Chin Faces

It's a scientificly proven fact the that canning 100's and 100's of quarts of food will drive children of normal development and intellegence literally insane.
Its true! And- it happened at our house. :) This afternoon the girls were loosing their minds after hrs of work. They started hanging upside down on the couch. That led to the obvoius....dressing of the chin. Here are the finished products. 1-Elanee, 2-Maya Rae, 3-Ms. Vayda.

Ok- enough screwin around- NOW BACK TO WORK!!!!

Ruhi's Bday Gift

This is a little something I made for our little friend, Ruhi for his Bday.

Jody and Ben do the AIDS Ride for Life.

Jody and Ben joined the Green Star team in Ithaca and did the AIDS Ride for Life bike-a-thon. The ride was 85 miles in the freezing cold rain and wind. They both raised lots of $ with the help of family and friends and rode well. Jody has done this ride before but it was a real treat for him this year to ride with Ben. Aaron and Shelly met the guys, at the end of the ride, in Ithaca and took these pictures.

Vayda's Rockin Painting

This is the ROCKIN painting that Vayda did for her friend Jojo-

who adores it of course.

Ben turns 17!

As is the pattern, Ben was gone on visitation all summer long. He got back after his 17th Bday so we threw him a little, simple Birthday party at home after he got back. Jody bought an icecream cake for him and- as often happens- things got a little out of controlle. ;)

Peaches and Pears

We put up 42 Quarts of peaches and 30 Quarts of pears.

A Break in the action

I took a break from canning and spent a few evenings making Baha'i bracelets. Sold these and more like them on Ebay. Sent one to my friend Retta too.

Canning Tomatoes

With all those tomatoes in the wheelbarrow + all the billions from the months before we made 86 pints of soup, 50 Qts of spagetti sauce, 50 pints of pizza sauce, and 27 pints of salsa. Because I have waited almost 3 mo to post this, I have totally forgotton all the $ break downs. Even so, I do know we saved tons! And- dont forget those tomatoes are organic. Plus- it all tastes soooo good!

Elanee finds a tomatoe cutie

In that giant mound of tomatoes Elanee came across a cute little freind. We gave the cutie - named Tom of course- lots of lovin before she lopped him to bits and turned him into soup. :)

Tomatoes in August

After a big round of canning and sewing we ended up falling behind on the garden. It seemed that every tomatoe out there ripened all at once. The girls and I got out there and picked everything. We filled an entire wheelbarrow!

The chicks are here.

Three cute chicks! ;)
Here is Vayda with one red meat chick and one yellow laying hen.

On Friday we got our shipment of 30 chicks from Ideal Poultry in Texas. All are tucked in neat and tidy in a Tupperware tub on a kitchen shelf. They are chirpy and fluffy....just the way they are supposed to be.

We will have the meat birds for 6 weeks and the hens for 2 yrs or so.

Hummin for Hummus!

Yummy Hummus!!!!
This weekend we made Hummus! Lots and lots of hummus. 61 half pints to be exact.

Here is Elanee grinding up garlic and Maya Rae blending all the ingredients together.

This is the chick pea mush.

This is the Tahini (Sesame seed + olive oil mush)

This is lil ol me loading the hot hummus into a 1/2 pint jar. It stinks when its hot. PU.

Here are some loaded jars.

This is Ms. Elanee posing with the coveted hummus :)

Ok- Hummus at Wegmans costs about $3.95ish. At that price we would have paid $241 for 61 containers. I bought all the stuff needed to make this at Sauders.....chick peas, sesame seeds, olive oil, lemon juice. I bought the garlic from the local farm stand. I spent $27!!! Thats just $0.44 each jar. I saved $214!

Queen Anns Lace

Queen Anns Lace

Maya, the Spud (thats the dog) and I went out for a short walk this morning. It turned into a nature walk. We saw butterflys, crickets, milk weed, butter cups, burdock, wheat grass, some pretty purple flowers and lots of Queen Anns lace.

We picked some QAL and brought it home with us. Maya cut the stems and placed each in a little colored water. We are waiting to see how long they take to change color. Fun.

Ahhhh Soup!

Lordy Lordy- Look at all the soup!

Its done! Done! Done!

44 Quarts of Beef and Barley and 42 Quarts of Chicken. Thats alot of soup. This is my photo shop version of what that looks like. Wo!

We ended up doing a x12 version of the chicken recipe. The last 4 put the girls over the edge. Yikes. The attitudes took a dive when I put those birds on the table for picking.

We did find a good way to pass the time while we each pick the meat off a boiled bird though. We played ABC games. We even made one up. "I married a celebrity (you have to name the hotty) and we named our beautiful child ________". You take turns. The first one names their kid a wacky name starting with A and the next one starts their kid off with B. Of course celebrities have an unfortunate knack of staining their children with horrid insane names so the game is a blast. Good practice for Maya too with ABC order and beginning sounds.

Anyway- now we are all rejoicing.

HURRAY!!!!!!

MORE soup ALREADY !?!?!?

More Soup Already!?
This is what the girls shouted when I said today was the day for chicken soup.

This soup is alot less work than the beef and barley.
All the girls chipped in with the cutting while I worked on the soup stock.

Again, I bought the veggies but we had the chickens we raised last year on hand. We are just starting with a X8 batch. Not sure how many quarts that will get us. We will make more as needed. Shooting for around 35-40 quarts. This is the 3rd time doing this soup. I like it because you can just chuck in a little rice, noodles, potatoes, or even dumplings- whatever- and you have an instant meal.

Wonderful hand me downs.

When Grams,

Great Aunt Judy and Aunt Rae

came to visit for the wedding they did a great thing. They brought a big ol bag of hand me down clothes for the girls.

Not much delights the members of this family more than a black garbage bag of treasures.

Vayda was inspired by this pair of mossy green vallure over-alls. I thought the look rocked and made her pose for some snap shots.

What a cutie!

Puppet Show.

We had to stop the canning action to view a fabulous puppet show written and directed by Maya Rae and neighbor Saige and performed behind our couch. It was titled- "The Hunt" and had alot of critters eating a lovely couple...? Hummmm. Anyway- it was cute enough to grab the camera for ;)