Monarch Butterfly Hatched

Both chrysalis opened within 24 hours of each other

These are our Monarch butterflies that we have been feeding and watching through the life cycle. They both opened within 24 hours of each other and then we released them together on Friday afternoon. Something neat that I learned this time through the process of watching these caterpillars/butterflies is that you can tell the difference between male and female and in the photo above you can actually see 1 of each. The male is the upper butterfly and th female is the lower one. If you look at the bottom wing of the male butterfly you will see a black spot on one of the lines in the wing, this is how you can tell if it is a male or not. See we really can still learn new things each day! Just remember that like the butterfly it takes a lot of time, patience and trials sometimes to become the beautiful thing that God wants us to be!

Agriculture Education and other fun things

Since I was raised on a farm and Gary works on a farm, agriculture is our way of life. I believe that it helps us remain grounded in what we do. We get to see the miracles of life in many forms, from the birth of a calf to the sprouting of the seeds, we see the cycle all around us. With that in mind, I have been wanting to add something new to my blog and that is an agriculture activity or link to an activity to help people understand different aspects of farming and what is really going on, as farms become more modern and we see less of the farms that have a few chickens, a few cows and a couple of pigs. Specialized farms are what are now and are pretty much here to stay. 



Silage chopping



So for this month, around here it is time to harvest the corn. Some of the corn in our area is harvested in 3 different ways. The first is when the corn is still a little bit green in the stalks and a tractor, corn chopper and wagon go through the fields. There are also the self-propelled choppers that will harvest too. The corn that is harvested this way will be stored in the tall silos or in a silage bunk or bag. This will be corn silage and used as feed for the animals. 

Combine shelling corn

In a couple of weeks the corn will continue to dry or start looking dead. Then there are 2 ways to finish the harvesting of corn. One is to bring in a combine and when the combine goes through they are shelling the corn. They will just have the corn kernels to store when the combine is done. The other way to harvest corn is with a corn picker. This is a machine that will pick the ears of corn off the stalks and the ears of corn are stored in a corn crib.

harvesting ear corn with a corn picker



Most of the sweet corn is already done in this area, but there are still fun things to do with corn. If you get a chance, The Amazing corn maze in Lucinda, Pa  www.amazinglucinda.com is a lot of fun and this year they have made it 3 acres bigger!

So if you get a chance to spend some time with corn, check it out. IF you can't get to the corn maze, try something simple at home maybe carmel popcorn or just use the old hot air popper and watch what the kids do with that (especially if they have only had microwave popcorn!)  There are some great corn coloring pages available at www.kidsprintables.com check under "fall."

Let me know if you enjoy knowing more about agriculture and ways to show it to your kids and ways to enjoy it in the many different seasons.

Special Class Schedule

At Keystone, we have "numbered day schedules" instead of  "day schedules" and I find this very confusing. But Robert and I have found that each year we take a piece of fun foam and divide it into the 5 days. He writes the day number and then what special class goes along with that day. I also try to find stickers to decorate each class with. Then I take Velcro dots and attach a dot to each day & I make an arrow or a marker of some type to move each day to help us keep track of this schedule. This year the marker is a football. So each day he would move the football to the next day and know what special class he has. In addition to that I have a stack of magnets, (The free kind that are handed out as advertising) I glued 2 of those to the back of the fun foam with Elmer's glue. This makes it that it will stick to the back of our door (without damage) and Robert can check to see if he has what he needs for the day when he is going out the door.

If nothing else it has worked great for me to be able to as questions in the evening,. like how was art? or what ever class and it gets the conversation started.

Monarch caterpiller on the move

Caterpillar in a J before going into a chrysalis

Here you can see our caterpillar on the left in the "J" shape
and another caterpillar in the chrysalis on the right.
They will stay in the Chrysalis for about 10-14 days

Our caterpillar has grown a lot since we first put a entry about the caterpillars up. So he has eaten a bunch of milkweed in the past couple of weeks. Over this past weekend we saw him in this "J" form which is what they do before going into their chrysalis. They will be in the green chrysalis for about 10-14 days and then they will emerge as a butterfly ready for a long trip to Mexico for the winter. I love to see the life cycle come into a way that kids can see it. We'll post more when it happens.

