Butterfly Release Party

We released our butterflies today.  Of the four remaining Pink Ladies (one passed on) two of them flew right out of our hands and headed up up up in a hurry.  One flew right to the tree in front of us and the last one flew right to the ground below us.  And there they still sit.  We have all enjoyed this project and each of us have learned a lot.  For example did you know butterflies release a meconium that is a bright red upon emerging from their chrysalids?  Or, they taste with their feet?  Or, the final measurement of the caterpillar is less than the length of the chrysalid, therefore Eason deduced that they shrink!

I think next we'll try the praying mantis kit.

My favorite quote of the week:

"Hello.  Welcome.  This dance originated from Bosnia."
-Eason Greene announcing a bit of background information on a performance for Eliot and I. 

Chrysallides!

"They were very good.  I liked them."
-Eason Greene

The caterpillars all turned to chysallides (quite some time ago, I'm a bit behind on the blogging).  They were amazingly beautiful when looked at up close.  From a distance they looked a bit drab and dull, but up close they were iridescent with tiny gold dots.  They have now all immerged, we managed to miss them all, some it seems by just minutes, but we've enjoyed watching them flutter around the cage and feed on orange slices.  I think we'll release them today. Our temperatures are still a bit low, but I think they're coming to the end of their life cycle because one died (Eason wanted me to add in the obvious information I used to draw my conclusion).

Art Party

We were lucky enough to score this art party (thanks Grandma Jinny) at the Sierra Waldorf Auction.  BZ, a professional story-teller/everythingelser put together an art party for us that we hosted to celebrate mid-winter.  She read to the kids about Matisse, played some songs and taught them how to make custom prints.   She worked a crowd of 12 under 6ers like no body else can. 

"I hope we can host another art party just like this one."
-Eason Greene

The New Time Out

Up

Up

and away!

I have one child who I have to convince to get his hands a bit dirty and another who thinks nothing of climbing a chicken poop crusted chicken ladder in his pjs.  I must admit I have a tougher time relating to the latter.

This was on a day when Eliot refused to come back inside, and refused to wear anything other than pajamas (every day) so I just went back in assuming he'd hurriedly follow me when faced with being outside alone.  Nope.  He promptly unlocked the coop and crawled inside and I could tell that he'd been awaiting this opportunity for some time. 

I can't believe I made my own butter

On my mind these past few weeks has been an article in the last Sunset Magazine (a slightly guilty pleasure) about a woman and her family who went Zero Waste a few years back.  We already make a really good effort to reduce, eat locally, use green products, compost, etc., etc., yada, yada, and usually when I read an article about going greener I'm a bit smug and disappointed that they haven't come up with anything new.  This article shook Brian and I a bit.  The reaction in Brian was a bit strange, it almost pissed him off that someone had beaten us to taking it a bit further.  The article has pushed me into action and we're taking steps to move our house towards "zero" waste. 

The area that I'm going to focus on is ridding our house unnecessary packaging.  We shop bulk, but I use their plastic (albeit recycled plastic) bags and then come home and dump them in containers.  The plastic bag step can be eliminated by taking our containers to the store.  Yes, a bit clunky with two in tow, but doable.  With a little planning I think it can work.  I talked to the owner of Nature's Whole Food Depot (I am very grateful for this store that opened a few years ago.  When we first moved to Sonora four years ago you could hardly find organic products at the Safeway) about coming in to get the weight of my containers and then always using those same containers for the same goods (this conversation was prompted when I slogged in a bunch of containers only to have the employee completely baffled by my request and ended up carrying home empty containers and plastic bags full of my bulk goods). 

In addition I think, with some planning, I can make our bread, butter, almond butter, yogurt and maybe cheese using Strauss Milk in a glass container that I can return to the store (you know all this makes Brian love me more).  I proved that it's not completely impossible yesterday.  I managed to make almond butter, butter, yogurt and bake a loaf of bread.  Ridiculous eh?  It was so easy.  I've been making bread from the best book to hit the shelves since the Bible, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, for about six months now and it's such an amazingly easy process, it's not even a process.  I got a yogurt maker and have been making yogurt for about a year, and that's easy too although I have some consistency issues to work out and I'd like to learn to make the delicious Persian yogurt my relatives make.  The almond butter was a breeze.  Roasted some almonds, threw them in the cuisinart, added about a tablespoon of olive oil and jarred it. The butter was so easy too.  It's almost like a well kept secret how easy it is to make your own butter. I followed these instructions, but the process can be summed up in a few words: let the cream set out for the day, put it into a container with enough room to shake the cream around, shake and shake, magically you get a glob of yellowness in the container, rinse in cold water, squeeze and press into a container with some salt if you like.  I think the boys will become my master butter shakers. 

