Weekend Fun!

The Oldest came home with her special guy, and so we did something fun!

Look at our all-black-halloweenie-cat looking at those Jack-o-lanterns! The Big Guy thought it would be funny to make a victimized and puking pumpkin, hence the knife sticking out on top.

L to R, top row: The Big Guy, Boo (we think this looks like a transformer), Tiger.

It is a bit early for carving the pumpkins, but we may not get The Oldest here again before the end of the month, so we went ahead and carved.

This lovely pie was made by Tiger and Hubbins using the recipe The Oldest developed herself. I heard a rumor that the Big Guy helped with peeling the apples, which were picked off our tree. They made this pie while I was at work Saturday morning. For dinner we had chicken marsala, ravioli, green beans almondine, and one of my vegetarian's (The Oldest) favorite veggies, rutabaga.

Other things the kids did when their sister came home: They all rode their bikes to a local cemetary, over 200 years old, to see the tombstones for The Oldest's anthropology assignment. It seems she needs to collect data from headstones of graves over 100 years old. She is to measure, take photos, note the art work, and make observations. All of this data will be shared with the anthropology students in her class, and then they will all be writing term papers where they will discuss how views of the afterlife have changed in the US. Interesting.

While on the bike ride they stopped at a creek and Bananas, our resident naturalist, demonstrated her advanced frog catching skills. They came back with all sorts of stories about the changes in the creek since the rain of last week. The Oldest brought her a specimen box with gadgets. She absolutely had to try them all out! I think the Oldest and the City Boy were impressed with her skills!

Here she is, eyeing her catch:

She got it, on the first try!


Ick and eww, but what fun for a kid!

The Lord's Bounty: Apples!

We are blessed to have two apple trees, a small grapevine, a small blackberry bush, and a pear tree that we inherited when we bought our home several years ago. The pear tree, grape vine and berry bushes tend to feed the birds before us, though we do scramble for a few pickings. This year was especially bountiful, our one little blackberry bush gave us berries daily for a couple of weeks. We were able to rescue a few grapes from the birdies.

But our apple trees, despite a mishap with one of them in a storm early this year, have provided us with the best apples thusfar.

The bounty:

Organic, unsprayed, untreated. Less beautiful than store bought, but just as delicious, and FRESH PICKED! In our own yard!

Still more to pick:

What a gift! Yesterday I made one of my favorites, apple crisp. I love Betty Crocker recipes, especially the older ones. This is the recipe I've always used.

4 medium tart cooking apples, sliced (4 cups)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1/2 cup quick-cooking or old-fashioned oats
1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Cream or Ice cream, if desired


1.Heat oven to 375ºF. Grease bottom and sides of 8-inch square pan with shortening.
2.Spread apples in pan. In medium bowl, stir remaining ingredients except cream until well mixed; sprinkle over apples.
3.Bake about 30 minutes or until topping is golden brown and apples are tender when pierced with a fork. Serve warm with cream.
Makes 6 servings

I do adjust this recipe for size. We generally fill a 9X13 pan to heaping with the apples, then double the topping. We gave away a huge pan of apple crisp, saved one for ourselves. We had the crisp for dessert after dinner last night, and then again this morning: The breakfast of champions!

This post is linked to Rednesday at It's a Very Cherry World