Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me....

Two weeks ago a friend and I took our families up to Date Creek Ranch north of Wickenburg to pick apples. This is the same ranch where we picked peaches in July. It was a lovely day for a trip and we had a great time. In under two hours we had collectively picked 68 pounds of apples (I think they were Golden Delicious). And they were yummy! Whew! Even the little ones got into the act, and my son climbed his first tree. :) We took our haul up to the stand and paid, grabbed hot dogs all around, and the kids fed apples to the horses. We had decided to each take half of the apples, and we would get together later in the week and have a canning party and split whatever we made. So the next weekend we canned apples. And canned apples. And canned apples. Boy, they sure do cook down to almost nothing! We ended up with 5 quarts of apple sauce, 10 pints of apple butter, and enough apples left over for a couple of pies or crisps. And now we are both experts in the use of the food mill. :)

I am in the midst of several projects at the moment, and I hope to have some done this week, and I'm also working on a Riot update. So hopefully (fingers firmly crossed) I'll have some more posts later in the week. Onward, to the sewing machine!

What do we do in the desert when there is no hope for snow...

...our kids make dirt angels.

Bunnies don't like sharks

Daaaaaahhhhh!!!!! My husband recently purchased "Rayman Raving Rabbids" for the Wii, and we have really enjoyed playing it. So much, in fact, that I made him a Rabbid for his birthday. His is the one obviously screaming "Daaaaaaahhhh!!!!". My son likes to watch us play, and will come to us holding a Wii remote, bowing, and saying, "We would like to play bunnies.". Knowing that he would run off with my husband's rabbid, I made him his very own, more benevolent-looking rabbid. I got the inspiration on craftster.org, just search for "rabbid" and you will find several entries. I made these with felt. The eyes and the smile are embroidered. The thing I learned doing this project: stuffed animals aren't that hard to make. I've made sock monkeys before, but never anything like this. I see many more in my future as Christmas, birthday, and baby shower gifts. Now I need to find patterns......

THAT'S what I was talking about!

Thanks to The Green Mommy for this link: Birthdays Without Pressure. This is EXACTLY what I was talking about in my previous post about making birthdays special. The examples they give about the excesses seen in children's birthday parties is eye-opening. What are we preparing these kids for? Gimme, gimme, gimme. I hope we can all grow backbones as parents and stop trying to keep up with the Joneses when it comes to birthday parties. I personally love coming up with clever themes, decorations, and games for our at-home birthday parties, and I know that most of the kids in attendance have never seen such a thing. I hope that it makes for a special event for everyone involved. And I personally refuse to spend over $200 for a pizza parlor or play-place party where we will get kicked out in less than 2 hours. Parents of the world unite! We can make birthdays special and meaningful occasions again!

OK. Stepping off my soapbox now....

A little piece of sunshine...

That's what my new dress reminds me of. I *finally* finished the yellow gabacha yesterday and wore it to a baby shower. It was nice and comfortable, and I got lots of compliments on it. Have a gander:
Now that I know my son will be gone a good 4 hours a day 4 days a week (hooray mommy-time!), I can get some major projects done. I'm planning on doing the next gabacha this week in the blue floral that is pictured in an earlier post. I didn't get the baby blanket done - I wanted to do a Speed Hook Baby Blanket, but had trouble locating a size S (yes S) hook. I did find one yesterday, on the way to the baby shower, so we ended up picking a few things off the Target registry. Not ideal, but hey, all babies need clothes. :) The next baby blanket I make will be the 4 Hour Baby Blanket pattern by Lion Brand. I'm interested to see if the name fits with the reality of how I crochet. We'll see....

A few weeks ago I cooked in the solar oven again. I made Filipino Menudo, based on a friend's recipe, and it was excellent! I do the recipe by sight, so I can't really give any solid measurements, but your ingredients are: pork loin cut into cubes, a yellow onion, chopped, about 5 or 6 cloves of garlic, minced in a garlic press (more if you really like garlic), potatoes peeled and cubed, raisins (don't look at me like I have lobsters coming out of my ears, it's really good!), soy sauce and water. Saute the onions and garlic until the onions start to get a little soft, but don't brown the garlic! Add the pork and brown. Then add a few handfuls of raisins, the potatoes, about 1/2 cup of good soy sauce from the Philippines (I use Silver Swan), and enough water to cover everything. Then, slow cook it either on the burner or in my case the solar oven. The longer you cook it, the better it is. I think I left it in the solar oven about 3 hours. We eat it served over rice. I was really impressed by how much I could actually make in a 3 quart pan. We had 3 meals out of the one batch. I think I'll be doing this again soon. YUM!

