Chopped

Tonight we finally fulfilled our children's repeated requests to do a mock Chopped competition. Chopped is a mystery ingredient cooking competition on TV. We went in constrained expectations and...were pleasantly surprised. 

The mystery ingredients were grapes, squash (which none of them like to eat, we were curious how they would treat it), a hot dog, and a cheese stick. 

Quinton, getting his ingredients chopped up. At first, he just thought he was making himself dinner, and went to town eating it after cutting it all up. 

Payge, ketchuping her dogs.

Chayce getting into the freeze dried yogurt.

Zachary, making jam.

Quinton, getting inspired.

Chayce made tako-chan hot dogs, sauteed squash fries with garlic powder grated cheese sprinkled on top. In the yellow cup was vanilla milk, and in the blue cup was pomegranate yogurt bites (dehydrated yogurt) with fresh squeezed grape juice, served chilled. Jillian indicated that everything Chayce made was something she would eat again. Stephen liked the drinks. 

Zachary made cheese stuffed hot dog, nuked with the squash on top. The squashed was re-cooked with chili powder, garlic, adobo, and butter. The sauce  for the squash was made with ketchup, yellow mustard, dijon mustard, frank's hot sauce, chili powder, garlic, and adobo. On the buttered toast was jam made from grapes, sugar, cinnamon. In the cup was milk with brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, and freeze dried cherries, served heated. The judges both thought the squash was excessively seasoned, but liked the jam (Stephen kept eating it) and the milk.

Payge made little squash bowls filled with cheese, dehydrated squash, and corn. Payge is the most vocal disliker of squash, and the judges critiqued her for not really using the ingredient.  She made a pudding with milk, cinnamon, vanilla, lemonade powder, with dried cherries on top (the lemonade powder caused it to curdle, and Payge rediscovered ricotta! If she had just sweetened it more it would have been fantastic as a sweet dish). Toasted bread dogs with ketchup. Grapes with cinnamon water.

Quinton made soup with hot dogs, cheese, and grapes flavored with cinnamon. He stirred it lots. The judges said good effort and even succeeded at eating parts of it. 

Rosie is one

Among many other things that has happened in the first half of the month, Lillyth Rose turned one. Here's a summary. 

So this isn't a great shot, but it is funny. They are both derping. When we're out playing in the garden, we put the little people by the raspberries and they take care of themselves.

Zachary procured some used tires to make a stand for a large chicken waterer, but the tires were too big. Quinton requested that we make a tire swing. It has since fallen down, my rope isn't long enough to tie a proper knot and still be low enough the children can reach it. 

At the Tueller family reunion (which Payge keeps referring to as the "family home union") we did family and full group pictures. While we were waiting for our family's turn, I tried to catch one of these four. Chayce is practicing her teenager look. Quinton is just plain adorable. Zachary is probably writing a minecraft mod in is head. Payge is being a princes. 

After pictures, we went to the aquarium, lunch, and Scheel's sporting goods where we took this picture with the cousins. 

Quinton really wants his own truck.

Chayce fit in the tire.

Jillian attached plastic cups to the children's ankles, filled them with popcorn. Then they had races, attempting to retain as much popcorn in the cups as possible.

More popcorn racing, Zachary illustrating a dance-like technique.

During the Tueller family reunion, and her birthday, little Lillyth was sick the whole time. Here, she is back home but still not quite up to par. She tried to smile while "helping" me with work. 

The next weekend, we went to Rexburg to Jillian's parents and go to her 15th high school reunion. Here is Quinton getting a turn on a climbing wall. We had to add a rope to pull him back down because he was too light to weigh down the autobelay. 

Here is Chayce on her second run up the wall, with Payge on the right making her first attempt.

Little Lillyth and her grandpa.

The babies in our fantastic looking corn patch. This bodes well, we decided this was our last attempt on corn before we gave up on the crop. 

Have you ever seen a pirate sheep? Well, now you have. 

This little lady likes to climb all the things at the park. She also likes to go to the edges and crawl of backwards, no matter the height, and when her feet find no ground she bellars for help until she's rescued.

Jillian is out this weekend with friends from south bend. After having raspberry balsamic buttermilk pancakes, we went out to pick. This is what happens when you tell the children they have one hour to pick berries and their minecraft time will be proportional to the volume picked.

We built a coop

Last year, Quinton destroyed our chicken coops by climbing and dancing on and in them. He exceeded the weight limitations (he's a tad larger than you standard hen). During my last two or three work trips, I spent the airplane time designing a coop that

1. Incorporated a shelter that is not the primary roosting area (because hens will not go to their sleeping area no matter how bed the weather is)
2. Is strong enough to withstand Quinton (and his friends and/or successors), 
3. Is tall enough to keep the hens of the roof (and tall enough that I could stand inside to clean it when my children are grown and gone and aren't here to do the cleaning)
4. Does not have eggs boxes that jut out from the side but are still easy for children to collect eggs from

My carpentry skills are limited, but got better as I went. The children helped and I hope I was able to teach them something along the way. I was planning on taking it slow over the entire summer, but Jillian got me started on Easter weekend (the first weekend in April) and we finished the first Saturday in May.

The site, between the two pre-fab coops we will be getting rid of (or burning)

After digging the holes, I had to cover them so the hens wouldn't fill them back in.

The start of frame, view from the northeast. I cemented twelve 8  foot 4x4's 2.5 feet into the ground.

early framing, view from the west. The south side (right of this picture) is the roosting area

A snow storm interrupted progress. We were blessed to not have blossoms freeze despite the snow.

A u-shaped tunnel is built on the bottom in hopes the hens will take refuge there in poor weather.  The chickens enter the tunnel from either the left or right and access the coop proper through the door you can see behind the orange extension cord.

Close-up of the door. We don't have predator problems, and until we do, this will remain permanently open even at night.

The door, opened.

The back side, this will get walled in top to bottom

Siding started, this is a close up of the laying boxes. Below you will see pictures of a door going over this. The latch is low enough that Payge can reach, but not younger children (Quinton also had a habit of throwing eggs at chickens last year).

A close up of the venting put around the top 8 inches of the coop. The roosts are in the background.

Our barred rock pullets on the roosts. The primary roost is a large wooden ladder that came with the property when we bought it. We placed a dowel a little lower so they can access the higher ladder. Sunlight is coming through the ventilation protected by hardware cloth. 

The finished product. The tunnel access is on both the left and right. The large door in the middle is for cleaning access. The bucket under the left tunnel access is filled with extra feed. The smaller door on the right is access to the laying boxes.

An ameuricana checks out the laying boxes. The upper laying box is not divided, maybe I'll get to that someday, but I suspect the hens will use just one box as they have done in the other coop.

Here you can see the access door behind the ramp. This picture is taken standing in tho doorway of the large center door. Hardware cloth blocks all put the entry in case we ever actually need to use it.

The coop as seen from the back yard, just after freecycling the old coop. 

Treehouse Museum

In late January*, Jillian ran a Thrive foods booth at a homeschool conference in Ogden at Weber State. While she was there, I took the short people to the Treehouse Children's Museum and got these cute pictures. 

* January 2015, yes, I know, I'm getting these up out of order

She thinks she rules the place

Quinton the firefighter

Ride that train like it's a horse

Except for Quinton, these people are all related and organizing a grandchild photo shoot. Some proud grandparents of 17 grandchildren will be wondering who this 18th child is for ages to come.

Her highness will not be listening to you at the moment