Art for the Kitchen

We have lived in our home for five and a half years and for five and a half years we have had no art hanging in our kitchen. Our kitchen is pretty much a blank canvas. We have green walls, white cabinets, and an $8 clock from Wal-mart hanging above the doorway leading to the kitchen. Shortly after we moved in we replaced the appliances (all except the dishwasher) and we intended to replace the counter tops to a blackish/brownish tone. So far it hasn't happened and I'm not sure it ever will. We just kind of ignore the cream colored counter tops that stick out like a sore thumb in the room.
For the longest time, we had some cheap white curtains hanging on the three windows in the room, but recently we got new curtains. We went from plain white to pops of lots of color. Orange, pink, blue, green, yellow, and purple flowers adorn our windows now. I have to say I have been so pleased with the $30 change (the curtains are from Lowes).

With the addition of the new curtains, I felt it was time to finally add something to the walls. So when I saw this chicken print floating around Pinterest, I knew it would be a perfect and an appropriate addition to our kitchen. When I followed the link from Pinterest to Etsy, I noticed this print comes in many colors. I ordered the print in the color "stellar" which matches exactly to the blue colored flowers in our new curtains. A few days ago our print arrived in the mail. As soon as I opened it, I held it up to the wall where I had envisioned it going in a brown frame with a white mat.

 

Bryan looked at it, then looked at me, and said, "You love it, don't you?" I simply smiled and said, "Yes, yes I do."

An Eighth of a Cow

We've crossed into a whole new territory when it comes to local food. Today we picked up a whole lot of local meat. When I say a lot of meat, I'm talking one eighth of a cow!

Stoney Creek Farm, a vendor at the local Farmers' Market, offers beef, pork, eggs, and raw milk herd shares. They practice Sustainable Agriculture and Natural Farming Practices. Their cattle are on pasture from birth and are raised without the use of antibiotics or hormones. They eat grass and then also some locally grown grains during the last two months to increase the marbling of the meat. While we prefer exclusively grass fed, we decided we were OK with the minimal grains, especially since these cows are treated so well and the meat is delicious.
A few weeks ago I got an email from Stoney Creek Farm. It was butchering time for them and they wanted to know if we were interested in a purchasing a quarter of a cow. After talking it over with Bryan, we decided an eighth might be better since we are just getting our feet wet when it comes to buying meat in bulk.

There are several advantages to buying meat in bulk. You save a lot of money! It actually costs less than what you would pay at the supermarket. You know exactly where your meat is coming from. It also strengthens the relationship with the rancher. Yes, we bought this meat from Stoney Creek Farm, but it's more accurate to say that we bought it from our friend Bill. Buying meat from a respectable source means you are buying meat that looks and tastes amazing.  This isn't the pink stuff that is sold in most stores. This is deep, dark red meat with just enough marbling.You also have access to various cuts of meat (at least for a little while). When you buy meats locally and not in bulk, you can buy various cuts of meat typically once, maybe twice, a week. This requires meal planning. We also tend to buy only cheaper cuts of meat, so with the set price per pound, we are able to get cuts of meat that we typically wouldn't buy because they are so expensive.

There are also some disadvantages. You have to pay for all the meat up front so you have to budget for it. You have to have somewhere to store all the meat. (We found a deep freezer on Craigslist for a great price a while back.) All of your meat comes frozen. This isn't a huge deal for us anymore since we don't buy "fresh" meat (what a joke) from the store anymore. All of our local meats come frozen except the occasional whole chickens we buy from River Cottage Farm. Since I see Brayden almost every week when we go out to the farm, he lets me know when he is taking chickens to the butcher. He keeps a couple in the refrigerator for me as soon as they get back from the processor and we cut the birds up ourselves in the cuts that we prefer before freezing them. (Bryan's becoming a pro at this!)

We dropped our cooler off at the Farmers' Market a little over a week ago and this afternoon we picked it up full of meat. So what do you get when you buy an eighth of a cow???
Here's the breakdown:

19- one lb. packages of ground beef
3- packages of sirlion steaks
2- packages of ribeye steaks
2- packages of kabobs
2- packages of T-bone steaks
1- filet mignon (and it's huge!)
1- package of round steak
3- chuck & shoulder roasts

We have our checklist and we will keep track of the inventory in our freezer. We are anxious to see how long all this meat lasts.

I already have visions of roasts and kabobs and steaks in my head... but I guess we need to pace ourselves.

Statuses Never Posted

I used to post a lot more on facebook. It occurred to me that everyone didn’t need to know every single detail of my life. So I cut back on the statuses. I quit posting monthly pictures. I quit sharing so much. If you really care, I know you come to this little place on the Internet to find out about our family anyway. A lot of times though, I still think of statuses. For the last couple of weeks, I have been compiling a list of statuses that were never posted. Here's a look at what I would have shared...

