Junior Naturalists

Every Wednesday night there is a free Family Nature Night hosted by the City.  I've been meaning to go with the girls since I first heard about it, but didn't make it until last night.  The topic:  bees.

I thought that would mean the species that are natural to our city, but it turned out to be a beekeeper with a hive and a smoker willing to talk about anything we asked.  It wasn't perhaps as focused on the children as I thought but I still found it interesting.  Bees and honey are always interesting to me and the topic of inner city hives came up.  I'd love to have bees, or even just to help someone with their hives near my home.  Having bees in the city seems such a win-win thing that I'm not sure why it isn't legal here. 

Whatever.  The event got us to visit a park we'd never been to, and my friend and I took advantage of the natural area to use the skill she learned at a previous Family Nature Night:  mushroom hunting.  We found a few edible mushrooms and took them home. 

Today we went on a mushroom hunting trip with all of our kids.  We found some interesting things.

 There were two of these puffball mushrooms that looked like someone had left their soccer balls in the grass.  Apparently they are edible, but the insides looked like yellow fluffy insulation and not that appealing in texture. 

 

 

 Impressive in size though.  Imagine that in your frying pan!

I don't know what these skinny little things are.  This weekend there is a mushroom event at the Devonian Botanical Gardens which might be interesting.  We filled a bag with a few mushrooms that we would like to identify and we'll see if either of us have time to attend.  This has been a good mushroom year because of the rain, so it would be nice to know what we can eat. 

BTW, we did eat a few of the mushrooms in our spaghetti sauce tonight.  If you don't see a new post soon, there may have been some identification issues.  No tingling tongue yet!

Earning my keep

 August is the month I probably physically work the hardest.  May is also in the running, but my feet are telling me that August is the month when I earn my keep around here.

After hearing about Rosa's moldy cucumbers, I decided I wanted to make some pickles this year.  We still have pickles from 2008, my first year of pickles.  We are very slow to eat them because I was a bit too liberal with the jalapenos.  Yvon is usually our pickle maker.  I didn't try again until last year and the combination of largish cucumbers and a low-vinegar recipe made for some disappointing soggy, bland pickles.  I went a bit on the scared side of the jalapenos last year.  Time to try again.  I made 14 pints of pickles from Farm's Market cukes and we'll see in 2 weeks how they turned out.  I used a recipe that was more vinegary and more jalapeno-y (although less than circa 2008).

I also made some awesome sauerkraut one year and wanted to do that again.  Cabbages were only $1 each at the market, so I picked up three of them (and further convinced myself to forget about growing them again).  Sauerkraut is now fermenting in a crock in the basement.  That's the easiest thing to make every.  I do wish I liked it more.  I make it mostly for Yvon, but I eat the odd bite as well.

And now it's cherry time. 

I don't really have a regular source of free cherries.   I thought I'd be doing without this year, but I found an ad on Kijiji.  As many cherries as we could pick from three trees, but we had to drive an hour out of town.  If you've seen a mature Evans Cherry tree you know how many cherries that is!  Well worth the drive.  And it was a pretty drive through the country.

I picked twice as much as I thought we needed, thinking I'd be sharing the haul with a friend in exchange for the use of her cherry pitter.  It turned out that she scored cherries of her own and I had two Superstore bins FULL of cherries with no shelf life.  All day we pitted and processed and there is still a bit more to do. 

So far:  10 dehydrator trays full
             2 cookie sheets in the freezer
             6 pints of juice
             13 quarts of pie filling (likely for crisps)
             13 pints of canned cherries in syrup

I think I still have enough for another 10 trays in the dehydrator.  If I don't buy any Craisins this year for baking and granola, that will be a good thing.  Last year we used the Romance Series Cherries and dried them for the first time and wished we'd done more.  They were tart and yummy. 

Hopefully the cherries make up for our general lack of raspberries and saskatoons this year.  And as I munch on my chips right now, I'm thinking it's nice to have some fresher, healthier snack options in the house. 

Summer Days

Did I say that I love the garden at this time of year?  Hmmm.  I don't know what I was thinking.  It's a weedy mess and I can never quite keep up with it.  Everything is overgrown.  We've had major heat this summer, combined with lots of rain in the evenings.

My paths are unrecognizable.

Do you even see it??

The neighbours hedge needs a serious trim on our side.

Again, can you see my brick path?  Mozzy heaven.

 Some things are nicely overgrown.  It's not all bad.  I've never had success with zucchini before (I know, who can't grow zucchini?!) but I'm giving it away this year.

