My Boy

I just discovered this self-portrait that Jesse made a couple of days ago. He makes me laugh! Such a sweetheart still, almost 13, he's a great boy! I love all the details of this picture and what they say about him. Yep, another creative one...

Weekend Images

Blood oranges from our tree...

The closest thing to snow we will get here - hail on the trampoline...

Moonrise through the mulberry.

Creativity in Education

Everyone should watch this. It is so true. Now our schools need to get the message that they must change!!

Some Elves

Last fall my sister Missy came over and introduced us to the very fun concept of art paper dolls. Today I'm feeling a little magical, so I thought I would post this awesome picture my girls made for their best friend. Jill and Lucy and Katie have had an imagination game going for almost as long as they can remember, so for Katie's birthday, Jill and Lucy decided to make a paper doll collage depicting some of the characters. These were their favorite characters - the floating girl is Lucy, she's the "What", a kind of ghost girl who was killed by lightning while standing in a tree singing. That's her tree/home place in the center; her powers are vast (so I'm told, apparantly you really don't talk about your powers...). The middle elf is Katie, or "Mithrah" in the game. The winged girl is Jill's dragon elf, "Moonshadow."

I am always amazed at how creative these girls are, although I don't know why it would suprise me. They come from a long line of artists!

More Lemons...

I have a dear friend, Patty, who used to come buy eggs from Lucy until our hens stopped laying...Well, for the last couple of years I have been giving her citrus from our trees every winter which she sends to her family and friends back East, in the cold, dreary "real" winter weather. I love to help her help others, sending a bit of sunshine to cheer their day! Well...Patty has a Meyer Lemon tree which was finally mature enough this year to give her a very nice crop, and she generously shared with me - half her harvest! Oh, boy are they good!

Here's a picture of a little, thin-skinned, fragrant and rosy Meyer Lemon compared to a large regular lemon off the neighbor's tree. (Not that we don't love the regular kind, but it is so fun to have something a little exotic and rare!)

So today I made a recipe that I have been wanting to try for a long time. Meyer Lemon Coffee Cake from Martha Stewart.

Ok, so my picture isn't as pretty as hers, but I'm sure it tasted just as good, if not better! I did modify the recipe some and used about half whole soft wheat flour, and yogurt in place of the sour cream (yes, some of the yogurt was goat-yogurt...shhhh! don't tell Jill!!)

Time to go eat a bedtime snack! TTFN

When Life Gives You Lemons...

First do some lemon math while you juice 50 lemons (in groups of 5, of course!)

Then make lemonade!

The lemons came from our sweet accross-the-street neighbors. Thanks Brother & Sister B!
No, it didn't take 50 lemons to make a gallon of lemonade, but they did make almost a gallon of lemon juice! And provided a great opportunity to remember our liquid measurements from a few days ago. That's the lemonade above, in the fridge with the goat milk, goat yogurt (!) and goat cheese (!!) Mmmmm, so good!

We've Been Busy!

Ok, I'm a little behind, but that's because we have been so busy! Besides weeding the garden, cleaning the goat pens, and all the daily stuff, we have been having tons of fun!

Doing squirrel math:

We have a bunch of pinon pine nuts from Grammie & Grandaddy's cabin, so the mama squirrel hid them in groups of 3 and then 4 all over the living room. The little squirrels then found them and worked on multiplying and dividing by 3's and 4's. Very cute and ...yummy!

Celebrating Groundhog Day! Robin wrote a story about the groundhog, colored a picture and copied the applicable rhyme, made a wordsearch, and.....

... recycled old crayons into new multicolored crayon discs. Robin was so excited to do this after his friend Haley brought some in to Primary on Sunday. So, we didn't make Candlemas candles, but we did melt some wax and have some fun. As you can see, Robin stacked his into a cute little mushroom.

We also started milking our Nigerian Dwarf goat, Mocha. Her milk is amazingly creamy! Unfortunately, she is only making about a quart a day, so it disappears fast.

"We Love Goatmilk!"