• Simmering beef broth does NOT smell quite as pleasant as simmering chicken broth.
• Today I was offered some more chickens, by an acquaintance, while I was at the park with the boys. The funny thing is I didn’t think it was strange.
• I exchanged money for $10.00 worth of Celtic Sea Salt in a clear plastic bag and a gallon of raw milk this afternoon in a parking lot. I’m sure I looked suspicious!
• Tonight at a meeting, I was the only person in the room wearing a watch. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
• I just ran my fastest mile!
• You know you are eating a local meal when your three year old can pray for by name the people who grew or raised the food you are eating.
• Just made eggplant Parmesan soup. I finally found a way that I like eggplant!
• I never appreciated working street lights until I had to run in the dark.
• 4 miles!!!
• If you hang your clothes out to dry and it is cool outside, it takes FOREVER for your clothes to dry!
• Today I made my own pumpkin puree!

I’ll let you know if I keep the list going...

Preschool at Home: Week 2

This week during our learning time we learned about the letter B along with a lot of other things. Here's a look at our board and here's a link to my Pinterest board where I got most of my ideas:

 We decorated a blue "B" with buttons.

  

We read several books, but two of our favorites were Bring on the Birds by Susan Stockdale and Birds by Kevin Henkes. We checked both of them out from the library.

 We decorated a piece of paper with bumblebees. 

We also practiced singing "Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee" all week long.

We read Goldilocks and the Three Bears several times 

this week and then we acted out the story. 

Seth loved this!

 We focused on the number 2 this week. 

We practiced writing it several times.

 We practiced with our magnatab.

 

Other math related activities include a graph with ball stickers...

 

and putting beads on pipe cleaners. 

Each pipe cleaner had a small piece of paper with a number hot glued to the top.   

 

Our nursery rhyme this week was Baa Baa Black Sheep. We colored our sheep black on our poem sheet and we also did a sheep craft.

 

 For our Bible story, we focused on Adam and Eve and the first sin. We used our creation sticks to help us to review from last week. I also made an Adam and Eve playset for Seth to use to retell the story.

 

 After going to the Butterfly House at Lost River Cave earlier this week...

  

we decided to go on a butterfly hunt in the backyard. 

I would hide foam butterflies and then Seth would go find them. 

Next week we move on to the letter "C," the number 3, Hickory Dickory Dock, Noah's Ark, and lots of other things!

Local Bounty: Ground Cherries

These little beauties are called ground cherries. We first learned about ground cherries from Farm School at Need More Acres. Ever since then, we had been munching on them all summer long.  To eat a ground cherry, you have to peel back the papery husk to reveal the fruit. I love how the ripe fruit is such a beautiful yellow color. They have a somewhat nutty pineapple taste. The appearance of ground cherries at the market has dwindled down now that the cooler weather has arrived.  We'll miss these little gems until they return next year.

Fun at Lost River Cave

Bryan was in charge of the boys today while I was teaching in Cumberland County. I got home early from my day of teaching so we took advantage of the Fall Break special at Lost River Cave. (From now until Oct. 14th admission is just $5.00 a person.) We've been through the trails and to the Butterfly House a few times, but we'd never taken the boat tour into the cave.

Our tour started outside the cave. 

We got to see one of the Blue Holes which are karst "windows" 

peeking into the underground drainage system.

 

Then we headed into the cave. 

All the kids had to put on life jackets and each adult had 

a cushion that could serve as a float if needed. 

 I love how serious Seth looks in this picture. He loved wearing the life jacket by the way. 

Silas...not so much.

 
 We boarded the tour boats and the cave tour lasted about 25 minutes.

  
After our boat ride, we enjoyed some time on the nature trails.

 We had to point out all of the letter B's on our way to the Butterfly Habitat since we are studying the letter "B" this week!

 We only saw a couple of butterflies, but visiting the Butterfly Habitat tied in nicely with our week of learning.

 We convinced Seth to try the Cave Crawl. 
This is a very long tunnel and it's part of the Lost River Cave's Outdoor Classroom!

 This was our view for a long time.

 Finally after several minutes and lots of encouraging, our little man appeared!

 

 What a fun afternoon!

Autumn Celebration 2012

This morning a few of our friends came over to help us celebrate the Autumn season. We had lots of fun! We know by now that Seth doesn't think it's a party unless we have hats, so we started out by putting on our apple hats (found at Mighty Dollar). 

Then we got to crafting! We made pumpkin shakers...

 

and colored sandpaper leaves.

 We played a fall sensory game. The kids had to close their eyes, reach inside a paper bag, and guess what autumn item was inside. Inside the bags were acorns, a pine cone, a tiny pumpkin, socks, and leaves.

 Even Silas got to play!

 

I made Paleo pumpkin muffins for our snack.

  

  along with apples and a yogurt dip.

We also played a pumpkin toss game. 

Throwing a mason jar ring onto a tiny pumpkin is not as easy as it looks. 

The kids did awesome though!

 

It was a super fun morning and we love these seasonal celebrations. 

We're so thankful for our friends who come celebrate with us!