Monday, September 16, 2013

Potatoes, soccer, haircuts and more...

It's been another fun and somewhat monumental week and once again time for bed so this will be another quickie!  This past weekend we dug all our potatoes!  Very exciting and fun (other than feeling bummed to need to compost a good number of green ones since learning that any green on a potato means it is best not to eat any of it!).  Then Jason and I got an impromptu date night when Jonathan and Rachelle took the kiddos to the Carnival de Resistance and we took advantage of the time not only to enjoy a jog into Emily and Jonas' place to see the house progress but also to cut a foot off of Jason's hair, which I sent off to Wigs 4 Kids today. We also fit in being part of the Kali's fan club at her very first soccer game of the season and of course some food preparation experiments.  The most recent ones include drying ground cherries (yay for a found raisin alternative!), ground cherry salsa (made twice already) and autumn olive berry jam (somewhat time intensive but worth it!). I probably shouldn't even put this in writing but I feel pretty certain that I put the last tomato products in canning jars this morning.  The plants are about toast at this point, other than a few hardy sungold plants still putting out delicious morsels.  Here's some visuals of the above items and more:
Our very first home grown roasted peanuts (these were dug by accident and now is is very hard to wait to dig the rest!)
Ground cherry salsa - highly recommended!
Dried ground cherries and autumn olive berry jam.
My little helper - on our way to pull out green bean plants that were eaten by bean beetles before we got any beans!
Kali in action at her first soccer game.  She actually kicked it a good number of times with clear improvement from the start of the game to the finish.  I'm still a loud spectator!
Could she be much cuter?  Here she is in the potato patch "helping."
Kali, Jonathan and Buttercup all doing their jobs.
Role reversal!  Little sister brushing big brother's hair.
Silky smooth - blow dried for the first time :)
The big cut!
Emily fixing my chop job...
Ready to send! So Jason's hair is shorter than mine for the first time in years and will likely stay that way until it is his turn to chop a foot off mine - I've got a ways to go!

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Quick update!

Let's see if I can do a blog post in the time it takes Alida to go potty and get her teeth brushed!

I needed to share visual proof of our "laundry lady" at work, and her apprentice.
 

A few other quick snippets:
 
I needed visual proof too that I've been chopping a lot of veggies! 
This is where I found Alida when I got home from work the other day - unsupervised because...
This is where I found Jason - looking at cars (not because he really enjoys that activity but because we are trying to be proactive!)
This is why she may need a little supervision!  Kali is the one that noticed and sounded the alarm!
Here's proof of our sabbath day activity - a hike to the lake with Jonathan and Rachelle! 
 
 

Fun times and beautiful colors to soak in. A good way to end a week and prepare for the next!
Well, teeth brushing is just beginning so I made it!  Not exactly the most thoughtful post but it is what time allows for tonight.  I should note, in case anyone else is thinking of trying it, that canning pureed amaranth is not something I'll repeat very soon.  It has to be pressure canned for 70 minutes and the longer it went the more the house smelled of amaranth.  That wasn't a bad smell but didn't seem all that positive. Let's just say that all the pints sealed but they now hold a generous cup of amaranth rather than a scant two cups.  Much of the liquid juiced out.  It is not the most beautiful canned good on the shelf. I'm much more proud of the many quarts of ratatouille that joined the expanding array of colors this weekend.  That and the peach jam which Kali and Alida helped to make from peaches off our tree!