Wild Flowers

The kids just take over the computer when they get home, so while I waited for my turn, I worked on my wild flower book.

My 9, 12, and 14 year-old daughters were sitting around the table watching me.  It's turning out pretty nice too. I just need to label each page and write down where they each grow.

After I worked on that, and got my turn on the computer (he he, I needed to see how to bind off with knitting on YouTube again, I just forgot how to do it already), I went out to pick more wild flowers.

We came back in with this flower, and honeysuckle. 

I saw bushes that had clusters of white berries on them.  I am pretty sure it's White Baneberry - a completely poisonous plant.  I'm working with a park district expert to see if I am correct on the baneberry, and will have to remove it somehow.  The word "bane" is typically found in names of poisonous plants. If it stops raining, I will pull on my mucking boots and go get a few photos of it.

I have no idea what the first white flower that I posted is.  In my wild flower book it looks similar to White Snakeroot.  I guess I'll just have to wait and she what they tell me.

There are approximately 7 wild flowers in our area that are threatened or endangered.  They are:

~Blue-Eyed Grass (Endangered)
~Grass Pink (Threatened)
~Kalms St. Johns Wort (Threatened)
~Prairie Rose (Threatened)
~Prickly Pear Cactus (Potentially Threatened)
~Wild Lupine (Potentially Threatened)
~Wood Lily (Threatened)

I found it interesting that one of the threatened plants, have not been growing here in the wild, since the 1980's.  That plant is the Wild Lupine.  Due to constant weed control and other maintenance techniques, the plants have been eliminated.  Large parks and local preserves have re-planted some of them, starting a recovery program to protect them.


Here are photos of a wild flower display that my 12 year-old put together.  

The flower display turned out very nice.  Imagine who special the pioneers felt, when they woke up to a vase of these in their cabin. 

Homemade Noodles

It's noodle making day.  I hand roll my noodles, so it took all morning - 2 dozen egg yolks.  The barred rock's eggs are still a bit smaller, so I use 2 of them for every egg in a recipe now.

I have noodles drying every where in my kitchen today.  Since we were gone most of the day yesterday, it's a mess and difficult to maneuver in.

My oldest daughter has reminded me that we have not had "tea time" all summer long.  It was just way too hot or we had too many mosquitoes to enjoy the front porch.

Today, I am making them iced green tea with a bit of peppermint in it.  I'm not sure what I will bake yet, as I need to put two whole chickens in the roaster still.  

We have a good strong wind today, so I need to get as much on the clothes line as I can.  The weather is turning much colder and it with the storng wind, should dry fast.

I saved my egg whites for another angel food cake.  I just don't have the counter space to bring my mixer out and make it.  That will have to wait for tomorrow, and I'll have to come up with something else for today.

Update:  I decided to make the kids another batch of zucchini banana bars.  We like to call them brownies.

I used Swiss chard stalks, in place of buying celery, in my roaster pan.  We'll see how it tastes.  

I still have a few carrots in the garden, but will use those for muffins this week.  The ones in the roaster are from the store, but organic.


Speaking of food, we grilled burgers with our tomato jelly last night.  It really doesn't have a ton of flavor like I thought.  It's good, but I think I will try a tomato jam or preserves next time. 

Record Attendance ~ Spending Labor Day at the Zoo

I tried telling my husband that it's not a good idea to visit the zoo on a holiday.  

"No way, everyone will be having cook-outs and family parties.  No one will be at the zoo," he said.

We went and we are very tire people today.   When we took the shuttle back to our parking location, the driver gave us some information.  He told us that the zoo had the highest attendance ever - over 8500 people (according to him at the time) and they closed admission for a while, turning 100-150 cars away (no parking spaces available).

Meet Tuli and her Mom

 Meet Lucas and his Mom

Guess what I did?  I touched this Eastern Fox snake!  I hate snakes.  This one doesn't bite, so all but one of the kids got to pet this.  

The daughter that did not pet it, was out taking pictures.  Check her blog of many other zoo pictures:  Life as A Teen Farmgirl.

More pictures of our first zoo trip (in over 6 years):

Building a Bridge ~ Using All Recycled Wood

Finally.  I got hubby to help me with building the bridge we needed.  On our property, we have a crick (what the kids call it) that runs off the creek.  It runs thru a corner of the property.  On the other side, are fruit trees that were planted by past owners.  Today, we picked one pear from one of the trees.

We built our bridge with measurements of 12 feet by 4 feet.  In the future we may add sides and flower boxes too.  

For now, it's a basic bridge.  We built it out of free wood that my husband got from a co-worker.  The co-worker, a few years ago, tore down his house deck.  My husband gladly took the wood and we have not put it to use.

I'm working on clearing out the weeds around the bridge, and freeing up the water-way below it.

I'm also looking at a couple of possible locations to build my wall tent or place to rest and relax (with a mosquito net). 

It was nice to have leftover angel food cake after this long day.  Yum!  It's so moist and delicious, and made with our farm fresh eggs. 

I was multi-tasking today also.  I guess it's been pretty normal for that around here lately.  While we were out building the bridge, I had pear butter cooking in the crock pot.  Yum.

I guess the homemade noodles will have to be made tomorrow.  I ran out of time today.

Disappearing Heirloom Green Bean Plants ~ Hubby In The Dog House

Yesterday I made a shocking discovery.  I was out picking tomatoes, and saw (eyes popping open, then squinting in anger) none other than mower wheel tracks.  Right there smack next to the corn, and in between the broccoli.  

I wish I took pictures then, because it rained last night . The tracks are gone, but I found out hubby lied.  The shock.  The horror!  My heirloom green plants. Gone.

This morning we had a conversation about the missing green bean plants.  They were not just green beans, but heirloom.

"So, do you remember those missing green bean plants?" I asked him.  My 12 year-old daughter was in present company.

"Well, your Dad mowed them over and told me he didn't know what happened to them," I said to my daughter.

"Aww!  Daaaaaaaaad!" she replies giggling.

"Well, what do you expect when you see a crazy woman with shovels in both her hands, waving them at me from the garden.  She was screaming, 'What happened to my bean plant?' and looking pretty mad," said my husband.

My daughter busted out laughing and replied, "I know!  She came in the house all freaked out and screaming (more giggling followed by rolling laughter)."

Yes folks, my husband was trying to chase the chickens out of the tomatoes.  And with the lawn mower.  Right over my heirloom green beans.


It wasn't a rabbit, or deer, or ground hog.  It was my husband, who won't ever do that again.

Our $2.00 Vacuum Cleaner

While I'm sitting here, waiting for the drill battery to charge, and my hubby to get back, I'll share another "funny" with you.

My husband bought us a sweeper at a garage sale for $2.00.  The problem with it, was that the power button would not work.

We took that thing apart, and had a horrible time figuring it out.  I told him how Mary Jane Butters once took a sweeper apart (I think I read it in a magazine maybe), and when she put it back together it worked.

It was when the weather was badly hot, and you know how grouchy two people get at the end of a work day when it's that hot.

Well, every time he could not get the problem solved, he'd hand me the sweeper and say, "okay Mary Jane Butters, you fix it!"  Ha ha ha ha!

We did get it fixed and it works great!  And it's bagless, so no more sweeper bags.  Yay!

The kids heard him and they started laughing.

Farmgirl Funny

My oldest daughter walked out to the barn and watched me cut wood with the table saw.  When I shut off the saw, and took my safety glasses off, she stood staring at me. 

"Yeah, what do you need?" I asked her.

"Uh, Mom?  So you can shoot a shot gun and use the saw? Should we be worried?" she asked with her eye brows going up.