Now the the Greenblade Rises

March and early April have kind of been a blur...  full of highs and lows and busy days in between.

I've had a lot to write about, and I've taken many pictures but there just hasn't been time to write about them here.  Since I wrote last..

The boy turned 12.

Both kids did a great job in our school production of Annie Jr.

I had a multitude of doctor's appointments which all could have been very serious and turned out to be nothing.

My grandmother died.

I took a student to compete at State Forensics.

The kids and I took our annual birthday trip to New York City.

I'll write about those in other posts, but for today --- Spring!

A mild winter means fall planted lettuce is ready for harvesting

This is one of the first years in memory where none of the flowers have gotten hit by a frost.  It's beautiful.

Flowers were even blooming in Pennsylvania this weekend when I took a hike with my Dad.

Isn't it amazing where things will find a place to grow - this is in a slag pile left from strip mining.  Resurrection!

I love French food, but there is no where to get it close by so I've learned to cook that way.  The kale is from the garden too.

Hic Resurrexit!

Heaven on a Plate

It's Asparagus Season!  Nothing makes me want to dance in the garden like discovering asparagus.  This is my absolutely favorite way to eat the bounty.  I have it at least two or three times a week.  It's one of those good for all three meals dishes, and it's fast, healthy and full of protein.

Here's the gist -

Make two pieces of toast (good whole grain bread is the best).  Put it on the plate and spread on goat cheese.

Take a big handful of fresh asparagus and saute it in a hot skillet just until it's tender.  Put the asparagus on top of the cheese.

Add a little butter to the skillet and make two over easy eggs.  Put the eggs on the asparagus.

Sometimes I add bacon or ham with the asparagus if I have it.  If it's possible to improve perfection then that does it.

Divinity is served!

Spring Happenings....

I love winter, but now that spring is finally here I'm really enjoying the warm temps, longer days, greener food, and more time outside.  I'm back to walking in the predawn hours now and I love starting my mornings with the bird's dawn chorus.  I think frequently about blog posts, but then somehow, by the time the evening rolls around the pictures stay in my camera, and the thoughts stay in my head.  So, here's a smattering of what's been going on in our world lately.

Egg Noodles - Why have I never made these before?  I'm never turning back.  They were delicious, simple (eggs, flour and salt) and a perfect use of the over abundance of eggs in the spring.  

Oatmeal Rolls and Chicken Noodle Soup with Watercress

 Kids - both the goat and the people kind.  We got to spend the afternoon with some friend's goats.  Both the girl and I were smitten.  The mower broke a week later.  My solution?  Get goats -  somehow The Woodsman was not as enthusiastic.  Huh - I'm pretty sure goats would be cheaper, and will that mower give me milk.  I think not.  One day my friends... one day...

It's just like Heidi.  Where are Grandfather and Clara?

The Zoo!  A wonderful, if a bit wet, day at the National Zoo with good friends.

See the black and white fuzz ball in the tree?  That's BaoBao - the baby panda.  

You know - it's really hard to get five kids to take a picture.  

Unless you're sneaky and you take one while they're watching the tiger cubs play.

Or while they're deciding if the lemur is male or female...

Or if they crawl on a statue and pose themselves....  If only all the eyes were open.

Concerts, Recitals and Programs:  Last week Spring Chorus concert, this week Spring Dance Recital, Next week Gymnastic Parent program... then done until September.  My how she's grown.

Outdoor Adventures:  Is this the world's longest dandelion?  Inquiring minds want to send it in to the Guinness Book of World Records.  I'll keep you posted.

 Spring Eating:  The big freezer is empty, and only a few freezer meals and a handful of base ingredients remain, so I mostly get to cook with fresh ingredients:  greens, asparagus, eggs and goat cheese are frequent guests at the table.

Clockwise from bottom left - Green Haven Chevre, Asparagus picked a few minutes before in between thundershowers, roasted red peppers from the freezer, pesto cubes from the freezer, last Spring's garlic.

Trip two  - in between storms.  Radish thinnings, green onions, more asparagus, and eggs.  One of the hens has gone broody.  I hate to tell her that we have no rooster.  It kind of makes me wish we did.  She's going to all of this effort, and she won't get anything for her hard work and sacrifice.  Poor bird.

