (well mostly, J and A are tired of each other, and the rest of us are tired of hearing them argue). I used to think it was weird when people would say they couldn't wait for their kids to go back to school. I hated sending my little kindergartner to school, and was so happy when he was home all summer. Now with the boys being a little older, and having a little too much "together" time, I've joined the ranks of those who are excited for the kids to go back to school.

Rice and Beans

2010-07-18T22:33:00.000-04:00

The kids asked what we were having for dinner tonight, and for lack of a better name, I said, "rice and beans". If I had used white rice, the entire meal could have been ready to eat in 20 minutes. I used brown rice so it took a little longer.

In saucepan, saute onions and garlic in olive oil. Add a can of chopped tomatoes (hopefully by next month, I'll be using fresh tomatoes), a can of kidney beans and a can of black beans. I drained the beans, but left the liquid from the tomatoes in to make a sauce.

Add plenty of cumin, and a little salt. Serve over rice. Fast, easy, tasty dinner.
(The picture is my 8-year-old's second helping. He gave the meal a 9 out of 10, claiming it lost a point because it had onions.)

Ferron Reservor

2010-07-18T22:22:00.000-04:00

Basic Chicken and Cloth Diaper Primers

2010-06-25T11:56:00.001-04:00

I've written a guest post on Utah Deal Diva about getting started raising chickens.

Go here if you'd like to read it!

I also have some basic getting started in cloth diapering articles here and here.

I've heard of people using diapers on their chickens to make them housepets, but I don't recommend it.

Harvest

2010-06-23T00:41:00.000-04:00

We've been eating strawberries here and there for over a week now, but tonight was the first time that we've picked them and brought them inside. (The kids love to sit outside and eat them, so getting this many at once was unusual.)

Along with the strawberries, we got 4 eggs from our 4 chickens. I can't wait to see what we get to harvest next!

June Updates

2010-06-21T18:01:00.002-04:00

The week that school got out we planted a large crop of beans and corn and various melons at my parents' house, then we spent several days frantically trying to get the watering systems working so we could safely go on vacation.

We left around 10am in the morning for a long drive across Nevada and California, to reach our family cabin in the woods, a mile or so off the coast.

Our first item of business once we arrived (after sleeping that is), was haircuts. The boys had really gotten shaggy. I love this picture of A. He was constantly brushing hair out of his eyes. We decided that summer buzz cuts would be great (although it was tempting to leave A's as shown in the picture). :)

Once they were all buzzed and showered, they enjoyed some hot tub time with dad.

One day of vacation we hiked to a waterfall. Here we are by the "smiley face tree"

We ate lunch by the water fall.

We got up early one morning to go see the tide pools. We also took our usual trip into the town for fresh seafood lunch, and shopping at the toy store and book store. The boys spent a huge majority of the vacation working with grandpa building their tree house.

We were very happy to see everything alive and growing well when we got home. Here are the green beans.

The corn in the three sister's bed is three or four inches tall now, and we planted the vining beans as well as the squash, so hopefully those things come up soon. This picture is a good one of our new watering system that my Mister worked so hard to get operational before our vacation. He used a length of hose to connect the tap to the pvc pipe. He drilled holes in the pipe to correspond with the locations of the plants. Nothing is glued together, so we can take it apart for winter storage and use it again next summer.

This section of the garden was also going to have the pvc pipe system, but we ran out of pvc pipe. Rather than go buy more, we made due with what we had, which was a length of old hose (the one we had been cutting up to attach the pvc pipe system to the faucets in the other raised beds). He again, drilled holes in the hose to correspond with each plant. It will be interesting to see how it holds up compared to the pvc pipe.

After planting the beans in the three sisters bed, we realized that our experiment wasn't going to yield us very many beans, so my Mister constructed this lovely trellis for more beans to grow up. We had a small section of raised bed with nothing growing in it, so it worked out well.

One morning I decided to break down and do some pruning. I have a hard time cutting healthy growth off of plants, but driving through all the vineyards in northern CA, I convinced myself that it needed to be done. I thinned out the grape vines so that there is one or two vines going to the lower wire, and one or two that we will continue to let grow so it can reach the top wire. It looks much better now.

The strawberries that I transplanted several weeks ago have perked up, and have started to send out new runners. By next year there ought to be another nicely established strawberry patch here. This picture also shows one of the other irrigation types we have. This one uses funny pipe and sprayers that direct the water exactly where you want them. A little more pricy than our other types, but really nice to use.

We've been researching flowers to plant to attract beneficial insects and deter harmful insects. We'd also like to attract hummingbirds. We planted alyssum, marigolds, salvia, nasturtiums, and a couple others I can't remember now. Most are spaced around the yard, but the extras were all planted under the hummingbird feeder. I haven't seen any yet, but I have seen a couple of big fat bumble bees. Usually we just see wasps, so I was excited to see more useful things.

At the nursery, while we were looking for flowers, I saw the basil, and instantly though of one of my late summer meals where we're trying to use up the prolific zucchini. It's zucchini, tomatoes and onions sauteed in olive oil with garlic and oregano. Fresh basil will be a really nice addition.

We've also been trying to maintain an organized schedule this summer. The kids have a list of jobs and homework that they have to do every day before they can play. J's homework mostly involves practicing his multiplication tables, and A's is anything from the 1st grade section of the ABCya website. The fourth and fifth grade sections have some fun games that J has been playing around with. Hopefully they help him with his typing skills a little too.

