Dandelion Cookies -- Part 2 of Eat Your Weeds

Last week I posted about making Chickweed Pesto out of common chickweed you can find growing in your yard.  This weekend my 5 year old grandson Aydan came over and we harvested dandelions from the yard and made Dandelion Cookies (thus, Part 2 of Eat Your Weeds).

We had to look all over the yard, in many nooks and crannies to pick a half cup of dandelion flowers.  Our neighbor's front yard is full of dandelions, but since they have used a yard service for many years (which sure doesn't seem to do much good!), I had to explain to Aydan that we can't eat those flowers, only ones that are in our yard that we know are safe.

This one was actually in a garden bed, snuggling up with some collards.

our neighbor's front yard

part of MY front yard

After we collected about 1/2 cup of dandelion flowers, Aydan helped me pull out the yellow petals, throwing the green calix parts into the compost bucket.  Then we mixed them in with 1/2 cup of oil and 1/2 cup of honey, 1 teaspoon of vanilla, and 2 eggs.

We poured this wet mixture into the dry ingredients (1 cup of whole wheat flour, 1 cup of regular oats, and a pinch of salt) and Aydan stirred it all up.  We dolloped tablespoons of the cookie batter on to a greased cookie sheet.

Into the preheated 375 degree oven for about 12 minutes.

Perfect for a little picnic outside on our first warm, sunny Saturday in many a month!

Simple ingredients, using what we have in the pantry and the yard.

Linking to Tuesday Garden Party

Starting a Garden - The EASY Way

As we start having a few warmer days in February and March, it's tempting to get out there and start gardening!  But if you haven't gardened before and starting from scratch seems a bit overwhelming, or if your main garden is just too wet and mucky to start planting, potting up a few containers that you can place in your sunniest, warmest parts of your yard are a quick and easy way to get some veggies going right away.

asian stir fry mix

If you are in an area where some alternating freezes and thaws may still be likely (like here in Zone 7B southwest Tennessee where we go from highs around 70 for several days, to plunges into the 20's and even snow in February and early March), do not use ceramic containers as the freezing and thawing can cause them to crack.  Stick with plastic or resin composite containers for your early spring February plantings.

Radishes, lettuces, swiss chard, and other leafy greens can all be seeded in pots very easily.  Even peas (sugar snaps and snow peas are especially easy and do well here in the midsouth) can be seeded in containers.  Most veggies, such as these mentioned, only need about 8 inches of soil to grow well, so the containers needn't be especially deep.  Good drainage is important, so be sure your container has good drainage holes.  If the container is large and deep, be sure you put a layer of broken crock (maybe you have assorted broken clay pots scattered around the yard where you forgot to empty them and bring them in for the winter, like I do -- don't throw them away, use the pieces for drainage), packing peanuts, or something to create a layer for water to drain through.  I've used inverted small plastic pots in the bottoms of large pots to create a drainage area.

kale and petunias

Germination of the seeds can be speeded by covering the pots with a blanket or piece of plastic to hold in some warmth, but once these plants have germinated they can handle cold temperatures close to freezing.  If below freezing temps are expected, it's easy to throw something over a group of pots to protect them.

With any luck, you will be pulling up some radishes and harvesting some lettuce leaves in about 30 days, followed by some sugar snap peas and other leafy greens about when you are beginning to get your main garden planted.

discarded recycling bin and window boxes in a cold frame

Since our temperatures here in the midsouth rise so quickly in May, it's important to get an early start on the so-called cool season crops.  If you wait to plant them until late March or April they are likely to turn bitter and bolt before they can even be harvested.

notice the fun painted pots - they're plastic!  This is a community/school garden in Seaside, FL

 Growing organic veggies does not have to be a big production!  You can get started almost any time of year with some containers -- any size, seeds or plants, and some bags of good potting mix.

Homeschool High School - Forensics

This year for homeschool high school science my 15 year old chose to learn about Forensics, so we have had three other teens join us every other week to do some Forensics lab work.  Thus far, we have worked with hair evidence, fiber evidence, and blood evidence.  Along the way we have worked with a microscope, learned to prepare slides and operate the microscope, performed heat and chemical tests on fibers, learning a bit of chemistry, tested for blood type, and dissected an assortment of mammal organs.

This week and the previous session we were learning about glass evidence.  The previous session involved examining a variety of glass fragments and learning a lot about reflective and refractive properties of glass, as well as about light and optics.

Above is some of the stuff we used the other week to explore reflection and refraction, as well as fluorescence -- homemade light box with slits, mirrors, a card with refraction angles marked, a combo black light/flashlight, and some books we were using.