Closing Time

Last weekend we headed to the farm to take down the buckets and pull the spiles.  The kids drank their fill of warm sugar water, and we all enjoyed the day together.  The kids have gotten to be so responsible.  Sometimes I miss having babies, but on days like this one I relish having mature, dependable kids who enjoy working.  I grew up in a family where we certainly spent time playing together, but we also spent a lot of time bonding together while working.  Family time doesn't always have to be glitz and glam and expensive outings - sometimes it can involve a bit of mud and muscle.





How in the World Did It Get to Be the Middle of July?

I can hardly believe that it's already the middle of July.  The summer has just flown by for us.  I feel like it's just gotten started, when summer is over half-way finished.  I think it has something to do with the fact that it just hasn't been hot around here - I am NOT complaining!   The coolness, and even the rain, has been just fine by me.  Any day around here that we don't hit the mid 90s or higher is a blessing.  Here are the highlights of our summer so far (I'm excluding most garden and processing updates - that will have to be in another post).

 

Strawberries

For the first time in memory, we had loads and loads and loads of berries.  We ate to our heart's content, made dessert, put them in cereal, on  and in pancakes, over brunch souffle, made jelly, made strawberry daiquiris and still froze a ton for the winter.  I'm still in awe.  Even if the rest of the year's harvest winds up being pitiful I'll be grateful for strawberries.

 

Gram's Strawberry Rhubarb, Rhubarb Cinnamon, Strawberry



Six Gallons in one picking

 Family and Fishing

Right before school let out my cousin (Auntie Flip Flop) came for a weekend stay.  Really, she was the highlight of June.  We just can't get enough of her sunny presence and easy going personality.  We went to Soccer Boy's next-to-last soccer game, then took BBQ chicken and Reading Girl's Potato Salad (the winner of our Family Potato Salad Cook off) to our local state park (Trout Pond Recreation Area) for a picnic and a swim.  Welcome summer!

 Then, when my cousin headed home, my parents arrived.  They stayed for over a week.  It was a wonderful, relaxing and fun filled visit.  We talked and lingered over good coffee in the morning, and good beer around the campfire at night.  We also went to The Frontier Culture Museum.  The Woodsman and I were still working, so on one of our work days Pap Pap and GeeGee took the kids to Luray Caverns.  This is one of their special trips.  The kids had been begging to go again for a long time.   In between all of that Pap Pap and Soccer Boy got in some serious fishing.  We paddled the North Fork of the Shenandoah (A guardian angel must have been with us on that trip - the river was really running high. I thought for sure we would all go for an unintended swim in some very cold water.)  They also spent quite a bit of time fishing from on Lake Laura (flatter, safer, calmer, not so hard for the angel). 
The day my parents left, another cousin and her family arrived and spent an overnight with us on the way to the beach.  The girls had a great time running around playing with the chickens and the rabbits. 
Finally, a few days after my parents left our house, we headed their way and spent a day fishing the Raystown Branch of the Juniata in Western Pennsylvania.  We stayed at the farm for a visit and family reunion with my Godparents, their children and grand kids. 
Over July 4th we headed to PA again and visited with another set of cousins (my "Uncle" J and "Aunt" M).  We spent the day with them at Hershey Park.  We rode almost all of the coasters, and no one got sick.  I must say though, that I enjoy amusement parks so much more now that they kids can ride almost everything without me.  There were a few times when I sat out for a needed brain break.   Hershey has definitely been the highlight of the summer to date.  I think we all could go there once a week.



Soccer Boy decided it was time for his summer hair cut.  Despite my (and his sister's) begging and crying to please, please, keep the curls, he shaved it all off.



Breading the fish - flour, salt and pepper



A frying lesson from Pap Pap



Mittens make good hand protectors when working with hot bubbling oil



Happy 69th Daddy!  Reading Girl made that cake all by herself.  I didn't help a bit.



Monkey Berry (blueberry banana) pancakes with a favorite cousin

 

Swim Team

We're not usually around enough to do swim team, but since we're not doing much traveling this year the kids decided they wanted to compete.  They had a great time.  They really learned to be better swimmers.  We enjoyed watching them compete and improve their individual times.  We also absolutely fell in love with our coaches.  You couldn't have asked for two more caring, understanding teachers.  The one negative with swim team - time.  Practice ran four days a week for an hour (which really meant a 2 hour time commitment till you factored in drive time).  Then there were the meets (six of them - all four hours or longer).  I got really creative at packing dinners that could be made and heated at home, then kept fairly warm until they were wanted in between races.  

After the first meet.... ribbon showing



Next to the last meet - ready to swim



Post season pool party with the best coaches in the world.  Go Ducks!

