Life Lesson #2,764

No matter how enticing it may be, do not, I repeat DO NOT, put a basket full of chard in the washing machine.

Yeah, like many life lessons I learned this one the hard way. Before you say, "Well, DUH...", hear me out. I have many, many times in the past put my greens through the washer: spinach, collards, etc. It is a fantastically easy way to wash and spin dry lots of greens at once. I have never, however, tried this with chard until this morning. The leaves are much stiffer than other types of greens, and the stems are much more substantial.

I ended up with a washer full of tiny bits of leaves and chard stems. It took me half an hour to clean all the bits out of the crevices of my washer. Now I have to wash everything again, and see if there is anything to salvage besides the stems.

I guess stems are better than nothing, right?

Finally

This weekend, we were able (at long last) to watch a monarch butterfly come out of its chrysalis. First the sea green chrysalis became transparent, and then all of a sudden, it burst open and the little guy s-l-o-w-l-y crawled out. The first picture was taken just a few seconds after he got all the way out, and the last about 2 hours after his emergence.





As promised, here is a pic of one of JP's projects. He installed this solar powered lamp post near the turn in our driveway between my parents house and ours. The auger broke again, while trying to dig a hole to pour concrete for the base...too rocky in that area! I couldn't help but do some more dry stacking of stones around the base.

It's All Greek to Me!

We have developed a liking for Greek yogurt up here on the hill in recent months. It is thick, creamy and just a bit tangy...delicious! Just a couple of months ago, our favorite magazine, Cook's Illustrated, featured an article rating Greek yogurts. That is when we discovered that the big difference is that Greek yogurt is strained to remove more whey than typical yogurt, which is what gives it the super creamy consistency. This also gives it almost twice the protein content of regular yogurt.

Now, our local grocery store carries Greek yogurt, but at $6.00 a quart, it gets a bit pricey to feed our yogurt habit. JP decided to take matters into his own hands and started making his own Greek style yogurt!



He makes it with whole milk, so 1 gallon (costing just under $4.00) will make 2 quarts of luscious, thick yogurt. He begins by heating the milk to 180 degrees, then cooling it to 120 degrees and stirring in a couple of tablespoons of starter (old yogurt). Then he incubates it in a cooler with a heating pad set on medium for 6-10 hours, usually overnight. Finally he strains it through an old, white T-shirt for a couple of hours to the desired consistency. Easy Peasy.

Outing of the Week 10 - Idlewild

We did our annual trek to Idlewild today, as did plenty of other people...although it was not too terribly crowded. Can this really be the 6th summer we've gone?

JP has a vertigo thing for the past several years. He ends up doing a lot of people watching, while I try to figure out how to get an odd number of people on rides...it means that sometimes I end up going twice, because BOTH girls want to ride with ME. (I should feel special for that, right???) JP says he was astounded by the number of obese people he saw...he thought they numbered well over 50%!

Even though we only stay for about 4 or 5 hours, we get to go on lots of rides. The girls always want to walk through their favorite Storybook Forest first. Tonight, J told me "I had SUCH a fun day today!" L said that EVERY ride was her favorite.

On the way home, we passed a produce stand selling peaches. Although Mom and I have already canned a bushel of peaches, I bought another 2 bushels.

After dinner this evening, the girls, JP and I sat and watched The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe while snapping 3 gallons of beans from the garden. I canned another 7 pints of Dilly Beans tonight, but have another huge bowl of beans to deal with.

Guess what I'm doing tomorrow?

Adults Only Outing

JP and I managed to slip away SANS CHILDREN (thanks Mom & Dad) to the city yesterday for a wee bit of R&R to celebrate our 20th anniversary.



Last night we enjoyed a delicious meal at a fancy restaurant (no kiddie menu at this place!), and a leisurely stroll around the city. We could almost see the Pirates play, and could enjoy the fireworks for each home run from our Hotel window.



This morning we ate fresh bagels with a schmear of cream cheese outside near the dinos.



This afternoon, we returned home and got to work. The asparagus is finally planted! This was a back-breaking job. First JP put several scoops of topsoil at the bottom of the garden since the garden soil is so rocky and hard. Then I had to work the soil, getting the roots and rocks out of it, and smooth it into a mound about 50 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 12 inches high. The next step was digging a trench 18 inches deep, 10 inches wide, and 50 feet long. After that, we put manure and peat in the trench, and used the mini rototiller to work it in to the top soil. I piled this up into a mound at the bottom of the trench, over which we draped 25 asparagus crowns. Finally, I shovelled all the soil back into the trench to cover them up, and tacked black plastic over everything (with space for the asparagus to come up) to keep the weeds from going crazy. Whew! I hope they all come up!

JP is working on a couple of projects as well...I will post pictures when he is done.

Outing of the Week 9 - Mingo Creek

This week was one long, daily outing for Miss J, who attended Wilderness Survival Camp at Mingo with one of her friends. L and I got to do a lot of driving back and forth to take them and bring them home each day, but we also went to Krispy Kreme one day, and to the playground another day, and played games together at home.

J and the other Wilderness Survivalists did many activities this week, such as: built a hut out of debris, took a hike to learn about tracking animals by prints and scat, started a fire with flint and steel, collected water from the trees with a bag, made a compass, and learned some nifty knots. She also came home filthy, tired, hungry and happy every day.

Mingo is one of our very favorite nearby State Parks. It is lovely and cool there by the creek. There are several very nice play areas, and miles and miles of hiking trails. We go there once a month during the school year for Home School Outdoor Classroom: an hour of science class outdoors, always fun.

Today we are preparing for the arrival of JP's sister and family for the weekend, and next week is our family vacation week. Fun, fun, fun.

Creepy Crawlies

We have a bumper crop of caterpillars this summer. We have found lots of monarch caterpillars on the local milkweed besides our 2 black swallowtails. Both of the swallowtails are now in chrysalis. Interestingly, the second caterpillar chose to change on a stick, and that chrysalis is brown.



A couple of the caterpillars we found were teeny-weeny. They are quickly making up for lost time...chomping down the milkweed, and getting fat.



This one is getting ready to change into the chrysalis.



This is what he will look like soon. The monarch chrysalises are so beautiful, with their touch of gold.



In the meantime, the queen apparently kicked most of the workers out of the hive for several days last week while it was very hot. The Bee Man told us that they do that to cool off the hive.