Labor Day Fun

We got a slow start to the day around here.  No laboring going on what so ever all morning.  By 2:00 we thought we should get something done and mowed part of the lawn.  Dancer mowed with the push mower for the first time and did a good job with it.  When we got about half done Dad said let's just take the canoe to the lake and do some fishing.

Nikki doesn't get to come with, she is just too hyper.  This is her home when we are away from home. 

The lake we like to go to.  It isn't very big so the waves don't get very big either.  Today a lot of it was a smooth as a mirror.  It was beautiful out there.

The kids took the canoe out and tried fishing on the other side of the lake.  They didn't catch anything.

Dad and I stayed on the dock and he caught a ton of snack size fish.  If there are any big fish in that lake we sure haven't seen them.  We only have three fishing rods so one us doesn't get to fish, we should probably get another one.  When the kids were little that was enough because it took one person just to keep their lines untangled and bait on their hooks.  Now that they are each able to man their own poles we could all have our own.

Dancer had a library book over due that was requested so it wouldn't renew.  We ran that in to town tonight because if you get the book in the drop box before the next day the library is open after the day your book is due it is still counted as on time. Her book was due on Saturday but if it's in there now before they check things in on Tuesday there won't be a late fee.  We picked up some things we needed at the store while we were in there.  There was hardly anyone out driving around or shopping, it was kinda eerie.  Maybe because school starts here tomorrow everyone is home getting ready for the big day.

We ended the day with a nice bonfire.  It is cold here, see your breath cold, so as soon as the fire burned down we were all high tailing it in the house. 

For a family that had nothing planned for the holiday weekend we sure had a good time.

Scenes from Sunday

A friend called to go geocaching up north, since nothing else was on the agenda we were more than happy to join them.  They live about ten minutes south of town and we live about 10 minutes north.  We waited at the end of the drive way so that when they drove by we would just pull out right behind them.  We were a little early and they were a little late so Dad had time to get out and snap a picture of us.  We don't usually ride together on these trips as it takes a long time for a whole van load of people to get in and out, and it is not as comfortable riding if you are all squished together, so we convoy.  The kids also have their spaces set up in the back of the car like a person would have their Lazy-Boy in the family room.  Dancer has a CD player and puzzle books or she reads.  We rarely hear a peep out of her.  Spark keeps his DS and gameboy in the car with the games so he is busy playing those or he usually a comic book or two.  The cooler is near so they can grab whatever snacks they want.  They also have all the other comforts of home, chap stick, flavor packets for their waters, gum, spoons, pencils, notepads etc.  Living so far out of town has sort of made the car our home away from home.

Didn't go swimming because there are huge serpents in the lakes up there!  Scary!

Even scarier!!

A pre-car.  A big hunk of iron.

Trekked down lots of beautiful hiking trails. Is Dancer trying to tell me I may be taking too many pictures?  Nonsense, I could never take too many!

SCORE!  This is a game we play in the car.  The first person to spy a yellow vehicle yells score and gets a point, although we have never actually kept score.  You have to yell it right away, even if you are mid sentence, or someone else will get it first.  At times we see so many it is hard to carry on a conversation.  I had no idea there were so many yellow cars until we started playing this game.  The game has become such second nature that we even yell score when watching t.v.

Late Summer Garden Stir Fry Recipe

In August and September this dish is on our table a least a couple of times a week.  We just take whatever we have gotten out of the garden, which this year isn't much, and whatever else people have been generous enough to share with us and fry it up in a pan. 

I put in a little oil, either olive or butter, and then cook the veggies until they are soft.  This time it was tomatoes, Hatch New Mexico Peppers Grandpa Jerry brought back from his last trip to Arkansas, yellow zucchini, green beans, garlic, basil and few handfuls of spinach.

Once it all cooks down I had a few tablespoons of this stir fry sauce.  Dancer loves this stuff and would eat it every day for lunch and dinner.  She even gets a little panicked and asks when we will getting to town to the store if the bottle looks like it is running low.  Along side the stir fry I have sour cream and Parmesan cheese for Spark and I who like a little extra oomph on ours.  Dancer is a purist and eats it plain and Dad will on rare occasion put a little tiny dolp of sour cream.

I think what really makes this dish good is that we know that it is seasonal and the later in the season it gets the better it tastes.  We could make it all year but the produce just doesn't taste the same bought in the grocery store in the winter and it would also be very expensive when zucchini the size of your index finger are .79 cents a piece.

Compost Dump

The township compost dump, an exciting place if you are a young boy.  The dump is only open Saturday mornings and Wednesday evenings.  It is way out of town by the water treatment plant.

 

This after the about half the load is emptied, Spark was manning the camera.