Happy Birthday Gary (boy is it hot!)

Well, today we celebrated Gary's birthday.As usual I got out the Happy Birthday banner and the boys decided to write on the door "Happy Birthday Dad!" (With those crayola window markers) but there was just one problem to my day it was 90 degrees, hot and humid and I needed to bake a birthday cake in my house with no air conditioning. When Gary came in for breakfast, I apologized that I didn't think we would have cake for his birthday until the weekend (possible high of 58). I figured that ice cream with a candle would have to due for now, but he asked about the Banana Split Ice Cream Cake that a friend had shared the recipe a few years ago. I thought about this and decided that it would be just about perfect for his birthday today. Which it was especially good this evening when it was still very warm at 7:30, and it worked great for a hot September birthday with a candle in it. So here is the recipe for those who might need a quick and easy dessert for these last few hot days of summer! HAPPY BIRTHDAY GARY!

Banana Split Ice Cream Cake

2 -12 count boxes of ice cream sandwiches
1 tub of whipped cream
bananas
cherries
any other toppings that you might find on a banana split
Chocolate syrup

In a 9x13 glass pan, cover the bottom in unwrapped ice cream sandwiches. Spread a layer of whipped topping on top of the sandwiches. Then slice the bananas on top of the whipped topping, place cherries where they would be on each slice when cut. Add any other toppings that you desire. Then layer yet another layer of unwrapped ice cream sandwiches. Add another layer of whipped topping. Freeze until ready to serve. Cut place on plates and drizzle a little bit of chocolate syrup over the top and enjoy!

First Day of School

I know that for kids the first day of school can be scary and exciting. So I have tried to make the first day of school a fun day at our house. This year, I had the door decorated with "Good Luck in 4th grade" by using Crayola Window Markers which are really a lot of fun to leave messages on windows and mirrors. Anyhow, then I usually try to find 1 school supply that wasn't really needed but wanted and I purchase it without my kids knowing about it. Then on the first day of school, the kitchen table is set for breakfast and there is a new supply at their spot too. This year it was twist-up colored pencils for Robert and a new Thomas the Train book for Garrett. This is also one of the days that Garrett and I go with Robert to the bus stop across the road, and we do the usual first day of school photos (which I try to do at the same place so I can see how the kids have grown)

I also try very hard to make sure that I have cleared the calendar for when Robert gets home to hear all about his day. It sometimes takes a little bit of time for Robert to tell me details of the day, but usually by bed a have a pretty good look at what the day was like.

So what do you do for the first day of school?

Monarch butterfly time!

It is that time of year, when the boys and I go out caterpillar hunting. We went the other morning and found a couple of caterpillars, but nothing like what Andrew and I found Sunday afternoon. We found 7 caterpillars, but the coolest thing was the size of them these are the smallest caterpillars that I have ever found and we found 4 of them. Check out the picture. Monarch caterpillars are such a neat thing for the kids to check out - the process of change that the caterpillar goes through. I will have photos of the process until these caterpillars turn into butterflies. Garrett will be doing a butterfly life cycle - check out http://www.enchantedlearning.com/ for a life cycle print out and other butterfly activities. I have found that there are adults that have never seen this change of life - I guess that I took it for granted that I had school teachers that loved the hands on learning that could be added to the curriculum. I also found that if you search "life cycle of monarch butterfly" there is a website that has time lapsed photos of a butterfly coming out of the chrysalis - very cool!

Children's Sermon - Stepping Out

okay, this children's sermon was almost too long, but the length can always be adjusted by the number of examples used.

