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).

Baked Ziti (or Penne, rather)

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?

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!

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...

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

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)

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.