With the storms we have had this summer there are huge piles of brush, this is less that a tenth of the length of the piles.  the other end of the dump is for grass and leaves.

More of the pile.

There are some surprises at the dump.  We saw sunflowers, many assorted flowers, squash and pumpkins.  We'll have to check out the pumpkins closer to Halloween. 

A Trick Makes the Medicine Go Down

Nikki's monthly heart worm pill was due today.  I excitedly got the box out, open the blister pack and told Nikki to do a couple of roll overs.  Dancer was appalled that I would make her do a trick for her medicine but I explained that if she does a trick for it she will have it swallowed before she even knows what she was given.  I love that dogs are so easily duped.

State Fair - The Great Minnesota Get Together

And get together with others we did, over 111,000 of them on Wednesday.  We had to be there early, by 8:15.  Not knowing what the traffic would be or what snares we may come upon we left by 5:30 in the blessed a.m.  Early for us.  We were there, parked, and in the 4-H building by 7:45 so we had plenty of time.  At this time of the morning there aren't a lot of other people out roaming the fair grounds.

Dancer during her judging time.  We were excited that she would be in the first group and done early.  Her project category she entered was Youth Leadership and the judge wanted them to do a skill building activity first and then see everyone back at 11:30 to go over her judging results so we still needed to watch the time and be back to the 4-H building later.  Never had that happen during judging before but whatever.

While Dancer was in her judging Spark did some of the technology activities set up in middle of the building.  Here he was learning how to program a robot.  He looked so serious.

We checked out all the displays in the open exhibits and the education building.  This struck me as odd that you would have kids walk around with smashed butts on their heads.  Seemed more like you should have to wear it if you caught smoking, like a dunce hat.  We snapped the picture and he left it on the table for someone else.  I never did see anyone wearing one.

We all enjoyed the all you can drink milk.  A dollar for a cup and you can go back as many times as you want for chocolate or white milk served by dairy farmers from around the state.  Dancer also had her coveted cinnamon roll.  We all enjoyed a deep fried curly potato and Dancer, Spark and Dad had pizza, something we don't have anymore since we have cut down on our carb consumption.

 Spark and I climbed to the top of the fire tower at the DNR building.  Long way up, long way down.

We were in the right place at the right time for the parade.  We have missed this every other year.  This car had plates fastened all over it.  We just had hail damage to our car and have to have it fixed but I thought maybe we could just do this instead so the dings don't show. 

Spark went on lots of rides.  Notice he is the only one of us on the ride, that is because the rest of us don't do rides.  Watching him on this one made my stomach do flips.  Grandma Pat was super nice and bought the kids each a pack of midway tickets, something we would never buy because they are so expensive.

Dancer used her tickets to play carnival games.  She ended up winning a little stuffed bird with all of her tickets. 

Spark coming out of the crazy house, his face tells the story of how fun the day was. 

It has been two days and we are all still tired and sore from all the walking, we must have walked for about 10 hours.  By next year we will be good to go again, perhaps we should have a state fair boot camp to get ready.

Crochet Autumn Leaves

I saw these leaves and haven't been able to stop making them since.  They are super simple once you make one.  Now I am down to about five minutes per leaf and that includes weaving in the ends.

Leaf Pattern
Round 1: Ch 4, 11 dc in 4th ch from hook, join with a sl st to top of beginning ch—12 dc.
Round 2: Ch 6, sl st in 3rd ch from hook (picot made), dc in first st, 2 dc in each of next 2 sts, (dc, ch 5, sc in 2nd ch from hook and in next 3 chs to form stem, dc) in next st, 2 dc in each of next 2 sts, (dc, picot, dc ) in next st; (sc, hdc) in next st, (dc, picot, sc) in next st, (hdc, dc, tr, picot, tr, dc, hdc) in next st, (sc, picot, dc) in next st, (hdc, sc) in last st, join with a sl st to 3rd ch of round.
Fasten off and weave in the ends.

A picture play by play of how to make the second round can be found here at www.craftstylish.com

Don't Worry

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. - Matthew 6:34

Last week when I posted that we had nothing much on the calendar I didn't mean for problems to come our way because we hadn't anything better to do.  Last Wednesday morning I had sharp stomach pains, enough that after four hours I headed into the doctor.  The doctor wanted a CT scan and since it was late he sent me to the ER.  While there they thought I was having gall bladder problems.  One ultra sound later I was cleared from gall bladder woes.  Next was the CT scan to see if it was an appendix.  No problems with the appendix but, there is always a but, I have ovarian cysts and a kidney stone. 

