Seventeen months and counting

On the 27th, Sweetness turned seventeen months old, however I'm pretty sure she thinks she's Prez's equal at a whopping five years of age.
As long as she's still listening, I guess I don't care what else she uses that ear for!
Deciding she would read a book.
Oh, wait. She has to get up into the rocker.

WHEW!
Uh, oh. All this time I thought she was going to read. Perhaps we'll have a writer in the family. Time to put the camera down and intervene on the book's behalf.

Our Visit to the Dairy Farm

In an effort to be healthier this year, we found a farm (not too far from us) that has free range cattle and chickens. What this means is that we can now get our milk, meat, and eggs all fresh without chemical additives. In fact, the milk is so raw that when it settles the cream rises to the top and you can skim that off to make butter, buttermilk, sour cream, cheese, and yogurt.

Now, does this mean I will be doing all those homesteading things? NO! But, this farm is closer to us than the grocery store so not only will we be able to eat healthier, but it will cost less in gas.

Because it was our first visit, the farmer met us and gave us the tour. The kiddos were so excited to learn that they would be privy to the milking of the cows. He only has seven!

Looks tasty, right? Okay, it looks creamy, right?

Here is the farmer pouring the fresh milk through a strainer and into a cooling machine that will drop the temperature of the milk to 33 degrees.

There is a spout on the machine where you align the jug and out comes ice cold fresh milk! Delish!
Here we go out to another area of the farm. As you can see in the background he has many, many, many acres. Wish I had asked how many. What a dream. Can you believe all that rye grass? In February? What a blessing. Do you also notice that we are not wearing jackets? Unbelievable!
Two calves that just came off the bottle and are now bucket trained. He raises all his own Jersey cows so he knows what goes in them and he keeps them healthy.
Then, of course, we have the chickens! Free range, except at night when they have to be caged to keep them from predators.
Prez was invited to feed them.
Here he is chunkin' the stuff.
Even Sweetness got in on the fun.
I'm afraid those poor chickens will never be the same.
This one might just lay a scrambled egg!

I'm sure I'll keep you posted of our ongoing saga with the new foods, but one very good, instantly noticeable benefit. Prez, who has an extremely sensitive milk allergy, has not had a single reaction to the new milk, small or big! Hallelujah!

Will the garden grow?

You may remember the post a few weeks ago when Prez and Hubby were tilling up the ground to prepare the soil for the garden.

Well, plantin' time has arrived. At least for a few things.
Prez is planting carrots
and a bazillion tomatoes.
Bubbles planted tomatoes, onions, and carrots.
Hubby has yet to plant anything but herbs (which I'll post some pictures later), but as soon as the time is right, he's got bags and bags and bags and bags and bags and bags and bags of seeds. Aunt Tina.......you'll be getting some pickles this year. :)

Little Women learn proper correspondence.

This month's lesson on hospitality was on the skill of correspondence. Whether we are writing to keep in touch, inform, say thank you, express sympathy, extend an invitation, or acknowledge a special occasion there is a proper way to do it.

After our opening prayer and a review of last month's skill, we looked at some letters I had that were almost 2,000 years old! What luck, right? Well, you can do it too. We each got a Bible and turned to the Letter to the Romans written by Paul.
In fact, we flipped through several of the Epistles in the New Testament taking special note of the Greeting Paul used. (Hebrews is listed as a letter in the New Testament, but the author is not specified as Paul. Before each book of the Bible there is a historical account of that book which helps you to begin to understand the context under which it was written and for whom). So now, in Mass, each time the girls hear, "A reading from the letter of Paul to the ....", their ears should perk up!
We moved on to discuss the logistics of a good letter. Can you spot any of them?

1. ) Date at top- flush with the right margin

2.) A proper greeting

3.) An indention at the beginning of each paragraph

4.) All other lines in the paragraph flush to the left margin

5.) Even though this is a thank you note, it is all too often that we rush to write a quick note and we never tell the receiver anything about our lives. We just greeted them and ended. So the following picture has a list of things that could be included in a letter to make it more personal.

