Happy May!!!

Yesterday was May Day(May 1) and I never realized your supposed to give gifts of flowers or plants on that day??? Who knew??? Well, I learn so much just homeschooling my little pickles.. and I learned that yesterday... so I cut a couple of flowers from my rose bush and let the girls give them to their ballet teacher... next year I will be prepared!!!

Well what else has been going on in my world.... lets see

Did a spur of the moment camping trip last weekend...

 Had a great visit from my dear friend Susan... from Conneticut... and hung out in Jerome, my all time favorite town.

 Made some bread from the 5 minute bread book.... and I think I messed it up.. my kids wouldn't even eat it...

 Have been getting lots of eggs from my sweet little chickens... although they have been VERY noisy VERY early lately... and so i havae been geting up and feeding them to hush them up and not upset my neighbors.

 Have been making hair accessories out of old t-shirts( in ASU colors for a friend)

AND THIS IS SO EXCITING..... MY ARTICHOKES ARE GROWING.......YIPEEEEEEEE


Hope your have a great start to your May!!!!

WOW... time flies when your busy!!!

I thought that I had just posted like the other day.... well, whew... like the month is over...wow!!

 Well just to let you all know I have been loving my homemade sauerkraut... I have been making veggie Reuben... with loads of kraut on them(trying not to heat up the kraut to much so all the good stuff stays in) and let me tell you they are DE-LISH....ya'll should try it...

So I just found a great blog that is all about the fermentedness...Ann Marie at cheese slave and she has some good stuff... I really want to try the healthy soda pop... my kids are always trying to let them drink soda on a regular basis... and of course I'm like WHAT.. ARE YOU CRAZY!!!  but they have had there fair share... at parties and restaurants... so now I can LET THEM HAVE SODA... i will just make it myself...



So these kiddos are what has been keeping me a tad busy... homeschooling kite flying day with homemade kites...maybe the sticks and Big 5 bag isn't such a great way to make a kite...better luck next time.

 Soccer tournaments...

 Baseball games...

 And some crocheting of old t-shirts into a basket...

So that is where my month has gone.... now the rest of it will be making healthy soda pop!!!


Have a great day!!

Randomness.. and trying new things

There is a lot of randomness going on here lately and trying out some new stuff... lets see... my fermented cabbage (sauerkraut)is looking good... just a few more days til I am able to try it... my kids aren't to thrilled..but I am!

It is looking nice and bubbly.. which is what the book Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz... said it would do... and then I got a little surprise in the mail yesterday for EARTH DAY... which I hope you all are well aware of...(do something nice for the earth!!!) I must have signed up at some point in my life for SANTE FE  NATURAL tobacco company(which I do not smoke, by the way) but I'm not sure what it was for, but anyway, they sent me a nice little reusable grocery bag.. for earth day... which was just so nice.. so I am now thinking that they are a great company.. they even use 100% recycled shipping package(with recycled newspaper). So even though i don't smoke, I guess if I did it would be the natural cigs that they have... so that is that bit of randomness.

I just love getting stuff in the mail!!!

So then this morning.. I decided to make some bread.. from this book that i checked out at the library

I have seen this book around and have been wanting to try it out... I am just trying out all kinds of new things ..first my little bread making helpers and I had to grind some wheat(which always happens right when I am going to make a big batch of something.. a little frustrating..but at least I CAN grind some and don't have to take off for the store to buy some)

 I could NOT believe how much in 1 hour it rose.. I and hoping it doesn't over flow... can't wait to try it!

Have a happy day and try something new!!

T-shirt rug tutorial

So if your like me, you don't like to add to the ever growing landfill and so you try to reuse everything that you possibly can... So then you may have 3 giant bins of unwanted t-shirts that your kids have stained up or grown out of.... well this is one of the things that I do with my old t-shirts...make a RUG!!!

So first...get out about 7-8 adult t-shirts or 10-12 kids t-shirts... and start cutting..

 after you have cut, you need to pull the strips and they will curl, and give you  better tarn to work with.. some t-shirts wont curl up... you can still use them, it just gives you a different effect.

