October's end

I think this picture is in an earlier post, but for comparison purposes...

...we finish adding sand and climbing holds on walls of three different heights (two on the right of the slide, the largest on the left). I caught the children putting chickens down the slide and forbade them from doing it again. So they would take the chickens to the top, and throw scratch seed at the bottom, tempting the chickens to slide or glide to the bottom of their own volition. It was like they were recreating the garden of Eden, throwing some fruit of the tree at the bottom of the slide.

We harvested the last of our grapes and bottled several quarts of fantastic juice. We worked on the grapes 6-ish weeks later than last year and got much better results.

Little Rosie with grandma Tueller.

Grandpa Tueller and Mr. Q.

We've learned that Egyptian onions establish formidable colonies - we lost a quarter of the soil in this garden box when attempting to move them. Since we had planted around 100 traveling bulbs from the tops of these plants elsewhere, we composted these to reclaim the space in the garden. 

Our purple pod beans were too stringy for eating or canning, so we let them get large and harvested the seed. White chili later this winter?

Zachary, Payge, and I went on a short hike up a draw behind our house. Zachary didn't care to join us up the north wall of the draw where attempted to get some panoramic views of the valley. My camera phone was not up to the task, so I won't post the results here.

Back at the trailhead, about a 1/2 mile from the house (which you can see in the background if you look close)

Finally got rid of that baby scented vaseline we hated but couldn't ever throw away. I made fire starters by melting it in with beeswax collected from our hives and dipped cotton balls in the mix. 

A test found that these will start with a magnesium striker, a though they are not as flammable as vaseline only starters, they burn longer (12+ minutes).  

Monsters, mascots, and Quinton's "House"

This weekend was a fun combination of football, general conference, beekeeping, and building.

Quinton, wearing the mask to Zachary's Halloween costume. This picture does not do it justice, but the curly hair over the creepy mask made him look like a scary clown.

Zachary and his Grandpa Tueller, watching the USU-BYU football game. USU had their first win at BYU since 1978. Aunt Renee helped us aquire the tickets and drove us down after convening at her house with Steve, Cory, and Bradley Tonks. 

Big Blue was hanging out with the USU fans, and we got this shot of Bradley and Zachary with him.

Rosie, sleeping. We have to wrap her up and squeeze while dancing to get her to sleep, other wise she moves too much to fall to sleep. 

We finished the last two retaining walls of our sandbox and have done the initial backfill. Zachary and Payge helped line up, level, and flush the boards, while Quinton handed me screws. Quinton claims that it is "his house" and wanted to know why I neglected to put a door on it. Payge wondered when we would add a roof. Chayce wants the handholds for the climbing wall. Zach wonders where the sand is. I can't wait for it to be a fort for snowball fights. One step at time. 

Zachary and Chayce insisted on sweeping the grass-less area in front. I finally convinced them to stop since I'll be planting grass and need a medium for the seed. 

The work crew showing off their more-finished-than-it-was-last-week project. 

Nigerian email scam

Zachary received a variation on the classic Nigerian email scam: 

Dear Tueller,I Ubong Nwalozie, a lawyer and legal adviser.I make this offer to you the death of Mr.Stevenson Tueller,who was my late client,he left a huge amount of money ($5.2million) in the bank before he die. i try to find his relatives,I decided to contact you, Reply for more information on this transaction. Barrister Ubong Nwalozie.

He forwarded it to me with the reply:

1: Who is "Mr. Stevenson Tueller", 2: Who the crap is this "ubong ubongnwalozie" guy, 3: If he's real ( probably not ), why does he use so sucky Grammar?( Answer this last question if you can name a living person named "Ubong Nwalozie")

P.S. If "Mr. Stevenson Tueller" is you, you're not dead

---

Then he replied to Ubong:

If this is real, send me a real E-mail that is written as neatly as a letter.

Odd Confusion, 

Confused

---

We still need to teach him not to reply, but loved the response.

Zachary has finished cub scouts

This Thursday, Zachary received his Webolos and Arrow of Light awards. He worked hard to get them finished quick before he turns 11. To avoid a similar rush in the next stage of scouting, he is coming with my boy scouts to a merit badge rendezvous to get three of the more difficult merit badges (Communications, Citizenship in the Community, Citizenship in the World). Here are pictures from the night.

Receiving his Webolos badge

Getting the arrow of light. Our Cub masters turns it into an extra special event with symbolic face painting associated with scouting values

The painted face

Back home with mom, who also did a lot of work to make this happen ;)

 

With his arrow

Quinton wanted a picture too

Beets, beans, brotherly love, and grape juice

September has been great fun. Zachary, Chayce, and Payge (an Quinton, too) have become tremendous helpers as we have juiced grapes, picked and pickled beets, and harvested our first large (enough to eat and save seed) harvest of mixed dry beans. Here are some pictures.

Quinton washing the beets we picked this morning. We had reds, whites, and chioggias (red skin with alternating red and white layers). We set up a prep line where I would cut and grade the greens (some for us, the rest for the chickens), Zachary would rinse the mud off, Chayce and Payge did additional rinses, and Quinton would stash them in a cooler. Then we boiled them, Chayce would skin them, I would cut them up, Zach would put them in pint jars, and Payge would add cloves. Then we poured on sweet pickle brine and steam canned them.

Pickled whites and chioggia beets. We finished with 42 pints.

 During a break in the action, I cought Zachary talking to little Rosie, who loves sitting in her excersaurer she received from Aunt Effie.

We picked our mixed dry beans. Most of the seed came from a farmer in Paradise Utah named Joseph Lofthouse. We did a CSA with him our first two years back in Utah until getting our garden started. The other beans are the pioneer pink eye beans, shown next.

These pioneer pink eye beans are mentioned in many pioneer journals, but no one had seed until Caleb Warnock found a few and saved them from extinction. See the full story here. We purchased a dozen beans from him, and pulled most of them out to save for seed for next year.

Here are the beans after soaking. We had them plain tonight and turn the rest into chili tomorrow.

This is our first round of grape juice. The center and right juices are from green grapes! Very beautiful juice. We still have all of our purple grapes and late red grapes to juice, they just need to finish sweetening.

Sandbox, plus

Though my children are skeptical of my definition of labor day, we made progress on the sandbox/playhouse/climbing wall. We have 2/4 walls done. Zachary, Chayce, and Payge did an amazing job of helping.  We built the wall out of the hole and then lowered it in. It was much, much heavier than anticipated, but we got it in. Each of the children took turns practicing using the drill. It was fun to help them develop new skills. It was even more fun to see them want to learn new things. Never stop learning. Never give up until you figure it out.

A view of the slide from the top.

A view from behind. The walls still need to be back-filled.

The south side

The west side, viewed from the back door

Quinton at the top

Payge at the top

Chayce and Quinton at the top

Big squash, little people

Before walking to church, I took pictures of Quinton in front of our pattypan, butternut, acorn, and potimarron squash plants. Then at bedtime, I put Lillyth in his bed while getting him changed for bed, and he wanted pictures with his Rosie.