Ellette Rangers 4-H Club Meeting

This afternoon we had our monthly 4-H meeting for our general 4-H club here in Person County.  We met at the park and held our meeting before the kids played for a while at the playground.

During the meeting we talked about Flag Day coming up on Monday.  The kids colored pictures of our flag while president Micheal told us about Flag Day and how it came about.  McKayla also reported on our activities at home for Earth Day (making birdhouses and bird feeders).

Happy Birthday Evan!

My first born turns eight years old today!  He has requested homemade pizza for dinner.  So, pizza and a movie at home.  We will surprise him with "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" which he has been wanted to watch for months now.  We will have his cake and presents on Saturday with Neil's parents.

Museum of Life and Science

The kids and I spent the afternoon at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC.  It is a favorite place to spend time.  We played in the music room, the playground, the Dinosaur Trail and the toddler play area but the kid's really seem to be drawn to the percussion area of the outdoor playground today...

Kimchi experiment

Kimchi is a traditional Korean fermented dish made of vegetables with varied spicy seasonings. It is most commonly made with napa cabbage and other vegetables such as radish, green onion, carrot, chive, and cucumber. Kimchi is the most common side dish in Korean cuisine.

I have never made Kimchi before.  In fact, I have never eaten Kimchi before.  But I do like spicy food well enough so I am all for adding more raw fermented foods into my life.

So, using the two heads of Bok Choy that I soaked in the brine overnight, I followed this recipe:

Kimchi Recipe

2 Cloves of garlic, peeled and roughly chopped
1 2-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped

1/2 cup fish sauce

1/3 cup chili paste (recipe called for twice this amount if you are brave)
1 teaspoon honey

1 bunch green onions, cut into 1-inch lengths (use the dark green part, too, except for the tough ends)

1 medium carrot, peeled and cut into matchsticks

Put the first five ingredients into a food processor and process until smooth texture is formed.  In a large bowl mix Bok Choy (or Napa Cabbage) with green onion,carrots and sauce from food processor.  Pack the kimchi in a clean glass jar(s) large enough to hold it all and cover it tightly. Let stand for one to two days in a cool place, around room temperature.  Check the kimchi after 1-2 days. If it's bubbling a bit, it's ready and should be refrigerated. If not, let it stand another day, when it should be ready.  Once it's fermenting, serve or store in the refrigerator.

My freshly made Kimchi.

And on another topic... this afternoon Neil got in the pool with the kids which they loved!

4-H Club Meeting

Southern

Ring Rockers

4-H Club

The kids and I traveled up to Clarksville, VA to attend our first meeting of the Southrn Ring Rockers 4-H club.  We still belong to our local 4-H club here in Roxboro, NC but the SRR Club is a horse emphasis club.  We also have friends that are members already so it seemed natural for us to join them instead of searching for a horse club here in Roxboro.

Tonights meeting was strickly a business meeting.  Next month we will be starting up a Cloverbud program before the business meeting.  Cloverbuds are 4-H kids between 5-8 years old.  It should be fun for kids and they are looking forward to it.

The pool goes up!

Neil and his Dad worked on setting the pool up yesterday afternoon.  They got a new load of sand to level the area were we set the pool up every year. Then the pool itself went up.  The filter was attached and finally it was time to start filling it up.  It filled overnight and McKayla was in it as soon as Neil gave the go ahead.  The tempurature was that of ice water but she didn't care... she loves to swim!

Lego Smart Creativitiy Contest

I found out today that I was selected to compete in the 2010 LEGO^® Smart^TM Creativity Contest, challenging teachers and home educators across the United States to become LEGO Smart!  The contest doesn't begin until August but they will be mailing Lego kits out in 4-6 weeks so I can start working on my contest entry.

We also received SIX postcards in the mail today!

One from Quebec showing Autumn colors.

One from Texas with a Yucca plant and Bluebonnets.

And three Ohio State Map cards all from the same family.

And finally, the same family from Ohio sent a recipe card too.

The goat kids are fine today. I always worry about them for the first 24 hours. It is possible to cause some brain damage to the kids if the hot iron is left on too long. I have never seen it but I fret none the less.

A Family-A-Fair

A Family-A-Fair is an annual event in our county to mark the end of The Week of the Young Child. There are many activities through out Huck Sansbury Park including inflatable slides, hay rides, petting zoo, games, and community awareness booths. Which is why we were there... to help with the Ellette Rangers 4-H table.

L to R: Matthew, Zach, Cheryl and Micheal

McKayla with her 4-H temporary tattoo.

New Postcard

Got a postcard today from Maine... my home state!

Taylor had her 16 month well check exam at the doctor's this afternoon. She is growing well.

Postcard Trading

The kids and I have started something new lately. We are trading postcards to learn about other parts of the world. We are trading within the US for State map cards, state bird, flag, flower, animal, scenic views and more. We are also wanting to trade internationally to learn about other countries too.

So far we have received state map cards from New Hampshire and Arizona. We also have a Washington State card of the World's Longest Beach.

Some of the places we have found to trade cards are:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/postcardkids/
http://www.postcrossing.com/
http://www.swap-bot.com/

If you would like to trade cards with us just leave me a comment! We have several different cards we can trade from North Carolina.

McKayla with Pepper's new kid

How cute is that?

Easter Party

to be updated soon

More Easy Bake Oven fun

This time Pizza! McKayla and I made some little pizzas for her and Evan to have for lunch.