 My straw bale garden is doing great.  I've had to water it as often as my pots, but it's got actual squash on it!  Yay!  And the lack of hedge in this small section has meant that I've had access to my compost heap all summer without hacking a path through the overgrown hedge.

Acorn and butternut squash, and lettuce and spinach which has surprising not bolted in the heat all summer.

An eggplant flower, also in my straw bale garden.

 The back garden was not well planned.  I've got good pole beans and the carrots are bigger than ever, but that's about it.  Tomatoes are still coming though.  Alice must have 15 pounds of green tomatoes hanging on hers. 

This golden elder had to start from the ground again this spring and I almost dug up the root ball because I thought it wouldn't amount to much.  It's about 7' tall though.  

And when will I ever learn?  All of my brassicas look lacey with caterpillar damage.  I picked and picked and picked those little green things, but there is no keeping up with them.  I did cover them briefly in the spring, but they outgrew my cover.  Next year I'll stick to a few brocolli and kale and skip the rest.  Think of all the beans and carrots I could be freezing!

Lacey is a only good thing in shawls, not cabbage.

 Although I let the garden keep me away from any long vacation this summer, it doesn't stop me from having fun with the girls.  This is the third week of hosting a child for a week and I feel like we need to show them a good time.  After a trip to IKEA, we drove to a lake yesterday.  Laura framed my cryptic directions so I wouldn't get lost as I so often do.

 Beth and Abra did a bit of kayaking, but mostly we sat on the beach and splashed in the shallow water.  While at the lake, we found this lovely mermaid basking in the sun.

And we chugged a bit of wine.

Lingon berry juice, anyone?

The sand was beautiful and the wind off the lake kept us not so hot.

  And the day ended in its usual way.  A summer storm at night with lots of rain.

Are you all having a good summer too?

Garden update

I tried to take pictures of the garden this morning to show it's fullness, but I ran out of battery.  Figures.  Here's a few I managed to snap before it shut off completely.

This is probably my favourite time to look at the garden.  I have to dodge the mosquitoes to do it, but I have a good view of the jungle from my bedroom window too.

 I love the textures that are everywhere.  I did get another Yards in Bloom nomination, but I'll never get more than that for so many reasons.  The main one being that there are weeds everywhere, including the lovely noxious campanula.  Another being that there is very little actual "design" in my garden.  It's just what I like, where I like it, combined with a bit of perennial grouping and practical veggie gardening ideas.  And probably too much of what the birds planted last year and what I left behind last year. 

It doesn't matter.  I love it and I maintain that it's way better and more interesting than sod.

A note to myself:  Next year I need to plant more beans, carrots, onions and maybe corn, and less of the cabbage family to feed the caterpillars.  They really do take up a lot of space and they are not all that productive.  This is my second year trying brussel sprouts and my second year of likely not getting even one meal.  I'll miss the grey-green foliage though.

Last week we ate our first meal from the garden that wasn't all green.

And having mentioned the plants I left over from last year, I harvested all of my garlic this week, and most of my onions.

It was early to harvest the onions, but the two were interplanted and because the garlic was so deep, I had to harvest it all together.  The garlic was awesome.  Maybe even enough to feed us for the year.  As big as the grocery store varieties and with the proper papery covering.  Beth braided it all for me, but I doubt our storage facility for long term storage so I'll process it like last year when I have time.  I chopped it and poured olive oil over it.  Worked really well. 

The onions were not really ready though.  They should have been (and would have been) bigger and the papery coating hadn't really formed well yet. So, rather than let it go bad, I started slicing them up. 

Then I started crying a lot, and dug out the food processor that gets used twice a year or so.  I hate it, but this was truly a good job for it's noise.

That's all I've got.  12 bags of 1 1/2 cups each.  Definitely not enough for the year.  I'll sacrifice cauliflower, brussel sprouts and cabbage next year for more onion space.  The brocolli stays though.  I do get enough meals from those plants to earn their place in the garden.  

Calendula Lotion

It seems somehow intimate to talk about what we put on our skin or personal hygiene, but I did want to share this with you.

I've had excema all my life and acne (not terrible, but always there) and I've always had trouble finding creams for my hands and face that don't feel too heavy and greasy, or that I don't react to in a nasty painful fashion.

My hands are a particular problem for me.  Over the years they've actually gotten better, but my summers are spent with my hands in the dirt.  Constant washing isn't great for them, nor is the contact with plants.  I've never liked gloves, so I usually work without.   Actually, I've finally found some I like this year which may change life for my hands, but that's not for today.