So this is not to say I'll never run out to the store to buy packaged goods, but I'm finding it's much easier not to than I would have imagined.  I think next I'll make our own penicillin. 

 The boys love to help in the kitchen, but these face pencils have done a lot for me in quiet entertainment when they lose interest in what I need to focus on.  Eason started as a clown and ended as a pirate.

A few of the finished products-the bread was eaten more quickly than it could be photographed.

Who's that small man I'm nursing?

A little cardboard box action

I still can't seem to plan ahead enough to order the photos how I'd like, but here's a jumbled display of our last few days.  We spent the weekend in San Francisco visiting Michlain on her working weekend in the city, eating, biking, walking, eating, eating, walking, eating and shopping craigslists.  As cheesy as it sounds every time we visit San Francisco I fall in love with it all over again.  How, oh how, could we spent a year living there?

We ate at some VERY good restaurants this trip.  Read the following reviews by our little connoisseur.  Maybe this will launch into his own foodie blog.  (There has been a slight miscommunication about what a review involves.  It was presumed it was more hands on, reviews will be completed by the mama). 

Fraiche  the best fro-yo I've ever tasted.  All made at the shop, can taste the tangy yogurtness, fresh toppings (no peanut butter cups here), valrhona and callebaut chocolate, need I say more? 

We're going to abort the reviews.  We have a clown, soon to be an angry clown, if we don't move right along to caterpillar observations.  



 

Friday book review day

So... I've been reading so many good books lately, feast or famine, I thought I should say a few words on them.  I've decided to give a few opinions on this here blog, because that's what I seem to look for in other blogs.  It's hard to get opinions without a motive behind them, so I'm here to provide them with the only motive being that I like these things and wanted to share that with you.

The first book I'll comment on (because a review seems a bit of a weighty term for what I'll be doing) is Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland. I just started this book, so it's a bit risky to gush over it too soon, but it's one of those books that I find myself reading very carefully so I don't miss anything.  It's based on the life of Emily Carr, a Canadian artist that was famous for painting the First Nations and the rugged forests of Vancouver Island.  I saw a really amazing exhibit maybe 8 years ago on a trip to Vancouver called Carr, O'Keefe, Kahlo: Places of Their Own.  I was commenting, at our waffle brunch last weekend, on how Emily Carr used to have her furniture on pulleys so that she could use her house as studio space and her friends knew that if they dropped by and she didn't lower the furniture it meant that she really didn't want company.  It's one of those things that you learn that stick with you.  Yesterday I was wondering if on our slightly narrow front porch if we could rig a bench on a pulley.  Might looks kind of fun from street view too.  Anyhow, a friend just finished this book and suggested I read it.  Picked it up at the library yesterday and faked sick so I could lay around and read it (kidding, I wasn't faking).  I love historic fiction, not that I love the genre, but I love reading about a real person in a more personal way.  I also like to ponder what was actually real and what was fabricated by the author and fine this provokes me to research more on my own than a biography would.

If you're in the mood for a book about Vancouver Island (I think partly I love this book because Brian and I hiked the West Coast Trail b.c. and it was one of the best backpacking trips I've ever done.) and a really strong female figure then read this book (I'm channeling my inner Lamar Burton).  I also think that was such an interesting time to be a woman.  Women were allowed more freedom in theory, but there was still so much pressure to conform and I love reading about women who didn't conform, like Carr, Kahlo and O'Keefe.  Dad-I think this would be a good audible choice.

Happy Reading!

Just had to add two quick things for today:


Quote of the Day:

"When I'm older, and I'm waiting for a girlfriend, I think I'm going to be a drummer in a band."
-Eason

Moment of the Day:

Often when we're packing for a trip (we're meeting Aunt Michlain in San Francisco this weekend) the boys like to crawl inside our very small suitcase that I pack their clothing in.  Today, after leaving them on their own for maybe 39 seconds, I returned to find Eason giggling in the room, no Eliot in sight.  I noticed the suitcase was zipped and said "oh boys, we can't zip anyone in the suitcase." I then opened the suitcase to find Eliot securely STRAPPED in the suitcase using the clothing fasteners.  He seemed perfectly at ease.  A picture would have been a nice compliment to this entry, but I didn't want to encourage this behavior.