This week we explored glass fracture patterns -- how a fractured pane can give us information of the sequence of bullets fired, types of bullets or projectiles, the angles of the shots, etc.  We used certificate frames from the dollar store, which were shot with a variety of air soft guns, producing both radial and concentric fracturing typical of gun shots to glass.  We kept the plastic on the frames and that held all the glass together so we could see the fractures.  That was great, because we didn't have to carefully lift and tape up the panes to preserve the fracture patterns for our observations.

The frame above had a really good pattern of 4, possibly 5 shots, and the kids were able to deduce the order the shots were fired in from the patterns.

Collard Wraps with Egg Salad (Cooking from the Winter Garden)

This recipe is for the low carb -- gluten free crowd (at least I'm guessing it's low carb and gluten free)

On Friday we celebrated the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar along with the Winter Solstice with a picnic potluck with about 20 homeschool teens and their families at one of the picnic areas of the Wolf River Greenbelt Park (a greenbelt with a hiking and biking path that runs along the Wolf River from Germantown west almost to midtown Memphis).   Fortunately the 40-50 mph winds of Thursday had died down to a mere 10-20 mph by Friday, and the brilliant sunshine mitigated the cold of the day, which never got above 45 or so degrees.

I made Egg Salad Wraps, using collard leaves as the wraps.  A friend called them "southern dolmas" (dolmas being middle eastern stuffed grape leaves -- and a Turkish woman that was there said that they sometimes use collard leaves instead of grape leaves to make dolmas -- though not filled with egg salad).  The collard greens, chives and parsley were all picked fresh from my winter garden (during the high winds and rapidly dropping freezing temps of the preceding day!).  The eggs were from the store, because alas my chickies are not laying more than 6 or so eggs a week during this solstice season.

They were a definite hit and easy to make.  From what I have gleaned on the internet, you can pre-prepare the collard leaves and keep them for several days in the fridge, ready to use for individual wraps any time you want.

THE EGG SALAD:

Of course you can use any egg salad recipe, but this is the one I used:

8-12 eggs, hard boiled
1/2 to 3/4 cup mayo (or however much you want)
1/4 grated carrot (I like this, because it gives a little crunch)
3 T chopped green onions (I used chives from my garden, or you could use a mild onion)
3 T chopped fresh parsley
3T chopped fresh cilantro (although I didn't use this because I didn't have any)
1 T dijon mustard
1 1/2 t curry powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper

THE COLLARD LEAVES:

Wash and dry your collard leaves.  Cut out the big middle stem on up in the leaf, but don't cut the leaf in half yet -- leave the two halves attached.  Now, some folks simply take all the leaves prepared in this way and let them soak an hour or two or overnight in warmish water with lemon juice or vinegar to soften the leaves so they will fold easier.  Other folks lightly steam the leaves (like just a few seconds).  I tried both methods and found I liked working with the lightly steamed leaves better.

Take your prepared leave, and cut out the rest of the middle stem, cutting the leaf in half.  Overlap the two halves in front of you, place some of your filling on it and then proceed to tuck and roll just like you do a tortilla or grape leaf or any other wrap.

On my "southern egg salad dolmas", I think a little dollop of chutney or some other "relish" (chow chow?  picalilli?  cranberry sauce?) would have elevated this to a sublime meal or party dish.

I may start keeping some prepared collards handy in the fridge to make into quick wraps on a regular basis -- it's a fun way to increase your leafy greens consumption and collards are incredibly good for you and so easy to grow in the fall and winter!

Andrea Carlson - Christmas Card

I hope this links up properly.  Andrea is an old friend, who lives in Pennsylvania now.  She homeschooled some of her 4 children for a time, and knit with us in the park for years on end while the children played, She is a wonderful artist and musician and is going to embark on a European tour this coming year.  She wrote and recorded this Christmas song, so I hope you'll give her a listen and check out her website www.AndreaCarlsonMusic.com .  Enjoy!

Homeschool Forensics Activities

Today we had our quasi-weekly Forensics Lab.  This semester I have had Cree and several of her friends over here to work on Forensics related activities.  The kids do readings on their own in several Forensics books, and come over to do the activities together.  Thus far we have performed labs with hair evidence, fabric and fibers, and this week we have focused on blood.  Specifically, we had blood testing kits so the kids could test for their blood types, a bucket o' blood (made from corn syrup, food coloring, and a bit of dishwashing liquid so that hopefully it will wash out easily), and our lab book which guided us in several activities involving dripping and spattering blood and observing drop and spatter characteristics, learning all the information one can potentially gain from blood drips and spatters.

