Happy (early) Father's day Dad.

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

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

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

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

The soccer field.

Part of the maze.

IronMan to BeeMan

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:

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

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

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

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...

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

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!

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

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)

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...

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).