I asked the kids how they were doing and if they were ready for school - answers were as I expected the day before school starts. Then I asked if over the summer if any of them had gone to Wal-mart, Riverside or Sharp Shopper - to which they answered yes of course. Then the hard question - how do those doors work? The answers were interesting, but I finally explained that they use to have these black rug like things that when you stepped on them the door opened. So what opened those doors? We did - by stepping forward and stepping on the black rug or by breaking the motion detector. So YOU stepping forward was what made it work.
Now do you know that God has a whole warehouse of miracles just waiting to have happen? So what is he waiting for? Well let's look at some of his past miracles.
We talked about David & Goliath and how David had to say "I'll fight the giant" before God went to work.
We talked about Noah and how Noah had to say yes I will build the ark - God gave the blueprints.
Jesus feeding 5,000 - the boy gave his 2 fishes and 5 loaves of bread and God went to work, but the boy had to step forward first.
But that was all a long time ago, so are miracles happening now? Well when Gary went to Jamaica, it poured at the place where they were staying but where they were working it wasn't raining and they could get the house built. See the mission team had stepped forward and said yes and God was doing the rest.
(I continued with several examples of current miracles from within our church)
So why don't we see miracles happening more often, because people aren't stepping out or stepping forward and saying yes to what God wants them to do.

So with this new school year, I hope that you will decide to step out for Jesus and say "yes" to what God wants you to do. I made foot shaped bookmarks from funfoam and wrote on them "Have you stepped out today?"

A verse to go with this was Deuteronomy 31:6 "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."

Swimming Pool Educational Game

This summer we have spent a lot of time at our pool. The boys like to have me "tow" them around the pool on a pool noodle. Well I had just read an article about a mom who had her girls learn their address and phone number while they got their hair done. Well since this was on my mind, it got the creative juices going. While in the pool, we came up with a new game. Rockin Robin's Towing Service.

The boys would pretend that they had an accident with their pool noodle and then they would call "Rockin Robin's Towing Service" AKA Mom. I would then ask them to give me their location for the tow truck to find them - they had to tell me our home address including town and state. Then I would ask for a phone number at which they could be reached in case the tow truck got lost. To this Robert found out that he needed to learn my cell phone number - so his contact number was my cell phone and to Garrett his contact number was the house number. Once the information was communicated I would rush to the "scene of the accident" and grab a hold of the pool noodle with child in tow and tow them to a pretend garage to have their car fixed.

Okay so we pretended and included learning and swimming and fun all into one- what more could we ask for! At least the boys now know phone numbers and Garrett has learned his address! Yeah!!

Fresh Applesauce

Well it is that time of year when the apples start to fall off the trees and the battle to pick up apples with the boys begin. But so far this year there hasn't been major battles and Gary helped this week by bring in a bucket of apples. These weren't real big apples so not really good for apple pie filling or apple dumplings, but good for applesauce. So if you have never made homemade apple sauce here is all that you do - it is really simple:

First wash your apples, then you can decide if you would like to peel your apples or put the apple sauce through a food mill. If you peel your apples, you just need to core and peel the apples and put them into a large pan and add a little bit of water so they don't scorch to the bottom of the pan. Turn the heat on and stir your pan of apples on a regular basis until it is sauce. You might need to add a little sugar depending on your preferred taste and depending on the apples. As for me I dislike peeling apples so I just cut and core the apples and cook the apples with the water until the peels start to let loose of the meat of the apple. I then put the apples through a food mill and take out all of the peels and then add sugar (Depending on the apples your applesauce might take on a pink color from the peels). Either way homemade applesauce with a little cinnamon is a favorite around my house especially if it is still just a little bit warm.

The best part was that I had 2 boys come offer to help today. Robert came in and started turning the food mill and when Garrett got up from his nap he wanted to help too. This was so neat since I try to find jobs for them to help with putting up food at this time of year and sometimes I have to listen to a lot of whining about helping. So their volunteering was a great joy!
If you are looking for ways to include the kids in the kitchen with canning or preserving foods this fall stop and look at the simple jobs that they can do. Even 2 year olds can stand on a chair and "help" wash the apples before cutting them into pieces. Older kids can learn knife safety and if they are soft apples use a butter knife to cut the apples into pieces. The food mill is another easy job but it takes supervision because usually the food being milled is hot and it could splash on the child. But even when we are trying to get the food ready for winter we need to find ways to include our kids in the kitchen.

Venango County Fair

The Frog Jumping contest returned this year and Andrew had the largest frog there - he didn't win but it was a huge frog! (And he didn't step on it!)

Robert in the auction ring on sale night - he did very well and had several buyers there bidding on his goat.

Animal dress up contest - Garrett took first place with his goat as Rudolph and he dressed as Santa. Robert and Sam had "Superhero goats" while John, Joe & Paul had the "Pirate goat" and Andrew dressed his sheep up as a King.