Finally, at church yesterday, one of the nursery leaders came and got me out of relief society and said that CP needed help going to the bathroom. I was confused and said, "you mean he needs his diaper changed?" She restated, that no, he needs help getting his pants off. I said, "do you mean A needs help?" She must have been getting frustrated with me, because she said, "no, CP, the one with the red hair." I was really confused, because CP isn't potty trained.

I got to the nursery and took CP into the mini bathroom (the nursery room has it's own bathroom with a tiny sized sink and toilet. CP wanted to use the little toilet. I took his diaper off, which was only a little wet, and sat him on the toilet. He went! Then we put his slightly wet diaper back on him (the diaper bag was with dad) and washed his hands. I'm guessing he saw the little potty, and saw other kids going into the bathroom and decided he wanted to also. So, figuring that this week is better than any other weeks this summer, we're potty training. He's had two minor accidents, and lots of good trips to the toilet. I just wish we had a mini potty at home. He's loving his big boy underpants though!

Also, as long as I'm giving updates, today CP said to me, "mom, when you do your email, it makes me irritated". hehehe...

Garden Update

2010-06-08T19:00:00.001-04:00

Corn is up in the corn bed.

Corn is up in the Three Sisters bed. Every other hill has corn in it, and will also have beans (we'll plant them in a week or so when the corn is a little taller) and the other hills will have squash.

Some of the squash plants in the side garden are up.

Strawberries are starting to turn red.

And they have gotten really thick. We covered them with a bird netting to keep the birds from eating all the berries.

The raspberries have been staked to keep them from flopping over onto the grass.

And the raised bed around the trees is finished and mulched (this happened awhile ago, but I never got around to posting a new picture).

Good for you AND me!

2010-06-07T21:15:00.001-04:00

I'm on the computer kind of a lot. Probably too much (It's an ongoing battle, but I'm trying to make sure that I get everything done that I need to do before I play around too much (though sometimes you just need a break from the "MOM, MOM, MOM!!!" The internets are good for that)).

Also, if I can find a good deal with free shipping, I much prefer shopping online to shopping in stores (I think that's a sign of middle-age- I used to love going shopping). I've found a couple of websites that help me earn a little money back for online searches or online shopping. If anyone is interested in signing up, you can start earning money back too, plus I get a referral bonus. See? It's a win-win.

I thought posting on my blog would be less obnoxious than sending all of you an email, this way, if you're interested, sign up, and if not, you're only out the time you spent reading this post.

Shop at Home is a website with partnerships at many of the online stores we regularly buy from. If you register at shop at home, you earn a $5 sign up bonus (and if you sign up and buy something within 60 days through my link above, I get one too). When you're ready to buy something online, you log into your shop at home account, search for the store, and if it's there, you go to the store through the link and earn whatever percentage cash back that store offers. When you've earned $20, shop at home sends you a check. Some stores have extra coupons posted, in addition to the cash back. If I'm buying stuff online anyway, I might as well get a little something back for it!

The other site, Swag Bucks is a search engine where you earn "swag bucks" for searching online (there are a few other ways to earn swag bucks, but searching is the main one), and then you can trade in your swag bucks for prizes. I trade mine in for $5 Amazon gift cards. It takes me a month or two of normal searching, generally to earn enough swag bucks for a $5 gift card, then when I have $25 worth, I buy something I've been wanting on Amazon, and get the free shipping. Right now I'm saving up for some new bread pans. I've downloaded the swag bucks toolbar, which puts a search box at the top of any window I have open, so I don't have to go to their website to search.

Unusual Baking Techniques for Desserts

2010-06-07T15:37:00.000-04:00

Yesterday as we were cooking dinner, (wild rice, chicken on the grill, and broccoli) we started thinking that we'd like something for dessert. I suggested a cake with coolwhip topping since we have kind of a lot of coolwhip right now. The only problem was that turning on the oven didn't sound like fun. I started looking around online and came across this website that had instructions for baking cakes in your bbq grill. We actually made apple-strawberry crisp. The picture is a little blurry, but it was delicious.

Prepare Your Barbeque and Cake

Light the BBQ and allow it to preheat.
Prepare the cake batter from a mix or follow your favorite recipe.
Grease and flour the cake pans.
Pour the cake batter into the pans.

To BBQ Cake with Indirect Heat

If you have three elements on your BBQ, you can use indirect heat.

Turn the two outside elements to low and turn the center element off.
Place the cake pans on the center grill above the element that is turned off.
Close the BBQ lid and allow the cake to cook for 20-25 minutes. Avoid opening the lid to check the cakes during this time so the heat stays inside and creates an oven effect.
Check the cakes. They are done when they feel springy to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. If they are not done after the initial time has passed, close the lid and continue cooking for 5 more minutes and check again.
When they are cooked, remove the cakes from the BBQ and place on a cooling rack.

To BBQ Cake with Direct Heat

If you have two or fewer elements, you can use direct heat.Turn all the elements to low.

Place an empty pan upside down on the grill above the element
Put the batter-filled pan on top of it. The extra pan adds a little more distance from the heat and helps to keep the cake bottom from burning.
Close the BBQ lid and allow the cake to cook for 20-25 minutes. Avoid opening the lid to check the cakes during this time so the heat stays inside and creates an oven effect.Note: When cooking on direct heat, the cake cooks a little faster.
Check the cakes. They are done when they feel springy to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. If they are not done after the initial time has passed, close the lid and continue cooking for 5 more minutes and check again.
When they are cooked, remove the cakes from the BBQ and place on a cooling rack.

When the cakes are cool enough to touch, remove them from the pans, If desired, cool cake completely and spread with icing or serve them warm with ice cream. Enjoy!