Next day a follow up with my doctor, I didn't see my doctor the day before, which I hate, but when in pain you go to who has an opening.  The scan showed a 6 cm cyst so we decided I would have an ultra sound and see a ob/gyn.  I thought my ob/gyn days were over but now I am right back there sitting among the ladies with the protruding bellies although this time I am not one of them.  I had the ultra sound the next day and went home for the weekend to wait to see the doctor.

Over the weekend I surprisingly wasn't worried about this.  I kept saying the verse above and praying for God to give the doctor wisdom to know exactly what needed to be done in my case.  I thought it is what it is and no worrying is going to change that.  Not that didn't think about most of the time but it didn't consume me like things can sometimes.  Dancer on the other hand was so upset she had trouble eating.  We talked a lot about this this weekend and by this morning she said that she was feeling okay with whatever happened.

At my appointment today I found out that I actually have two cysts instead of one big one.  The doctor felt sure that they were only simple cysts and that I should have another ultra sound in a couple of months. Trusting his judgement that is what I will do -- and not worry. 

Finally Eggs!

Chickens are "suppose" to start laying eggs when they are about five months old.  Ours didn't.  They have taken so long that I was on the verge of thinking we had the only non laying chickens on the face of the earth.  They are so over due to have laid an egg that I thought I might have to have the crock pot conversation with them.  But today, ah today, Spark went out to do chores and came back with three hard shelled beauties. 

Finally girls, it's about time.

An Inch

Dancer got up the other morning and Dad said to her that he thought she looked taller.  She quickly got out the ruler and stood with her back to the wall where we have their heights marked to see if this was true.  At 5' 2 1/2" she is much shorter than she would like to be but hasn't grown for over a year.  Sure enough, when we put the ruler on the top of her head and made sure it was level she had indeed grown an inch.  Good thing too, because when Spark had his turn he was just a smidgen under her old height.  Your brother, who is four years younger than you, should not be taller especially when you are sensitive about these things. 

Fantasy Football Draft Cake

Spark wanted to bring something special for the snack table at the fantasy football draft he and Dad were going to.  He settled on a football cake, which we made at the last minute, which shows in the frosting job.  The cake came out of the oven at 4:50 and they had to leave at 5:30.  After the cake came out of the oven I cut it in a football shape and popped it in the fridge while making the frosting so at least the surface would be cool enough to frost. 

The frosting is Creamy Vanilla Frosting

3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup softened butter
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
About 2 tablespoons milk

Put all ingredients in a bowl and mix with the hand mixer until it is a spreadable consistency. 

I scooped out a little bit while it was still white for the laces on the ball.  The hard part was making the frosting football brown.  We got out the colors and it said to use two drops of red to every one drop of green and yellow. 

It did make it pretty in the bowl.  I started with twice that amount and mixed it up.  It looked like pale skin.  With the urging of the kids I kept adding more and more and more colors.  It was still the color of puce and never did get very dark.  The solution was to get out the unsweetened chocolate and keep dumping it in until we got a semi dark color which was quickly starting to look like chocolate frosting.  The clock was ticking so I smeared it on the cake, Dancer put the white frosting in a sandwich bag to be able to pipe it on the cake,  I drew on the laces, snapped a quick picture, threw some saran wrap on the top and the boys were out the door with instructions not to smash the top or chip the plate.  Hope it is good. 

Summerland 4-H Fun Day

Our 4-H group had a day out at a local little amusement park to celebrate all our hard work from the last few years.

Dancer and Spark both started out on the go-karts.

This was Spark's favorite car.  His first time around was a little iffy but after that he really got the hang of the gas, break and steering all at the same time.

Spark enjoyed the bumper boats. 

He went down the water slide several times.  Just about to the bottom....

A quick recovery because the next kids is only a few turns of the slide away.

Moved out of the way with his mat and ran up the stairs again.  It was a long way to the top, probably about six stories high.

There was a snack pot luck which had such good food it was more like a lunch.

He got in a couple of games of putt-putt golf.

Why no more pictures of Dancer?  Because she only went on the go-karts.

As soon as her turn was done she ran back in the go-kart line with her friend.  I think about nine of the kids that were with our group, everyone could bring friends, rode the go-karts the whole time.  I took advantage of her driving excitement today and when we got home she mowed the lawn on the rider.  When she got done she said she wondered how fast she could mow the lawn if the mower went as fast as a go-kart.  Should I be worried when she gets her driver's license?

Homeschool Rally

Last night was the fall rally for our homeschool group.  I went to a break out session about how to get your kids to love learning.  The speaker had a lot of good ideas but she had 11 kids, bingo just isn't the same with two kids. 

After the speakers, you could choose from two different ones, there was a huge book sale and sub groups had tables to promote their programs.  There was a lot of energy in the room and moms were snapping up fun, and some not so fun, looking curriculum and talking about how they are excited to get a head start on school and start next week.  I don't think the regular schools around here even start until September 7th. 

