Summer's Last Gasp

I'm so glad Melissa likes to take photos!

Spooky

All Hallows-Eve approaches and the forest spirits can't wait!

Can't you hear him cackling?

Mini Vacation

Melissa has been learning about native peoples of the Americas, when we came upon a chapter about the Mound Builders. A little sleuthing and we discovered we're only about 4 hours away from Effigy Mounds National Monument!


Just a couple of hours outside Des Moines and the countryside began to change rapidly into rolling hills. The juxtaposition of greens with the oranges, reds and browns of fall was breathtaking.



We stopped at this scenic view overlooking the Mississippi about an hour from Harper's Ferry, IA., where Effigy Mounds is located. We bought local honey and maple syrup from farm stands here as well.

Once at the monument, we took the 2 1/2 mile trail up the bluff and through the woods. Scattered along the way were multiple mounds, both ceremonial and burial. The surroundings were so untamed it was easy to imagine the lives of the various groups of peoples who built the mounds hundreds of years ago.

Melissa and Sarah

Small Bear shaped mound. The monument includes multiple mounds in the shapes of bears and even eagles.

The roundish mounds are thought to be burial mounds.

Views from the trail.

Likely a woodpecker hole.

This barge was carrying coal.

It was a great weekend getaway!

The Staff of Life

Baking bread makes me happy. No matter what else I've done - or not done - on a particular day, if I've baked bread, I feel satisfied. Most of my recipes are 100% whole grain, so they don't rise as high as breads made with white flour. Above is a loaf of whole wheat currant bread.

I bought the currants from my local CSA this summer and dried them. When making this bread, I first rehydrated the currants by simmering them in water. I adjusted a raisin bread recipe from Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book, using currants instead of raisins.

The currants are quite tart, so it completely changed the nature of the bread. I do prefer it with raisins, but the currants made this bread 100% local. Above you see it with homemade crab apple jelly, but I preferred it toasted with chevre.

A Mess of Beans

So I bought 20 pounds of green and wax beans from Farm to Folk, my CSA, on Tuesday. I spent nearly 1 1/2 hours cleaning and snapping Wednesday afternoon when impending insanity forced me to quit. The girls finished the job later that afternoon while I read them a chapter of The Sister's Grimm.

Michael came home with two bags of ice and in no time, the beans were blanched, bagged and ready for the freezer.

20 pounds of beans = 18 quarts

Who Needs Puzzles?

Last week Sarah unearthed this nearly completely decomposed bird skeleton. All that remained were some feathers and a little connective tissue.

We have accumulated quite a collection of skulls and other bones during our 20 years as parents, including opposum, raccoon and cow skulls, small mammals from owl pellets, a deer skull and many, many more. I always encouraged the kids to clean up their finds and keep them, because, well, this is the closest I would ever get to living my childhood dream of being an archeologist it's educational.

We've had only one forensic failure, when Stephen placed a dead turtle Sarah found in a bucket of fabric softener instead of bleach solution. It took us a few days to figure out where the stench was coming from.
There was also the summer we bought Stephen a book about identifying roadkill. We spent the rest of the season pulling off of highways and freeways to examine remains, indentify them, and categorize them as "fresh" or "gaggingly old."

The above series of pictures records the girls' recovery of the skeleton and its placement in a weak bleach solution.

Isnt' that foot cool?
The skull and various other unidentified bones.

See the wishbone?

The assembled creature. Anyone else have any of these flying around in their yards?

Emergency! Emergency!

Not to worry.
It's fake.
Cool, huh?

This is homecoming week at Sarah's high school and each day the student's can dress up to fit a different theme. Monday's theme was E.R. day, when students could dress up like anything in the emergency room.

Sarah looked up how to make fake blood (corn syrup and food coloring) and scars (bubble gum). She created this grotesque wound for herself, along with a blood-stained t-shirt and head bandage.

The first sign that something was a little weird happened as she went into the school building. Why was that guy dressed like the Grim Reaper? That's not something in the emergency room...
Then she discovered her error: it wasn't ER day, it was -er, as in the suffix, day. Thankfully, she's a quick thinker and called herself a murder victim.
Somehow, she was the only kid in the entire school to misunderstand the theme. Fortunately, she has a good sense of humor!