6.) A proper closure

7.) A signature, which I realize was cut off in this picture. (Sigh)

The girls each brought the name and address of someone they wanted to write a letter to for the purpose of "keeping in touch". Here they work diligently to be thoughtful, write neatly, and follow their new guidelines.
After snack, my wonderful neighbor stopped by to teach the girls calligraphy! She is a painter by trade, but has dabbled in calligraphy for many years and was even paid for a logo she created with her skill. She showed the girls many different styles of calligraphy.
Even some Chinese painted calligraphy that was done for her.
Here she is teaching them the skill of using different pressure amounts to create thick and thin lines, using different tools (this is just a carpenters pencil), and holding the pen in different positions to get different effects.
The girls were excited to see and hold the reed pen and the inks.
These penholders were the favorite, of course.
OOOOHHHH, AAAAAHHHHH!

Different nibs (tips) for different styles of calligraphy.
Practicing with a felt tip pen.
Now, using the REAL stuff!
I think I remember that all the girls preferred the felt tip pens for ease of writing and quickness (meaning no stopping and dipping).
This is the only group picture I got of them enjoying themselves while making thank you cards for my neighbor.
Here was the thank you treat we delivered later on. What a blessing to have such wonderful people in our lives. The girls learned so much.
After that lesson, we took a lunch break and then intended to watch the movie, Letters to God, but Netflix removed it from the instant watch category the night before! Can you believe it? Instead we watch a movie entitled, The Secret of Jonathan Sweeney. The girls really enjoyed it.

As for next month, we will be learning about taking our hospitality to others and our holy inspiration will be the visitation of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth! Exciting stuff!

Pancake Tuesday - aka Fat Tuesday

After spending way too much time last year on a King's cake that was not a huge hit, I went looking for another way to make something festive. It's a pancake, but hey...it's still cake! ;)

Here I just split the pancake batter into three bowls and dyed it with my excessive of food coloring. I knew I'd find something useful for all that dye. Of course, I needed a little red to mix with the blue and we all know that I didn't have any of that left. I did find one box of strawberry jello and added that. As a nice surprise, the purple pancakes had a faint, but yummy fruit flavor.
Yummy, yummy, yummy! Here is a link that explains Pancake Tuesday in more detail.

So, that took care of the morning. I had plans to decorate in the afternoon and then begin our last food splurge before the Lenten season begins.

Each family member chose one dish that they wanted to indulge in. Hubby chose Kimpop, which is basically the Korean form of sushi, I chose Chop Chae, another Korean dish, and Bubbles chose a Chocolate Mouse Cheesecake. Prez just wanted lots of candy.

My friend, Katy, had been wanting to learn how to make these, so she and her kids came over and did a SUPER job at rolling, cutting and, of course, feasting.
Here is Bubbles, doing her part to help.
If you like this stuff, I'm sure you are loving this photo. If you are like me, this does nothing for you. Each of these rolls has imitation crab, pickled radish, egg, and carrot. You can add whatever you like, however.
Here is the Chop Chae, which I realize looks intense with all the glass noodles, but let me assure you that every single munchkin at the table devoured it!
The finale, of course, was the cheesecake. We had to practice our patience and wait until about 8pm before sampling, but it was worth it. Chocolate wafer crust, New York style middle, and hardened chocolate on the top! Agh--I should have typed this up last night since I'm pretty hungry right now. :)

Train up a child in the way he should go

Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6

A Wacky Wednesday after the Crazy Friday

Okay, I'll stop referencing all my posts to last Friday. But......this was a fun day.

Before coming to visit, Grandma asked each of us what special food we wanted fixed. All of us wanted exactly the same thing.Homemade egg drop soup.
Marinated chicken.
Oh, yes, it's rip apart good!
Sweet Chinese sausage.
Dumplings.
and Pork fried rice. Are you salivating? We were. Then, of course, in a matter of minutes we had stuffed ourselves so completely that we were hurting. (I'm noticing a theme here when Grandma visits. I guess this Lent I'll be working on my self control.)
My amazing aunt dropped in for a visit. Now, obviously these two are sisters, so what did my aunt bring with her? Jolly ranchers, hard ones and chewy ones, Kit-Kat bars, Reese cups, and snack size M&Ms. I think my eye lid started twitching just at the sight of all the sugar. Guess what though? I ate some. Yeah, that's right and it was GooooooooD.
Being silly as only sisters can do. In fact, it was all very CLAZY! (Wink, wink)
Last treat before the day ended.....a banana split made by Hubby. I guess I should have warned him that I had eaten two pounds of candy throughout the day. Oh well, mom stayed up with me as the sugar high wore off around 12:30am. :)