I haven't been back out in the garden yet, I still need to locate row cover. I may have to order it. At least I can still plant for fall. We have had some good rain, and our front yard plants, which are desert plants, always say "Oh boy! Water!" and put out impressive new growth. I love the purple sage (is it Texas sage?, I'm not sure of the exact variety) that we have out front, and here's a picture of one happy bush. I hope the rain comes back soon - it's been hot and muggy with no rain payoff the last week or so. :( At least not in our neighborhood.

So, I leave you with hopes of rain and cooler temperatures, as long as the rain holds off until I'm finished line-drying the wash tomorrow.....

I guess this thing IS on....

I have received some comments from persons other than family and friends. Most welcome if unexpected. Hi! Have a look around and enjoy yourself. Leave a comment if you wish or continue lurking like I normally do. :)

Update on the garden: Something ate my sprouts. :( I emailed a local garden expert (Dave the Garden Guy) and he suggested birds as the culprit, but I'm not sure. I will be replanting as soon as I can get some sturdier row cover and hoops to support it. Such is the life of a gardener. *sigh*

My son goes back to preschool on Tuesday (yippee!!) so I'll have a few hours each day to finish up the many projects that have stalled lately. I hope to have the yellow dress done by Wednesday, and will be working on the blue flower print next. I also have a baby blanket to make by Saturday, and hopefully I'll remember to take a picture of it this time. I may also try to make bread in the solar oven this week. It is supposed to be hot and clear, so it should go well. Ambitious? Yes. So keep checking back and I should have more posts forthcoming. Now I'm off to figure out what to do for supper......

Lots of updates...

Whew! It's been a busy couple of weeks! Let's see.....I finished the pink dress, picked 50 pounds of peaches, read "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", canned some peaches, planted my garden, crocheted a Hello Kitty purse (and just realized that I forgot to take a picture, d'oh!), and eagerly run out into the backyard every day to see what has sprouted. First, here's a picture of the pink dress. It is also a Folkwear Sporty Forties dress, and I LOVE it! The picture doesn't do it justice. I'm almost done with the yellow gabacha, and I'll post a picture when I'm done.

We went up north of Wickenburg to Date Creek Ranch and picked peaches last Sunday. We ran into a monsoon storm and had to pull off the road on the way up there, but it was nice and cool and drizzley the whole time we were picking. My son wasn't too discerning with his peach selection, but did well for a four year old. We picked for about 2 hours give or take and ended up with 55 pounds of peaches (we were picking for a friend, too). My husband had never had a peach right off the tree, and now he knows what a peach is *supposed* to taste like. We ate a bunch fresh, and I still had enough to try my hand at canning. I ended up with 3 quarts of spiced peaches and 4 pints of peach butter. Peach butter = yummy! We are already planning a trip for September to go pick apples. And we hope to order 1/2 a cow with the same friend we were picking for this fall from the same ranch.

I was finished with "Deathly Hallows" by Monday afternoon, and then it was my husband's turn to read it. No spoilers here, but we really enjoyed it and thought that it tied the series up nicely.

I planted my garden last Friday, and had sprouts coming up this Thursday. Aren't they cute? Our monsoon season finally started up in the past week, and my garden is loving the rain! (Doing a happy-dance for rain in the desert.) I have more coming up now, and the varieties are: Triple Treat, Small Sugar, and Jack Be Little pumpkins; pinto beans, navy beans, California Black Eye peas, Kentucky Wonder pole beans; Jenny Lind, Hearts of Gold, and Sugar Baby melons; sweet corn, and winter squash (I'm not sure if the Hubbards or Acorns are up). I'm still waiting for my California Wonder peppers to sprout. I think everything is coming up well considering the seeds are from when I last tried a garden 2 years ago. I also planted some sunflowers a few days ago in my son's garden. The only downside seems to be that crickets are munching some of the sprouts. I have everything covered, but not too tightly. I was more concerned with birds getting at the wormy-looking sprouts. :(

Hopefully it won't be another 2 weeks before I post again, but hey, life happens, right?

It's quiet. Too quiet.

Sorry for the lack of posts of late. I have been busy with multiple projects, including sewing the pink dress (done, and already worn twice, but I haven't taken a pic yet), nearly done with the yellow dress, have the blue flowered one cut and ready to go, re-reading the Harry Potter series before "Deathly Hallows" comes out (I'm through "Goblet of Fire"; don't know if I'll make it through "Order of the Phoenix" and "Half-Blood Prince" in time for the new book release), although I am currently taking a break to read "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver, since I had requested it from the library and this will probably be my only chance to read it any time soon. I like run-on sentences, can you tell? I also cooked in the solar oven twice last week, in the same day, no less. I made the Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp that is in "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle", and I combined two recipes to come up with an excellent Cilantro Chicken, um, stew I guess you'd call it. I combined the Cilantro Chicken recipe from "Solar Cooking Naturally" by Virginia Heather Gurley, and the Chicken Recuerdos de Tucson from "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle". (You can go here to get all the recipes in the book: http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/Recipes.html) Both turned out so yummy that we inhaled it before I could take any pictures. :( (edit: I *was* able to take a picture of the crisp before it was gone! :) I love strawberry-rhubarb pie, but I never would have thought to make a crisp until I saw the recipe. Now I am going to be on the lookout for other fruit to make into crisps. This week I'm going to try more recipes in the solar oven, and I'm also going to be doing some planting in the garden. We have a good chance of rain this week, and I want to take advantage of it. I need to get out back and do some tidying, and then I'll be able to take and post some pictures. Now, do I go read or sew? So many fun things to do.....