We did sign Spark up for soccer and order him a t-shirt.  Our group has a large group of families that play soccer on Saturday mornings until the snow flies.  We haven't taken part in it since Dancer was in kindergarten because, one she was more interested in looking for four leaf clovers on the soccer field and two, we have been utilizing the YMCA program.  This year the YMCA, which only wants to be called the Y now, shortened each of their sessions by two weeks and upped the price by 30 percent.  Hmm, soccer for free or the new Y program, pretty much a no brainer there.   Dancer didn't want to play so we didn't sign her up.  On the way home I mentioned that I talked to one of her friends mom and her friend is playing soccer so now she wants to play.  Go figure.

There was also a table to sign up if we were interested in Irish dance.  If they get enough interest a performing arts place is going to try and find a teacher to come up from the cities.  While Irish dance isn't a passion for Dancer at least she would be dancing again and it wouldn't include jazz or ballet.  She suffers through the jazz and ballet parts of class to be able to tap dance which is her passion.

Other than those two things I walked around and talked with lots of people I haven't seen for a while and felt like a great big fraud, which I did admit to a few good friends last night.  See, I am just not feeling any back to school excitement.  I feel like I need a summer vacation from summer vacation.  The calendar, which has been full almost every day since the beginning of summer, only has nine things on it between now and September 7th so maybe, just maybe, we will be more in the mood for school.  If not, we aren't going to do more than the math that we do all summer.  Sometimes I enjoy being counter cultural just because I can.  When people try to talk me into things I tell them, "Your peer pressure has no effect on me."  Well, I tell friends that, to others I give the unsnarky polite "no," a word I have learned to use and not feel guilty about.

So it will probably be state parks, bike trails, unbusy tourist attraction field trips - here we come!  October is still up in the air too.   

Her Maiden Voyage

All summer Dad has been watching Craig's List for a canoe and there haven't been any to be found.  Lately though there are just scads of them and we able to buy one.

Dancer and I took her on her maiden voyage and came back dry.

Spark, our self professed non canoer, and Dad went out next.

As an aside, Spark's first canoe ride was his 6th birthday.  We were up in northern Minnesota at an environmental learning center.  One of the classes we took was about voyagers and about 20 of us were in this huge canoe.  It was so big we sat, I think, four people across.  There was ice we were trying to go through so the people who were paddling would ram the canoe up on the ice, chop at it with the paddles, we would fall through and they would start all over again until we could get through this ice patch.  Spark started to panic and yell, "We are all going to die" over and over and over.  Not only was he yelling at the top of his lungs but there were cliffs on each side of the lake that his voice was echoing off of.  Since we were in absolutely no danger what so ever, and a lot of the people we were with we had just met a couple of days prior, I was frantically trying to get him to stop yelling.  No go.  We got to where we were going, did our voyager activities and Spark refused to get back into the canoe.  Dad, being the fabulous dad that he is, walked all the way back around the lake with Spark so he wouldn't have to get in the canoe.

They came back not only dry but smiling as well.

Dancer did a little fishing and, although she only caught one little, tiny hors d'oveur sized fish, she did catch a good sized salad.

Downed Fence

We have had a fence that was down at the end of the corral and have put off fixing it because the goats hadn't realized yet that it was down.  That is until yesterday when I looked out and saw that Lola discovered the spot and that she could get out.   Her mother was baaing and baaing, because although she could get out, she couldn't figure out how to get back in.  The kids ran out and put her back in the corral only to look out a little bit later and see her out again.  All the goats went back into the barn at this point and we decided to fix it after dinner. 

When we went down to look at the fence the goats came out with us, they are sort of like dogs and follow us around.  As we stood surveying the fence, Lola came scampering down and jumped up on the fence post where she was getting out and turned around as if to say, "This is how you get out!"  We shooed her down and she ran around for a few moments and then jumped back up there again and did the same thing as if we didn't understand her the first time.  She seemed so proud of herself.  We burst her bubble by fixing the fence.  She looked at it for a while, realized that she wasn't getting out any more and went back to her goat business. 

Flower Park

We went to town yesterday for homeschool park days and on the way home stopped to find a cache in this beautiful flower park.  I use to take the kids here when they were little and we lived near by but it has been a few, maybe more than a few, years since we had been here.

There were Dr. Seuss trees.

Spark looked around at all the flowers and foliage and declared, "There has never been a goat loose in here."

There are at least 10 acres that look like this including a huge rose garden with fountains. 

Hoards of geese dropping their little bombs everywhere. 

As we left, there was reminder that summer is on it's way out.