 A New Cat

So, we had a cat adopt us.  I know - it looks just like the other cat.  But trust me, it's not.  This is Toliver (so named because he was an orphan - like Oliver Twist, but with the T added because the kids thought he was so tiny).  He's a real lovey.  Twines around your ankles constantly, but he doesn't purr much and he's still very scared of fast movements or loud noises.  I think eventually he'll relax. 

 Home Improvement and Household Chores

We have...
 - redone the kitchen:  ripped up the old linoleum (1970s special with olive green and bright orange), scraped and sanded the floor until we thought our arms would come off, peeled off the old wallpaper (more of the 70s show), sanded the walls, spackled the holes, primed, painted, put in new tile and then cleaned, cleaned and cleaned until all of the sanding dust was gone.  Finally, we moved all of the kitchen furniture back from its temporary home (in the living room and hallway) to its rightful place in the kitchen, rehung all of the pictures and sorted out all of the mess left behind from two and a half weeks of a non-functioning kitchen and home office space.
 - We replaced rotten boards on the deck, then cleaned and re-stained the whole deck.
 - We finished several more raised beds in the garden.
 - We completed some minor repair on the chicken house.
 - We tore up the floor in the master bath and prepared it for a tile job to be completed later in the summer.
- We bought school supplies and got ready for the madness that is September.
 - I've deep cleaned, and de-cluttered most of the house.  I've managed to take a lot to the dump and the thrift shop, and there's more to go out the door.
 - The Woodman has split almost all of the wood on the property - he says he thinks he's set for four years.  I told him that's great - now we can travel the next four summers!   He didn't answer me - that's a yes, right?


She did so much better with this stencil project than I would have thought - I actually let her take over after a few practices.  I was very willing to get down off the ladder.

Summer School and Family Time

The kids are both working through Summer Bridge Books. These are, for the most part, review books they can do themselves. Both the kids and I like them.  They're not so easy that they get bored, but yet not so difficult so that they're frustrating.  The activities are varied and interesting and broken down into an easy to follow format.   Both kids are doing Word Study work with me (Reading Girl is doing Greek and Latin and Soccer Boy is doing Complex Consonant Clusters), and we're trying to do at least two writing workshops and science experiments together every week.  They're also both doing math work with Daddy.  Then, for some creative learning, they're doing Perplexors (mind puzzles).  Piano practice also happens most days - but certainly not with the kind of regularity we have during the school year.

 

We're doing Genre Studies as a family this year.  Everyone picks their own book from the same Genre.  So far we've done Fantasy, Biography and Historical Fiction.  We have Mystery, Realistic Fiction and Informational left.  We've all really enjoyed this.  It's pushed us all out of our comfort zone and has given us a reason to do some book talking together.

 

Of course, our favorite things in summer are the simple ones.  Soccer Boy and I have a regular cuddle date in the early morning.  Reading Girl and I have long chats before bedtime.   There's almost always time for a game or another chapter of the read aloud.  This is what I love the most about summer - time.  Time to spend without rushing from one task to the next.  How about you?  Done anything wonderful this summer?



Three Simple Spring Dishes

Here are some great ideas for the greens in your garden.  They're so simple they barely qualify as recipes at all.  I pulled the last freezer meal out this evening - I'll be counting on these quick, no fuss recipes from now until the end of school.

 

Spinach Feta and Red Pepper Omlet

Saute some spinach and roasted red pepper (frozen or canned work fine).  Remove from skillet.  Scramble two eggs with a little milk.  Pour into a skillet that is well greased.  Cook until partially set, add filling and some feta.  Fold in half, then microwave for a few seconds to finish setting the egg and melting the cheese.

 

 

Asian Salad

Inspired by Easy Vegan Zee

Dressing: 

Combine in a jelly jar -  1/4 c. olive oil, 2 T maple syrup, 2 t. lime juice, 1 T tahini, 1 t. sesame oil, 1 t. soy sauce, 1 T. sesame seeds and some fresh chopped ginger.  Shake.

Salad:

Layer greens, green onion, peanuts or sunflower seeds, and currants or raisins in a bowl.  Top with dressing.

Roasted Asparagus with Goat Cheese and Walnut Topping

Inspired by Simply in Season

Toss asparagus with olive oil.  Place on baking sheet.  Sprinkle garlic on top and roast at 350 until crisp tender and carmalized. 

Mix goat cheese, walnuts, salt and chives together to taste.  Sprinkle on top of warm asparagus.