Making Birthdays Special

I've heard a lot of conversations lately about children and birthdays. How do we make them special? Do we tend to go overboard? Are our kid's deprived if they don't get a $200 party at Chuck E. Cheese's every year? I think, much like most of American society, birthdays have become a consumer frenzy. I feel that the birthday party should be a fun time for the kids, but we need to remember why we are there - to celebrate another year in the life of a child. I think the most important part of these celebrations is spending time with friends and family. Personally, we have tried (and not always succeeded) to have non-commercial birthday parties for our son. His first birthday was a big blowout with all the family (my husband has a HUGE extended family) at the park (thanks Nana!), and the next 3 parties were done at home. I can't see spending the vast amounts of cash to have a kid's party at Chuck E. Cheese or Pump It Up. Sure, it's fun, but I think you start to get a diminished "Wow" factor. I read an article in the Tightwad Gazette about the "wow" factor, which essentially is how much do you have to spend, both in time and money, to get a "wow" out of your kids (or other family members, for that matter) when it comes to gifts, parties, and other activities. If you go to Disneyland every year, it ceases to be special, so then you have to raise the ante and start going to Disney World, and where do you go when that ceases to be special? If we keep having parties at "party places", what happens when we have parties at home? Do the kids see them as not as good? Boring? Or do they see them as being special because they aren't the norm anymore? These are the things I wonder about. Nana is throwing my son's birthday party this year, another big family blowout at the park. She wants to do something big and special for his fifth birthday. It's hard to believe he's turning 5 this year! I think having a big party every 5 years is fine. Do we have to do something spectacular every year? I don't think so. But it can still be special.

OK, stepping off the soapbox now....

So far my son's parties (aside from the park party) have included homemade cake, ice cream, homemade games, homemade decorations, and a piñata. For his first birthday we did a Bear in the Big Blue House theme (he loved Bear!), but it was really hard to find any decorations, especially for the cake, so I just did a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and a "1" candle on top. We did some games for the older kids, including a treasure hunt, that went over pretty well. His second birthday was a Totoro party, based on the movie "My Neighbor Totoro". I figured out how to make a Totoro-shaped cake and also made soot-sprite cupcakes. The frosting didn't stay spikey, but they still turned out cute. :) For games we did Pin the Smile on Cat Bus. His third birthday we did a train theme (not Thomas, at the time we thought Thomas was creepy), and you can tell by the picture, that _someone_ got to the cake before I did. I was busy getting ready for the party while the cake cooled, when I hear a little voice coming from the kitchen saying "Good job!" and little hands clapping. Needless to say there were frantic phone calls made to my husband who was out getting ice and stuff, to pick up a cake from Costco. I made some railway crossing signs, including one with flashing lights made from blinking Christmas pins. For games we did a bean bag toss of Toss the Coal into the Coal Car. His fourth birthday was a Pixar Cars party. My son "helped" me paint the decorations, a bunch of road signs, and we turned the living room and entry into Radiator Springs. I did a racetrack cake and put a diecast Lightning and Mater on top. For some reason I can't find a good picture of it, so I'll just describe it: it was a rectangular cake, 9x13 I think, that I frosted in green for grass, crushed up chocolate graham crackers for the race track, formed an oval track with the crumbs, and I made a banner that said "Happy Birthday" on the computer with a checkerboard border that I stuck into the cake with toothpicks. Lightning and Mater were under the banner. For games we did Pin the Bolt on Lightning and a bean bag toss. We also made foam cars from a kit I got at Michael's. All in all, I think our parties have been successful. I end up running around like a nut, but the kids seem to enjoy themselves. I think that the memories we make are better when we infuse the process with love.

'nother bag

Here's my latest plastic bag bag. For this one I used heavier plastic, and had to go up to a size P hook from an M. This is the project that scratched up my hook. :( Can you guess where the bags came from? I have enough loops cut to do probably one more bag, and then it is on to the heavier department store bags, and a new method that a little bird told me about. I'll post about that sometime in the future if it proves successful. :)