The week ended on a fun note except when Andrew got hurt, but the kids had fun. The one other thing of the week was that at the awards ceremony Robert received the "Rate of Gain" award for goats, which was cool since we weren't sure if he was putting on enough weight or not- I guess Robert must have fed it right. The fair is over for yet another year, but now Robert has decided that maybe he would like to have dairy goats so he could milk them and then make goat milk fudge & a pig might be fun too. Oh what will the next year hold for us? I can hardly wait!

Venango County Fair - Continued

Robert with 1 of his 4-H projects - Genealogy- 1st place. He also entered Cookie Magic - 2nd place and First Aid as a club project which received 1st place. He entered a few in open this year too a Quilt patch, a story about Maple Syrup, a Duct Tape ipod case, and a photo of a butterfly. ( In this picture you can see nephew Andrew's poster in the right hand corner with a 2nd place ribbon)

Andrew showing his pig in pee wee showmanship and he received a blue ribbon.

Andrew in the pedal tractor pull. He had a full pull which made it he was in the pull off which he had 2 more full pulls before being beat by another boy by a few inches. But he did a great job!

Garrett in his first fair pedal pull and he did a good job.

Tuesday of fair was busy watching Andrew show his pig. He also showed a sheep on Monday. Wednesday the big event was the pedal tractor pull - first time for Garrett and the first time that Robert got to help instead of pull. Also the first time that Andrew got several full pulls. By Wednesday the boys were getting a little tired.

Venango County Fair - beginning of the week

Garrett with his 2nd place collage of tractors. He entered a farm display which placed 1st, a painting on fabric which placed 2nd, a Christmas ornament that he received 3rd and a bookmark, plus his goat Simba.

Simba and Garrett had a blue pee wee showmanship, a 1st in Doe of any Breed and Champion Doe of any Breed

Robert received a blue in fitting, a red in showmanship and a 1st place in the middle weight Meat Goat class. He got to go in for Champion but didn't quite make the cut.

Garrett showing his goat, Simba, all by himself this year!

Robert answering the judges questions during the show with Bo.

We started the fair off with the Goat Show Monday morning and the rest of the projects being judged. The boys were planning a great week and I think they succeeded.

Happy Birthday Garrett

Opening Presents and a watergun to even things out Happy 4th Birthday Garrett

Okay, Summer gets in the way of me being a "good" mom and remembering to get online and post simple things, but Garrett turned 4 on June 30th. He is now "Big" or so he is telling people. The fun part is that the next day he got up and asked me if he was 5 now. But his birthday was a cool evening and a campfire and sweatshirts were required but he had a Thomas birthday cake and family stopped in for supper, cake and ice cream. A watergun and a nerf gun will even things out with Robert and painting pads and a new hay rake for his "big tractors" and a round baler for the small tractors will round up things. He spent that night sleeping on his floor in his new sleeping bag. But if nothing else He are excited to be 4!

Dirt and Sand

I really enjoy having fun with food, especially during the summer. For a picnic a couple of weeks ago, I let the boys decide were we taking dirt or sand. It was decided dirt this time, but if your looking for something fun for the next picnic or get-to-together here is the recipes (general) for Dirt & Sand.

Dirt
1 package Oreo cookies crushed (generic chocolate cookies work too)
2 packages chocolate pudding made up
1 tub of whipped cream
1 container of gummy worms

I usually use a dedicated sand bucket and a sand shovel to serve with (this container never goes near the sandbox - it's MOM's). Just begin layering the ingredients in until nearly full. Always end with oreo crumbs on top with a few worms sticking up through. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Amounts depend on the size of your sand bucket as you may need more ingredients depending on the bucket or serving container.

Now for those who do not like chocolate it is the vanilla version.

1 package Vanilla Oreo's (generic vanilla sandwich cookies work too)
2 packages vanilla or you could use butterscotch pudding
1 tub of whipped cream
and try to find seashell shaped candies or I have used swedish fish too. I've found that you need to check the gummy section of the bulk goods store or the local candy store. It's amazing the things hey make in candies.

