Caterpillars

We found this guy in our carport, while unloading children, after an unsuccessful caterpillar hunt.  Funny?  I think so.

 This is him next to a regular-sized bubble wand.  He was a little skeptical of it and didn't want to get to close.  When he's fully extended, he's about the same length.

 This is him next to an extra-long bubble wand.  He's seriously big!  I've been searching and searching online to figure out what he is, so that we can feed him the correct kind of leaves.  No luck yet.

This is our other resident caterpillar, Gracyn or Mickey, depending on the day.  She's a Wooly Bear Caterpillar, that eats grass and hibernates all winter, spinning her cocoon in the spring and turning into an Isabella Tiger Moth.  

The kiddos have had a great time playing with her.  This is what we were hunting for today, when we came back empty handed.

Sadly, I think the kiddos might have had too much fun with her.  She's not moving a lot (at all).  "N" thinks she's already hibernating.  I'm not convinced...

From the Garden

It's our first ever, home-grown cantaloupe!  We had some left-over seeds when we planted our garden, and I let the kiddos plant them in the front dirt that will one day be over-flowing with beautiful flowers, not even thinking that they would survive.  I was surprised to see a cantaloupe vine growing and even more surprised a month or so later when there was a cantaloupe on the vine!  It's taken a very long time for it to ripen, but it finally did!  And it's delicious!  The funniest part is that the cantaloupe that we planted in our actual garden never took off, and still has no cantaloupes on the vine, which finally started growing about a month ago.   Now we'll see if the other cantaloupes have time to ripen, before the cold weather comes and never leaves.

Yard Sales and Rollerskates

I love yard sales!  I picked up these skates (and a few other things) for $5 today at a random yard sale, we weren't even looking for yard sales!  The kiddos had a blast outside, every chance they had.  After dinner,  DH and I put on our rollerblades and we all had a go.  So much fun!

Canning Entry 2011

This is going to be a rather boring post.  It's more for my records than anything, because I won't lose it.  The question is, will I remember where I recorded it?  We'll see...  


It's been a busy year for canning.  Here's the list:

• 1 bushel (2 boxes) of peaches turned into 18 quarts - 2 didn't seal.
• 1 1/2 bushels (3 boxes) of pears turned into 35 quarts of pears - 1 didn't seal.
• 3 batches of salsa (2 with roma tomatoes, 1 with regular) turned into 14 pints of salsa.
• 1 case of pickling cucumbers turned into a whole lot of pickles.  We made dill, sweet relish, sweets and bread and butter. I was not impressed with the sweet pickle recipe we used.  Anyone want sweet pickles?
• 24 pounds of strawberries turned into roughly 34 pints of jam.  Some went into plain ol' frozen strawberries, also.  I was done making jam.

Still to be done:

• Strawberries
• Apple Jelly
• Black-Apple Jelly - It's the best!

Hooray!

Even though it's completely out of focus, this picture thrills me!  "N" is riding her bike again!  She has been suffering from a paralyzing fear of so many things that live outside that when we go outside, she wouldn't move an inch away from me - unless I was near the garden, and then she would wait in screaming suspense for me to return to her side.  I had always heard of paralyzing fear, but "N" was my first first-hand experience with it.  Today she even ventured outside without me.  It lasted less than a minute, but she did it!

Labor Day

We went hiking on Labor Day.  It was a overcast and drizzled a bit, but we had a great time.

It took a while for "N" to warm up to being outside.  She's developed a phobia (read: PARALYZING FEAR.  Literally.) of bees, wasps, dogs, moose ... it goes on and on.  So being outside wasn't her idea of fun.  But once she got used to it, she didn't want to go home.

We missed the gorgeous wildflower season, but still were able to some pretty flowers.

 "A" had a blast.  He needed no prodding to have fun.  He climbed, jumped, dug and got PLENTY dirty.