First up, the blood testing.  They all endured finger pricks bravely and conducted the test.  There were 3 A's, one O, and one AB, with about half being RH - and half +.

Then we moved outside for the Blood Games.  It was chilly, in the mid 50's, so the "blood" was very thick.  We set the container in some hot water, but it still thickened as soon as it hit a surface and did not spatter as much as they thought it would.

They dropped it from pipettes held above the surface.

 They dropped it from angles on a sliding surface to observe patterns in the drips.

They flung it from knives at the garage door ( I sure hope it cleans off ok!).

I'm not sure how much they will retain about the characteristics of blood from a biology standpoint, the statistics on the different blood types and blood factors, the formula for acceleration of something dropped, or the trigonometry involved in determining the location of the origination of a drop or group of spatters -- but they sure had fun flinging the simulated blood around.

October Calendar Pages

I can't believe I've managed to keep up all the way through October with the 366 Calendar Challenge on The Kathryn Wheel.

Here are my September pages, all filled in -- I really think this was my favorite set of pages so far -- I've never painted flowers before (or much of anything "picture-wise", other than backgrounds), but I just love the way the hollyhocks turned out.  I used a book, called "Fast and Fun Flowers in Acrylics" by Laure Paillet, that I had bought some time ago after reading about it on Barb's Nature Blog (that blog is such a great resource for anyone interested in nature study and nature journaling).

For October, I covered the pages with this black lace patterned duct tape (which actually does not stick as well as one might hope!  My 15 yr old informs me that is how it often is with the "fancy" duct tape aimed at crafters).

The glare from my light over the kitchen table is difficult to deal with in the photos.  It's currently very October-ish outside -- raining and in the 50's.  And to think it was 90 degrees less than 10 days ago!

I drew and cut out the letters for October, glittered the edges with silver stickles, and attached the letters to the page with pop-up glue dots for a little dimension.  The dates are written beside each journaling circle in silver ink.  I added some swirls around the pages with the stickles.

I can't believe there are only two months left in the year!  Be sure to visit The Kathryn Wheel and view all of the other participants' calendar pages linked up at the bottom of the post.  And if you are a homeschooling parent, or just a parent wanting tips on appreciating and making art with children or for yourself, as well as ideas for nature study and nature journaling, check out Barb's Nature and Art blogs.

Where Does the Time Go??

Sheesh -- will I ever have the time to leisurely work in my garden, take some pictures, and write a nice blog post?  I guess, eventually.  In the meantime, despite all of the unrelenting heat and drought, it seems like I haven't really had a summer.  TOO MUCH BUSY-NESS!!  Which makes me kind of cranky.  And disorganized.  And discombobulated.

lofting the bed -- then unlofting when she decided it was too high

Got Hannah off to college -- 400 miles away on the other side of the state.  I hope she appreciates how I am not calling her and interrogating her every night.  We have had a lot of texts and emails over the past 2 weeks, and this afternoon a telephone call for me to walk her through printing something out from her new computer and unfamiliar word processing program to her new printer, and lengthy discussions about how to handle the purchase the required Spanish textbook (does the Amazon version that is $100 cheaper than the school book store come with the required computer code pass key, which appears to cost $100 separately, is the book store one bundled . . . ?).

This 1800's farmhouse is next door to her dorm, and is where she will be working as the Freshman Fellow for the Mountain Challenge organization that is headquartered here.  There's a dog and 2 cats, a garden, solar panels, etc.

A view of the (weedy) garden and the mountains beyond.  It was overcast that day -- on less dreary days you can see layers upon layers of mountains.

One of her first tasks was to climb to the top of this "Alpine Tower".  Down below are Mountain Challenge staff, with whom she'll be training all year.

When we got back, it was time for Cree to jump back in to homeschooling.  Here our some of our books for this year:  Civics, American History (Civil War to present), Algebra I, Forensics, American Literature, The Scarlet Letter.

Hosted and taught the first session of the homeschool Civics Class with my 15 paying (yay!) students.

And had a lot of this going on:

Our 3 yr old granddaughter spend an unplanned (as usual, sigh) 3 days and nights (while preparing for the Civics Class -- sure wasn't counting doing my prepping with a 3 yr old in the house -- challenging to say the least).  A 3 year old who doesn't take naps and doesn't go to bed until 10 or 11:00 at night.  I really understand how her mommy needs a break now and then because Ari is a huge handful, but she is hard to have over for that long of a time.  She's cute, but oh my she is so intense and in constant motion!

