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summer

Glorious blueberries!

We were very excited this year when we finally had enough blueberries from our bushes (at one time) to make a blueberry crisp. I’ve been waiting many years for our bushes to get big. In the past at best we would get handfuls per day. I can’t wait until next year when I hope to have all we can eat with many more to freeze besides. That last sentence reminds me of one of my most favorite children’s books, Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey. You might want to check it out.

If you haven’t tried it, try freezing some blueberries. We call them popsicle berries: for a cool treat pop one or two in your mouth. Delightful! My kids beg for more.

Go ahead, plant some blueberry bushes is your yard and invest in your future.

Blueberry Pickers

I was going to get a picture of the crisp when it was fresh out of the oven but it was gone so fast I missed my chance. I enjoyed this dessert even more because I knew that the berries came from our back yard.

BLUEBERRY CRISP

Blueberries- enough to fill the pie crust, ¼ cup organic sugar, and 2 Tbs. cornstarch then 1 Tbs. fresh lemon juice (Sugar, cornstarch and lemon are optional.) I usually skip the extras here.
Combine (with a pastry blender) 1 cup organic unbleached flour, ¾ cups organic oats, ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon, ½ cup packed organic brown sugar and ½ cup (1 stick) cold organic butter.
Tend your blueberry bushes all spring and in the summer when they become dotted with flavorful blue dots, go out in the yard and pick enough blueberries to fill the pie pan. Bring them inside, wash and remove any stems. Preheat oven to 375 decrees F. If it is important to you to thicken the blueberry juice and add even more sweetness, stir granulated sugar and cornstarch and then lemon juice with the blueberries. