Fried Egg Friday

THIS was Zachary's discovery when going out to the mail box this morning!













Not exactly "Eww", but Yikes definitely!

First we determined that this four foot long guy (with a three inch diameter - did I mention yikes?!!) did NOT have rattles on his tail.

Then I let everyone get a little closer.

The way I got out of letting them catch it, was the truthful fact that I don't know my Colorado snakes very well.
(you never know, there MIGHT be rattle-less Rattle Snakes?!).

I think we determined it to be a Bull snake, and as his hissing told me he wasn't a particularly friendly fellow... we kept our distance!





























F.Y.I., I did consider this "school" today! ;-)

Week #7

Sprouting Grain

Part One
We recently bought some Hard Red wheat for the purpose of learning to make our own bread.
The grain mill we ordered hasn't arrived yet however, and the children and I are getting anxious to try doing something with the wheat berries!
Yes, we even ate some of those hard little buggers un-milled and uncooked!

While we are waiting for our mill to arrive, we decided to look into sprouting our wheat.
There is much information available on this subject, and at the bottom of this post I will give a short list of links to wet your appitite.
If this idea is new to you, please take time to check out these sites to learn for yourself.
I am not much for regurgitating information, but I will tell you that I was impressed by what I read!

Especially in light of preparing for an emergency where my supplies might be limited, I was excited to find a means of providing vitamin rich, living food that would meet my family's nutritional needs, as well as filling tummies.

Here are our dry wheat berries just out of the sack we bought them:













Here are our berries being soaked for the first eight to twelve hours:

















Here they are after their second rinse:













Finally here are our wheat berries in day two, with little root tail sprouting out!













So far, we think we prefer them with minimal sproutage.
*I have added them to a sandwich (specifically mayo on bread with alfalfa and wheat sprouts, and
a slice of avocado)
*We have added several Tbs. as a salad topping.
*The children have eaten a Tbs. or so beside their apple slices and Carrots and peanut butter. (they also tell me that the sprouts are good dipped in peanut butter, but I have no idea how they managed that feat - these things are rather small to get a hold of one at a time!!)

We have some other ideas how we might eat our sprouts, but we are still in the experimenting faze. We'll let you know what we like as we learn by trial and error.

Here are some links you must look at!

http://www.efn.org/~sundance/Sprouting.html

http://www.herbsarespecial.com.au/free-sprout-information/wheat.html

http://www.kurtsaxon.com/foods002.htm

http://www.sproutpeople.com/seed/print/wheat.html

http://www.doctoryourself.com/sprouting.html

This is just to get you started! I hope you get as excited about sprouting as I am!

Divine Appointment

Yesterday morning, my friend Mrs. Smith waved a very tearful good-buy to her dear husband being deployed to Iraq.
Not minutes after she left the base with her four small children, did she get a call from Mr. Smith saying that his departure had been deferred another 48 hours!
I think there may have been some emotional conflict between the feelings of gladness in getting a few more hours together, verses the turmoil of having to go through all the good-bye's again.

I had been planning to see her yesterday afternoon, but flexibly changed my plans as hers morphed.

At 4:00 in the afternoon, AJ called me to say that the Smiths were coming to dinner at 5:30, and would I like him to pick up pizza's? YES!

It turns out that he left work a little early in the day, and as he was walking into Wal Mart, out came the whole Smith family!

And so came to be a Party of providential origins.

We had the pleasure of spending the evening with our dear new friends. We were having such a great time as we enjoyed the dinner that my husband provided (and cleaned up afterwards!), that we decided to stretch out the fun with a movie!
We sacked out the kiddo's and dished up ice cream, then settled down to a (good?) action movie!
(What else would we watch? Mrs. Smith and I are saving the chick-flicks for next week when BOTH our husbands are away) ;-P

When the rare occasion occurs that we live so recklessly, I feel lucky to be a grown-up! (Shouldn't I have to ask permission? 12:30 am on a WEEKNIGHT?!!!)

Today I marvel at God's gracious gifts, His providential timing, and the blessing of friends.
How sweet is the fellowship of true brothers and sisters in Jesus!

Please pray for our friends, and especially Mrs. Smith as she says good-bye again, and handles all the affairs of their family while he is away.
Special prayers for her health and the new baby growing inside her womb. You gals know how that multiplies the emotions!!

Thanks Lord for your ever-loving kindness!

Time for Change

More creative school-work today! If I'm not careful, I'll exhaust this years allotment of creativity in one week and burn everybody out!

Uncle Wyatt keeps all his loose change in two bowls on the kitchen counter. Today was the day for explaining the value of each coin, and then having the children count out groups of tens in pennies,
count by fives, and tens with Nickles and dimes, and then make combinations adding up to an amount I would specify.
We had a lot of fun! It would probably take the wind out of their sales if I told them we were doing school!;-)

After they began to get the hang of it, I placed some new pencils, and a couple other items including groups of chocolate chips on the table with price tags attached, and let them shop.
The goal being for them to read the price tag and find the proper amount of change asked for, "buying" the chosen item from mom.

Clay was a little chagrined to find that the chocolate chips had sold out before he got there, which mystified me, since there was a pile for each Little Bug?

The truth quickly came to bare that Sister Sue had helped herself to a second purchase unbeknownst to me! (That isn't shop-lifting, is it?) And don't be too alarmed - each of those "piles" contained only THREE chocolate chips ;-)

Since she confessed when asked, I let it roll and cashed in Clayton's rain-check.
All in all, a very satisfactory outcome.
It was a hoot, and a bit of "school-work" everyone wants to repeat as soon as possible!

"Treasuried" Day!

I am delighted to report that our learning today was
tops!



How often can you fit every subject in without opening a single book?!

(Perhaps a slight exaggeration)

We read chapter 19 of Genesis. The Little Bugs really dig this book of the Bible, and if anyone has some great ideas on how to act out the Bible as we read it, I could use practical ideas - I'm not strong in the drama suite (that's Molly's department). ;-P

Zachary counted by two's as I measured wheat berries into zip lock bags;

We read about Cinco de Mayo (Did you know it is NOT Mexico's Independence day? It's hardly even recognized in Mexico! Go figure. I'm from California, and it's a pretty big deal THERE, especially if you are in the goat business!)

We learned how to season cast iron, and the boys seasoned my new Dutch Oven for me!

We also got online and learned how to sprout wheat. Following that we had to try it for ourselves. (did you know just how healthful sprouted nuts, seeds and legumes are?)
(A later post).

Last but not least, we culminated our day with a project that has been anticipated for a while:
Painting the wooden "Treasury chests!" (as Clay calls them).
So her are some pictures of that fun adventure!

As you can see, they really got into it, and Little Sister was so good to sit and watch (The apple wedge wasn't a bribe, but it was effective!).

Sick Little Bug

O'lie Buggy was under the weather today.
She woke up in the middle of the night with racing heart rate, and complaining of a "tummy ache" which could be an ache in any number of body parts.;-}

Unfortunately, since she's two, your guess is as good as mine!

Olivia is not one to fight sleep, and she is not one to complain (she and Clay are cut of the same cloth), so I was not comfortable letting her struggle through the night without my company.

Today she ran a low-grade fever, still had a high heart rate, but I determined that she also has an ear infection of some kind. Poor girl, we aren't accustomed to that one around here, but it was a relief to know where the ache was finally!
Daddy took the three big Bugs with him to do errands and brought something home to help her out a little.
It did seem to make a difference.

Both of us girls were sad not to enjoy our Saturday out with Daddy and the others ( I can't speak for Carolina), but on the up-side, I really had a special time with Olivia.
We sat on the couch and visited; I scratched her back, and we watched Tom and Jerry together.
Then... (drum roll please) we took an early nap!
When we woke from that, we just sat in bed and talked. I let the window blind down, so we watched the trains go by, and Olivia said she saw a bird or two, but I missed them.
She was very sympathetic with a sad little "Ohhh.."

I was thankful for a day that I might never have set aside myself.
How good it is to look for the grace of God in the midst of seemingly undesirable events!

Week # 6

My husband has a desire to prepare for the future by putting together some supplies that might help our family in the face of a disaster, be it a natural disaster of some sort, economic, or something else.
I hope to be able to elaborate on this in the future, and possibly post our adventures in this journey, but for the sake of keeping this Home-keeper post short, I will tell you what I learned last night when I was looking to order sugar.

What's What?
Now, everyone knows that if you are going to have a survival kit the most important thing you wouldn't want to be without is SUGAR, right?
(Please tell me you read my sarcasm! ;-P)

This post isn't actually about sugars, but rather a little trivia I learned about Sugar cane in particular.
We have been buying SUCANAT in bulk form from Whole Foods market.
I bought it to try on our oatmeal, and it has become a hit in our home for this purpose!
All I knew about SUCANAT, is that the label professes it to be dehydrated cane juice; it is light brown and somewhat clumpy granules, and has a taste similar to brown sugar.
All I've used it for to date is dressing up a boring bowl of cooked oats, but I am interested to find out how it does as a refined sugar substitute.

Last night when I determined to order some Sucanat, I quickly became confused when offered the choice of that or dried CANE JUICE.

Isn't dried cane juice the same thing as dehydrated cane juice? Not only that, but there is also TURBINADO which is also from the juice of the sugar cane!

Here's the trivia I learned in brief summery:

SUCANAT (pronounced soo-ka-not) is the first sugar coming from the sugar cane as soon as the juice is dehydrated - basically cane sugar in it's purest form. Because it hasn't been refined yet, it retains the molasses within, and has a stronger flavor, and higher moisture content.

TURBINADO (or "RAW SUGAR") is cane sugar refined once (I believe). It is lighter in color than Sucanat, a bit more mellow in flavor, and still retains some molasses, but not much.
When I've seen it in the stores, it has a granulated texture that doesn't clump, but is much larger crystals than traditional white sugar.

DRIED CANE JUICE (or cane sugar) is the most refined of these three, and has little or no molasses in it, and is mostly sucrose.
I read that while it's more expensive than traditional refined white sugar, some people prefer the taste.

Last night I decided to buy Sucanat because I am already familiar with the taste, and have one (small, but much loved) use for it.
I was also encouraged by the fact that it is a sugar that's still in it's original state.
I'm not saying whether one sugar is "healthier" than another, I just want to stay away from the refined as much as possible, and I think this choice will serve my purpose well.

The next thing to research and experiment with is Sucanat's substitution for white sugar in recipe's we like to use.
If push comes to shove, we'll use the good ol' fashioned poison, er - stuff!
Sometimes when you want a good cookie, there's no point gaining in health what you lose in taste! ;-P

Here are some sites I found useful:

Natural Sweeteners

Guide to Natural Sweeteners

And of course the informative Wise Geek site.
To use it, just type in "What is ..." and fill in the blank with something like "turbinado".

Sippy Cup Lessons

The girls are helping little sister "Ho'lina" (Olivia's pronunciation of Carolina) learn the finer art of using a sippy cup.
Her response to this introduction is about what you might expect! HA!;-)

Where's Spring?

This is the view out our front door on this fine May 1st morning!
We are snuggling inside by the fire, in our pajama's, thinking about fun, creative, out-of-the-box school lessons to do today! :-)
Last night's sleep was too short, but I awoke refreshed because my strength is in the Lord.
Thank you Lord!

It's Not By Might...

Well you thought I was back....
but I'm not. (not exactly, fully, and completely back.)

It's not that I'm too worn out from the weekend company.
It's not that I have nothing to blog about.
There are a number of things that "it's not".

While today went well and had some delightfully fun moments,
tonight at quarter to eleven I am in a slump of defeat.
I think it's more of an emotional thing, and very likely there is a spiritual battle taking place.

I don't know how much schedule to conform to.
I don't know how lax to be.
I can't figure out when to train,
and when to toss all care to the wind.
I don't know how to fit "it" all in.
"It" is just TOO MUCH!
There is house up-keep,
meals,
baths,
shopping,
school,
play,
things to get done for my dear husband.

I think I need some sleep.. .
blessed sleep!
That might make everything look brighter...

If only I drank coffee coffee...
...maybe I should start :-}

Common, tell me again...
It's not by my might or by my power, but only by the super-natural power of the Holy Spirit who indwells me (ME, adopted as a daughter of God and loved by HIM!) that I can do any of that "it"!!
I am washed perfectly and spotlessly clean by my Jesus's blood.
Do you know? HE SEES ME AS PERFECT!
There is no defeat - the battle is already won. I and my Lord are the victors!
Arise!
Worship HIM!
Count not what man values, but will to look for an eternal reward.
(I'm giving myself a pep-talk here)

I think I'm getting my head above the tossing waves and am taking the air in gulps...

I'm going to be okay now,
And if I can get to dry land, I'll post something more up-beat ;-)