Getting Ready . . . .

our dining room - ground zero

My life the past 2 weeks:

getting ready to send Hannah off to college across the state next week (and Tennessee is one loooong state!  It's as far from here to the other end of the state as it is from here to New Orleans or to St. Louis);

the blue bottles aren't going

getting ready for the new homeschool year for my youngest and only one left;

setting up the Civics/government class I'm doing for 15 homeschool teens;

ordering a boatload of lab chemicals and protective lab gear for my youngest's exploration of "Forensic Science" (which I'm sure will land me on some kind of government watch list);

 downloading Mountain Lion OS for my laptop;

 buying a computer for Hannah for college during tax free weekend;

replacing all of our 2 year old and battery-failing cellphones and trying to understand why "stupid" phones like we use are way more expensive now that "smart" phones (which would double our monthly cell phone bill, with the mandatory data plans) and don't even have cute cases available;

adding youngest on to the cell phone plan and getting her a "stupid" phone for her birthday;

other assorted birthday shopping for the youngest, during tax free weekend

hmm -- guess that explains why I've hardly had time to visit my favorite blogs, much less post here.  Another two weeks, and things should settle down into our "new normal".

Hannah: "why will I need a dustpan?" Why indeed.

Mississippi Riverboat Ride

At the end of April our homeschool group had a one hour cruise on one of the Mississippi river paddle wheeler tour boats, complete with a "riverlorian" who told tales of old Memphis and the Mississippi River as we cruised.  We began from the old cobblestone landing downtown.  These cobblestones date from the 1800's.  Last year at this time, the river was in full flood, and completely covered the cobblestones, as well as Mud Island River Park, which you can see across the harbor here.  The actual river is on the other side of Mud Island.

The cobblestone landing still has some of the original mooring chains embedded, where the riverboats used to tie up while loading cotton and unloading other goods.

As you can imagine, these cobblestones are pretty treacherous to walk on, and the incline down to the river is pretty steep, as Memphis sits high on a bluff (the Chickasaw Bluff).  You can also find some exposed cobblestones in the streets of downtown Memphis, where the asphalt or concrete has worn off.  When I worked downtown full time as an attorney, I used to have to have my shoes re-soled about every 2 or 3 months.  You can get a sense of the incline in the picture below.

Here's a shot of the monorail that goes from downtown Memphis across the harbor to Mud Island, where there is a full scale model (you can wade in) of the entire Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, a river museum, a nice park and a "new urbanist" residential development with houses, apartments, some shops, and a Montessori school.

A view from the boat looking up the bluff.  The building to the left of the light pole is the University of Memphis School of Law, which moved into the old Customs House here two years ago (it was on the main University campus when I went there back in the late 70's).  The downtown river-view, walking distance to the courthouse and Beale Street, along with taking first place in last year's national law school moot court competition (winning over Harvard Law School), and having the highest first time bar pass rate in the state (higher than Vanderbilt) means our law school is bucking the trend of declining enrollment and has a wait list for admissions.

Pulling out of the harbor.  Thank goodness the seating is covered so there is some shade -- although that morning it was kind of chilly.  The husband took off from work to come with us.

Hannah brought along Jane Eyre to finish up.

There's our riverlorian.

A view coming out of the harbor into the main channel.

The I-40 bridge (the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, or the "M" bridge, or the "new" bridge - built in the 70's).

The downtown Memphis skyline.

Another view of the skyline.

Some fine houses up on the bluff in the South Main district.

The Arkansas side of the river is very different -- very flat, all flood plain, agricultural.

Below is a piling of the "old" bridge.  It's a railroad bridge from the 1920's I think, which had a road for automobile traffic suspended under it.  There is talk of turning it into a pedestrian bridge (although there's no place to go to on the Arkansas side, but it would be interesting to walk across the Mississippi River).  Before the railroad bridge was built, trains had to stop on each side of the river, the cargo and passengers had to be offloaded to a ferry, and then reloaded on to a train on the other side.  The bumps in the sand are the moorings for the ferries that ran in the 19th and early 20th centuries before the bridge was built.

A shot of a series of barges and a tow passing under the old bridge.  The building you see behind the bridge is a "grocery" for the tows -- they phone in their orders for groceries and little boats shuttle the grocery orders out to the towboats so the boats don't have to stop at all to get provisions.

Heading back -- a good view of the M bridge and the Pyramid.

Back past Mud Island.  Those flags are by the Gulf of Mexico part of the river model.  When Mud Island first opened up as a "theme" park of sorts, they had radio receivers on top of the flag poles which would broadcast the radio chatter of the riverboats, barges and river traffic.  However, the language the river men used was a bit too "salty" for a park with lots of kids on school field trips, so they ended up disabling the receivers.

Just for contrast, below is a picture of those same flags and shot of Mud Island from last year when we had all the flooding.