Turkey Day Report

We had a lovely family Thanksgiving this year. All seven siblings and all of the grand kids made it to the celebration.

First we released our butterfly . This was pretty lame as the butterfly refused to fly. He just sat there on that flower.

Two cousins called pulling the wishbone. Teenage Monkey won. He won't divulge his wish - silly Monkey.

We started a new family tradition of burning a bonfire. This was quite nice, but no one wanted to stay outside until it burned all the way out.

The food was good and there was too much. Sadly, no one ate my tomato jam-cowards. Table conversation was lively with plenty of laughter.

Hope you all had a very happy holiday with plenty of family, food, and fun.

What I am thankful for on this Thanksgiving

Here they are, The Dirty Dozen Dozen. Well, there is one still in the oven so let's call them The Excellent Eleven.

I am thankful for each of these beautiful children, the people who made them, and the people who made the people that made them.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Deb

Albino Frittilary

Y'all may remember a week or so ago we found what looked like an albino fritillary caterpillar. I brought it inside and it made a cocoon. This evening I noticed some icky stuff in the bottom of the jar it was in and thought, "Oh no, did it die?" Well no, it came out of the chrysalis and here it is. It was in the jar for 17 days. The butterfly is a little lighter than a normal fritillary and a little smaller. Tomorrow morning, we will set it free.

Sorry about the blurry picture. Eventually, I will learn how to properly use a camera. I will do this when I finish all the laundry. This means my photography should improve in about nine years, IF Baby Monkey goes away to college.

Yummy Goodness

I am not a fan of radishes. They are just the wrong kind of spicy. They taste like a cold sort of hot to me. Not going to go out of my way to eat a radish. The good thing about radishes is how easy they are to grow. Throw the seeds on the ground, add a little bit of water, and in a couple of weeks I have a bunch of radishes I don't really want to eat.

If radishes tasted better, they would be the perfect vegetable to get kids into gardening. They are fast and easy to grow. Unfortunatly, I don't know of any child that will willingly eat a radish.

Manly Man eats radishes with lots of salt and pepper. However, he only eats them about once or twice a year. This does not really work out too well with home grown radishes as all of them are ready to eat at the same time. One packet of radish seeds makes about a bazillion radishes. I know, I know succession planting, but what is the fun in doing it right.

Somewhere on the interweb, I read about people in some other country eating radishes for breakfast on bread and butter. So last spring I picked a couple of radishes sliced them and put them in a bread and butter sandwich. Now this was real butter and good wheat bread. Mmmmm yummy. They don't even taste like radishes. You really have to try this. Now I can't wait until the radishes are ready to pull. Today I picked three and had my first radish/butter sandwich. Manly Man may never get another radish.

Just now, I found someone else on the Internet who eats radishes with dab of butter and some sea salt. Going to give that a try tomorrow.

Any veggies that just don't do it for you?

I can see by the first couple of comments that we are going to need to vote on radishes. Now you can go to the poll right over there on the side bar. I will not vote as I have already made my opinion clear as mud.

Non Compostibles

Things that I have found buried in the compost bin
1) Car Keys
2) Phone
3) Tonka Trucks
4) Metal Plant Markers
5) Fork
6) Tea Saucer
7) Dog Collar
8) Bracelet
9) Pruners
10) Baseball
11) My Sanity

Composted anything unusual lately?

Consider a Family Blog

I love blogging. I started this blog as a serious garden site and promptly lost control of it and myself. When I first began, the goal was to reach out to a few friends and my family. I never ever imagined that there were so many really nice, cool, funny, and talented bloggers out there who I would come to consider friends. My real world friends and family rarely ever comment. I can see that they come to visit by my site meter. Yet, they do not comment. I have even tried to bate them to no avail. I even posted a couple of pictures, nothing.

I have one sister who blogs. She also designed my header and template. Very talented sister. About a week or so ago this sister, Moms The Word of Just Jack, started a private family blog for us. She set us all up as contributors. It is sort of like the team blogs, but the team members are a mom and a bunch of sisters and our only readers are ourselves. The non blogging sisters jumped right in. My Mom got on board quick and is pretty funny in the comments. (She ate a sea slug, ewwwww]. I think they participate because it is private, just between us. The big bad interweb is not allowed. They don't have to worry about my scary garden blogging friends. Y'all are about the least scary online critters ever, but they don't know that.

The family blog has been a place to brag or complain about our kids, get news on an upcoming wedding, let each other know when we are sick, complete a menu for our Thanksgiving dinner, examine the love life of our only teenage girl, and figure out a few family mysteries. The sister that lives out of state can communicate with us without worrying about getting stuck on the phone for hours.

As the blog is a private blog, I cannot invite you to go visit. This is not a request for readership anyway. I really don't do that. The point of this post is to encourage you to set one up for your family or friends. It is a lot of fun and keeps us connected every day.

Chop Sticks

We have started a new family tradition. On most Saturdays we load up the monkeys and go eat Chinese food. A newish Chinese buffet is about ten minutes from the house. The food is really good and the price is affordable for this family of five.

Eating out with my monkeys is an experience. They all three have monster appetites. They also eat almost anything because there mother thought that feeding them out of the garden was a good idea. This has led to some odd outside grazing habits, but I digress.

Baby Monkey primarily eats sweet and sour chicken. He knows what he likes and he sees no reason to branch out. Middle Monkey eats everything. He even eats the sushi, but he is not crazy about the sticky rice. He takes the sushi rolls apart and eats everything but the rice - weird.

Today we looked up and Teenage Monkey was using chop sticks like an expert. Then I realized what he was eating with the chop sticks - banana pudding. I can't make this stuff up people. He was picking the vanilla wafers and banana bits out of the pudding with chop sticks. We were in public with normal people. Arrrgh.

Somebody help me. Please help me.