Oh my goodness, we’ve been busy!  Summer is just a blur around here, even with the pageant finally over.  It’s been nice, though, and it was cool and rainy for part of the week and I really liked that.  It makes it nicer for our nightly badminton games. 

Here’s a bit of what we’ve been up to….

1.  Went to De Smet, SD, to check out Laura Ingalls Wilder’s home after Walnut Grove.

This is what’s left of the big, beautiful Silver Lake from Laura’s books.  It’s marsh land now, drained for agriculture by area farmers and further dried up by drought.

They are trying to protect/restore it now in order to have a habitat for water birds (hunting is a big part of the tourist industry in South Dakota) and because draining the lakes led to the land being vulnerable to floods and they’ve realized they need wetlands to protect the towns and farms.

2.  Watched another Wilder Pageant, the De Smet version.

The kids got to take a wagon ride before the show and got to meet the cast.  They also liked being in the audience for once!

It was so small compared to ours!

And it was a bit surprising to me that they had Santa in the cast! 

We went there and back the same day and got home very late that night.  We didn’t think we could afford the trip if we stayed at a motel and it seemed like a waste if we were only going to be sleeping there anyway!  It was kind of fun having a road trip into the wee hours!

3.  Anna went to the library, the pool and her friend’s house today. Her friend called and said, “You’re finally home!  You’ve been busy for like three years!”.  It does seem like it!

4.  Jack has been having a blast with these giant Tinker Toys. My aunt gave them to me when the girls were tiny and they were buried in the garage.  I’ve been cleaning out the garage this week and I knew the pefect boy to show them to!  Here’s the robot we built together.

5.  The girls have been reading and reciting poetry. They are both on a poetry kick and have been arguing over who gets to read aloud at night before bed!  Yes, my girls will even argue about reading poetry.    It doesn’t hurt that we have some beautiful little poetry books covered in velvet and embossed leather, plus picture books of classic poems that are wonderfully illustrated.  Current favorites– The Highwayman, Annabelle Lee, The Raven, Elizabeth Barrett Browning & Shakespeare.

6.  Anna and I made a million squash blossom dishes. She was such a great sous chef!  She hand washed and cleaned every blossom to remove the bitter stamens and then we stuffed some with a ricotta mixture, battered them and fried them.  You can read our results in the comments of the squash post a few days ago.  We weren’t that impressed.    Next time we’re just going to use them as pretty toppings!

Filling the flowers!

Filled, twisted and ready to be battered…

Topping our pesto veggie crazy-crust pizza…

The pizza was a big hit!  Victoria wants me to make it every night, but she’s easy to please.  Here’s what it looks like when you eat flowers for dinner.

It was still a fun experiment and we learned a lot about plant fertilization, male and female blossoms, etc.!

7.  We played Snail Pace (or Snail Race or something like that!). My grandma sent this game today and the kids liked it a bit but I am really not impressed.  It says that it’s non-competitive and I really do like that sort of game but egads, I just thought it was the dullest game ever.  You line up 6 colored snails and roll colored dice to see which snail you move forward.  Everybody takes turns rolling, moving snails and guessing who’s going to win.  That’s it.  It’s supposed to be for kids ages 3 to 7 but I’m not sure what 7 year old would really get excited about this.  I think we might pass it on to the local Head Start or another family.

8.  We made homemade butter. Jack and Daddy did the first batch after learning how at the Walnut Grove family festival.  Then the girls each made a batch of their own.

Straining the buttermilk out…

Make sure you rinse your finished butter lots under fresh cold water and press it all out.   It will mold if any buttermilk remains!

Yum!

9.  Cooking, cooking, cooking! Yesterday we made a giant batch of the most delicious walnut basil pesto from the farmers’ market basil haul.  We get it from the man we call The Purple Bean Guy because he sells purple beans that we love.  We did a taste test of his purple, green and yellow beans one week.  He’s a really fun guy with a wonderful spirit and he sells enormous bags of gorgeous herbs for 75 cents each.  We also made zucchini muffins, zucchini cake, deviled eggs (from farm fresh eggs from “Those Crazy Goat Ladies” at the FM — and yes, that’s their business name!), refrigerator cukes,…. tons of wonderful foods!

10.  Inviting in some guests! Victoria found a miniscule little monarch caterpillar egg on a milkweed leaf in the yard the other day.  She’s been on the lookout for them!  She brought it in, leaf and all, and put it in a jar with a cloth cover (air can get in, caterpillars can’t get out!).  Today we had an itty bitty caterpillar in there, so tiny you had to squint to see him!  Victoria went out to get him a fresh leaf and accidentally brought in another little egg.  Let the butterfly season begin. 

(Looks like I need to dust!) 

It is now 11:30 and every single one of my children is awake!  Ack!  Alex took a very late nap and woke up when he ought to be going to bed.  Anna is sick and unfathomably cranky.  Jack is just being trouble, trouble, trouble.  Victoria is halfway in my good graces (she’s helping keep a fussy Alex entertained) and half on my bad side (she keeps taunting her already cranky sister).  It is probably going to be a long night.

It’s all good though.  It may be bedlam, but I still love summer… and this loud, crazy bunch!