For my face, I tend to find a cream that I like and then stick to it for years. Oil of Olay was my favourite for a long time.  Then I switched to something offered through a mail service called Silky Essence.  I've read too much maybe about how much your skin absorbs and how terrible all of the ingredients are that I had to stop.  I don't understand all of the science, but at it's simplist I'm trying not to put on or in my body things that I can't pronounce or find easily in nature.  I couldn't even find the ingredients of Silky Essence which is usually a sign that something isn't "revealable".

For my hands, nothing really has worked well except for cortisone.  That always comes with a warning from the doctor about longterm use.  Yeah, yeah, whatever.  What are the options?  Well, there are some actually.
 
Last year I made my first lotion.  It wasn't an unqualified success because it didn't emulsify properly.  Basically it was bees wax and calendula-infused olive oil.  Although it didn't look good, it was great on my hands and face and even on my lips.  I didn't have chapped lips at all this winter and my hands and face felt great.  I also spray my face with witch hazel after washing as a toner.  Together, the witch hazel and cream work really well for me. 

I ran out a few weeks ago, and my calendula wasn't blooming yet.  I had to start using cortisone cream again, which I haven't done for months.  Luckily, my calendula flowers just started blooming, so I was able to try a new recipe yesterday and made this:

It looks like lotion this time, my hands don't react to anything in it, and it feels nice.  The coconut smell reminds me of the 1970's and suntan lotion, so in the future I may try a fragrance in it, but for now I am pleased with the result.

Ingredients:  Coconut oil, calendula flowers, bees wax, witch hazel, Vitamin E capsule, water.

Easy to make (it's like making mayonnaise), simple and few ingredients, everything is pronouncable, and if you're interested, there is a lot of science behind the healing properties of witch hazel, calendula, coconut oil and bees wax.  This website (Frugally Sustainable) explains a lot of it.  I just know it works for me. 

July 17

 When I woke up this morning, one of the first things I saw when leaving the room was this.

  Then I wandered into the living room and saw this.
 

Although they leave a mess in their wake, I am forever grateful for the creativity and play that goes on in my house.  I could focus on the mess, but that isn't what I was thinking about.  They still ask (like all normal children) if they can play on the computer or turn on the tv, but if I say no (as I often do), they very quickly find something else to do.  Sometimes it's without hesitation, which makes me wonder why they even ask. 

So this was yesterday.

The mailbox was part of some shortlived game that I don't quite understand or know about.

Ukelele and black binder:  Beth decorated a plain binder with duct tape and has been filling it with music for the piano, guitar and ukelele and has been strumming on and off daily.

Crayons:  You know what those are for.

Giant barbie heads:  All three girls are constantly trying new hairdo-s on each other and on these heads.

Chickadee - Go Craft Crazy:  Always a source of inspiration.  I don't know what they got from it yesterday.  I'm much more hands-off than I used to be.

Science Rocks book:  Alice did an experiment with crystals that should develop over the next few days.

Beverly Cleary:  There are always books and lots of reading going on.  That's a constant.  We'll never understand people who don't read.

At some point Alice cried out from the basement.  It sounded fake or not really bad, so I didn't go running.  Is that how tough kids are made, or just neglected ones?  I don't know, but we discovered that she had gotten her finger slammed in a door.

She recovered very quickly, especially when Dr. Laura made her a splint and cast out of cotton strips, flour and water.

Then they decided to make a plain t-shirt more interesting with fabric paint.  That was so fun that they went in search of more plain or stained t-shirts and came out with these lovely "new" shirts for themselves.

After all that activity, there was still energy and time for Shakespeare in the Park, where we watched The Tempest and even understood lots of it. 
  

It was a great, creative day and I fell asleep exhausted last night. I did different things than the kids did, but I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Beat the Heat

Here's my theory.  You can't.  It's been too hot for too long, so you've just got to suck it up and get out there.



Testing the inflatable kayak



Kayaking up to the pelicans at Hasse Lake



Our own strawberries!



Parking downtown offers interesting views



Street Performer's Festival



The best heatbuster in Edmonton!



3D Sidwalk art



Humourous portapotty signage - the volunteers even walked you to your "seat"

Togetherness with my grownup daughter

The other thing we did this week to beat the heat was to camp in the city.  Down in a ravine is a wonderful little campground that feels like you've left the city.  One bonus of the location was that at 3:00 am when the hail is falling on us, and the rain is dripping on our heads, we can drive home!  We did have two days of fun there though and it was a bit cooler among the trees beside the creek. 

Today's schedule:  a spray park and setting up the wet tent to dry in our neighbour's yard.