Once again I use the dedicated sand bucket and sand shovel to serve. And just layer the ingredients into the bucket until nearly full. End with the cookie crumbs on the top like sand and add a few seashell candies or fish that got stuck on shore. Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.
Amounts depend on the size of your sand bucket as you may need more ingredients depending on the bucket or serving container.

This is a lot of fun especially for the kids. You could substitute ice cream for the pudding and freeze. Remove from freezer before serving (very hard) but artificial flowers out the top is a lot of fun - some people will think you are really eating DIRT or maybe SAND.

Fun with Food

"Hi I'm Mr. Corndog Man! How are you?" (are you sure we can play with our food?)

Summer time can sometimes mean a little more flexibility and that meals can be fun. Today the boys wanted corn dogs (questionable on how healthy)which I had purchased and had in the freezer. When I pulled them from the microwave, I noticed that there was a bump on the batter that looked like a nose. So I grabbed some shredded cheese and made little eyes and then I took a mushroom (left over from mountain pies the other night) and made a mouth and set them on the table. Robert and Garrett were like "Cool" Robert wanted to add hair - he said that cheese could easily make hair or maybe streaks of ketchup. Anyhow we had fun at lunch today and made the next time, I will let the boys create instead of me, but it is fun to make something different or unexpected for lunches during the summer. Try even using a cookie cutter for sandwiches - some days we have cows, pigs and hay bales. (Which Robert will even ask for once in a while because he remembers doing it when he wasn't in school)

Baby is here!

My new neice arrived at 3:45am this morning. Haylee Catherine made her arrival. She is 7#3oz. and 20" long. Catherine is doing well and the delivery went well from what I have heard (it was long) But all are well, what a blessing from God!

Wooden toy tops

This summer we have had several toy races at our house. These were simple toys that we made at VBS and here at my house for a last minute craft and they are SOOOO simple. They are simply wooden wheels (that my husband uses when he is building toy trucks) and a dowel rod cut to 4 inches in length. Sharpie markers were a simple decoration and makes them individuals. Then the kids set them on the floor and push the top away from themselves. We have had a great time with these simple toys. We have timed the spinning and also who's spin the longest amount of time or has the most unique spin pattern.
Tops are still a lot of fun!

Tye Dying Hand-me-downs

My sister is expecting which is great but we understand that it is to be a girl. This means that all the hand-me-downs can't be used. Some are definitely boy clothes. But a couple of weeks ago, I went to the attic and pulled out the clothes and sorted through them and found some that could be male or female. I also found 18 white (some what stained) outfits. My nephew (future big brother) was here for the day and we decided that Robert and my nephew could tie dye the outfits so that the baby would have some color. They picked pink, purple and a tealish blue. They turned out great and what a way to let kids help get ready for the new baby. We spent all afternoon. wrapping rubberbands, carefully putting the outfits in one color and then the next. After they dried, I rinsed them and then took the bands off. What excitement when they saw their handiwork. We also did a plain white sheet for the crib that turned out really cool. But here is a picture of a few of the outfits. But what a simple way to make hand-me-downs more exciting.

County Fair Projects

The Venango County Fair was something new to me when I was a kid, but since that is where Gary & I met, and we believe in the family friendly atmosphere it is now a given to our family that we will be going and participating in the fair events and friendly competition. With Robert being a 4-H'er he has several projects that he will be exhibiting for 4-H. Along with the projects come the books. These are a great way to keep Robert writing and reading and calculating the costs of his projects. Plus he will learn something new too!
Now Garrett will have his projects too. The fair offers open classes for everyone. There are youth classes for those 8 and under, 8-18, and adults. These projects are what keep the boys busy all summer. Actually it started the planning in January or February because the seed catalogs came out then and they were looking for sunflower seeds. They both enter sunflowers that they have taken care of throughout the summer.
But some simple ideas are: collages, fabric painting, flowers (plant and let the kids water and weed and then select the best looking bloom as needed for each type of flower) farm displays, models,etc. there are lots of things to choose from and they are great ways to use up some of that extra time that you might have this summer!
Gary & I even enter some of the things that we have made throughout the year, just for the fun of it. If anyone is interested I have extra fairbooks with the classes! Venango County does ask for preregistration by July 16th.