Now you have yourself a roll of tarn(which is t-shirt yarn)... now I have seen a rug made by braiding the tarn... but I personally crochet the tarn into a rug.. so you will need to join the pieces of tarn(each t-shirt) by snipping a small hole in the end of each piece of tarn and chaining the pieces together so you have a continuous piece.. don't try to just tie then together.. because the first time you wash your rug, they will come apart... believe me I have done this...

Assuming you already know how to crochet..(if you don't watch this)

I feel like I am still a beginner, and i can make this rug... so you can too!

So now that you have some tarn, then you can just start your rug... you can go back and forth, or a round and round and make a circle rug..

So there you go... use up all those old t-shirts to make something new and keep them out of the land fill...

More uses of old t-shirts to come...

Fermented Foods

So I just started my first batch ever of fermented cabbage...I am really excited and have been researching the benefits of eating fermented stuff....My husband thinks I'm crazy because I told him I would be storing rotting vegetables in my closet and then eating them...(he does not know it yet but he will be eating them too)... but he thinks I'm nuts anyway... so here is what I did.. I have been reading WILD FERMENTATION by Sandor Ellix Katz and got some cabbage and salt... and waalaa...

I just can't wait to try it....

I also just started a sour dough starter... which I have done many times before and can never get it sour enough for my liking... any ideas???

My next venture will be trying to make kefir, hard cider, mead, kombucha and real root beer(from actual roots..I found a great recipe but need to order the ingredients since my little town will not have them.. fo sho this is the one I found

So get fermenting!!! its good for you

An eye opener...Food Inc. WATCH IT!

I just watched Food Inc. a Robert Kenner film....and OMGoodness... ya'll need to watch this documentary... it is an absolute necessity... after watching it now i want to living on 40 acres and raise all my own food... an never have to go to the grocery store again... well i mean I have wanted to dot hat for along time but watching this has made me want to do it even more!!!

Just watch it. I'm sure you can get it from netflix, or a video store(do they even have those any more)
i rented it at my local library!!!!its a must

Here is a trailer... some parts I had to close my eyes and my kids were a little scared, and asked why we were watching it... I said " Yes, it is sad and scary, but we have a choice , and this is informing us so we can make better decisions".

Have a great day!!!

Happy Spring!!! Thrashers and kilt making

We have has some crazy weather, as most of you all have too! Snow!!! We do get some snow here occasionally, maybe every couple of years... but it was down right comin down... and it was exciting!!
just as we were getting all ready for spring and things we a bloomin... we had a crazy storm... it did not stick at all but it was pretty fun while it lasted.

We just finished our spring break and had some good times... this state is funny, and maybe it is like this in other states to, but what they say here is " if you don't like the weather... wait five minutes". Which I think is so true... because last week we went on a hike in Sedona and it was hot, and i sat out in the sun and got a little sun burnt, and then the next day it was snowing....

So I am not from the east coast, and have only visited New York and Connecticut, but my BFF told me about these fries that they have on the coast,  and they are called Thrashers. Well they must be delicious, and secret... because usually on a search on the Internet i can usually find some sort of recipe of whatever it is that I'm looking for.  But there was nothing except that they use apple cider vinegar and NO ketchup... so I thought I would give it a go and see if they could be made by baking them... well so I just cut up a bunch of potatoes and tossed them in some olive oil and kosher salt and baked at 400 for a long time til they were really crunchy and then doused them with apple cider vinegar and.... They were DELICIOUS!!!! I can't even imagine what the real thing taste like...

We also had a great St. Patricks Day... I love a good corned beef and cabbage and I made some Irish soda bread and of course some mint chip ice cream and Killian's Irish Red beer. Of course, i completely forgot to take any pictures until the end of our good friends, that had just gotten back from living in Peru and Ecuador for 6 months.... so that was really fun hearing there adventures that i forgot to take pics of the actual meal... oh well have to try it again next year...

Oh I almost forgot about my husband, and that he said he would wear a kilt if i could find him one... well of course living in a super small town... there were no kilt stores around, so I had to got down to the ol'e walmart(our only fabric store around) and you know if you have ever been there, that they have a very limited supply, so I got the only plaid that they had and looked on you tube to see if I could make a kilt... well in the short time before my company arrived... this is what i came up with.... so I may have to again try again for next year... or start working on another and maybe it will be done before next year...

have a great day!!! and Happy Spring