This Easy Bake Oven thing has turned out to be fun for both of us. lol

McKayla looses first tooth

McKayla, who is 5 1/2 years old, has had a slightly loose tooth for about two weeks now. Tonight she comes up to me to show me how loose it is and that she can lay it flat both in and out... but it wouldn't come out. I told her it wouldn't be long now and most likely the tooth fairy would be visiting her tonight.


After four hours and it still was not out McKayla become concerned that it would never fall out. I gave her the option of me pulling it. After a brief thinking it over she decided that is what she wanted. I expected her to flinch and change her mind but she stood still as could be as I gave it a quick pull and extracted it. Brave little McKayla was thrilled! She wanted to go to bed right away so the tooth fairy would come sooner.

Taylor's 1st Birthday

I can't believe my baby turns one today! What a fast year that was. We had cake and presents up at Neil's parent's house after dinner. She liked her cake very much...

Easy Bake Oven

Well, Santa gave McKayla an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas. For those of you not familiar with an Easy Bake Oven it is an oven for children that cooks using the heat of a 100 watt light bulb. Luckily, Santa also gifted McKayla a from-scratch recipe book so we will never have to purchase the overpriced, chemical filled mixes available for it.

The first thing she and I baked up in it was a carrot cake complete with cream cheese frosting!

Here are the two carrot cakes... only a mear 3 inches across!

Stacked and frosted.... looking good!

The first slice gone... yummy!

Days update.

Well, first off, our rabbit made it through the night! She is tucked in the far corner of the hutch but her ears are up and she seems alert. I will not consider her out of the woods until another day or two and I see her eating and drinking again. But, she looks good for what she went through yesterday!

Neil's Dad came by early this morning so he and Neil could get the last of the four concrete stabilizer footings poured on the garage. Yeah! Now that that is done they can continue work on the end walls and doors to button it up for the winter.

We have two alpacas that are due with crias at the end of this month. One of those is Eloise. While feeding the girls this morning I noticed a large lump by the tail head of Eloise, so large that it actually pushed her tail to one side. I went up and felt the lump and it was firm. I pressed on it and it retracted back! A few minutes later it reappeared... I pushed on it again and it retracted once more. This was the nose of the cria! So, Eloise is now on cria watch.

My birthing stall has had a gate broken on it for some time (the cows share one side and rubbed on it until the wall broke) and since my need for that stall my come sooner than I had thought... Neil removed the half wall that the gate is attached to, rebuilt the framing, covered it with pressboard for strength, reinstalled the wall and then hung the gate again. Now I am all set if I see any signs of impending birth. I will put the two girls in there in another week regardless so that they don't give birth without being separated from our LGDs who are so protective of babies that they keep the dams away too!

Sold the three little ducklings to a neighbor I sold some turkeys to this summer. She called yesterday to see if I had any ducks for sale and was pleased that I had little ones available. Funny how things work out sometimes.

I weighed our two new Nigerian Dwarf goat doelings again today to see if they are growing. They have been here two weeks now. Miss Olive, who weighed in at only 16.75lbs two weeks ago, was up 1.5lbs to 18.25lbs. Miss Cheddar on the other hand remained the same at 17.75lbs. I am sure this is due to the week long bought of diarrhea she went through when she first arrived. She has recovered fully and is doing well now. I will continue to weigh them over the next few weeks to keep my eye on their growth.

Finally, Neil set up the volleyball net for the kids in the side yard so they could play badminton with it. Evan played for a bit but then went off to set "snares" around the farm. McKayla and I played badminton for almost an hour. What a sight we were... playing badminton with a volleyball net and racket ball rackets... but we had a blast!

Clone troopers, bounty hunters and Vader oh my!

Took the kids to an event at the Science Museum today. There were lots of Star Wars characters walking around: Clone troopers, Boba Fett, Darth Vader, R2D2, Princess Leah and more! We had lots of fun!

Meet the guinea pigs...

This is McKayla holding "Jill".

And here is Evan holding "Bugsy".

Oh, both Jill and Bugsy are boys... just don't tell McKayla that!

Pigs on the farm?

The kids and I headed out to our friend S.'s farm this afternoon to pick up some young Muscovy ducks from her. I met S. last year when she came by the farm to buy some Muscovies from me. Now, a year later I find myself needing some back. You see I have sold almost all of my young ducks that hatched out on the farm this spring. I only have a few males and 3-4 females left.

I had a gentlemen contact me wanting a drake and 4-5 females to start his flock. I told him it would take a few days to catch them up and I would call him when they were ready for pickup. After two days I could only get hold of a drake and a one female. The rest of the females free range almost 100% of the time and never come into the chicken coop to eat the pellet food in the mornings so there was no way I could get a hold of them.

I made a quick phone call to S. to ask if she had any females that she needed to sell. In fact she did and would love to help me fill my order. So, off to S.'s farm we went. It was fun looking around her farm seeing all her animals... goats, dogs, cats, rabbits, chickens, turkeys, lots of different breeds of ducks, the Embden geese she got from us recently, pot-bellied pigs and Guinea pigs too. After the farm tour, we packed up three Muscovy females to bring home. Then S. offered the kids two Guinea pigs as well. She had several litters of young ones ready to go. The kids each picked one out (and a quick check to confirm they were both the same sex!) and we had two little piggies coming home with us too!


These will be the first "pets" the kid's have had. Obviously, at ages 7 and 5 I will still be the primary caretaker. But as I expect the guinea pigs to be around for several years at some point I hope they can take over the duties themselves.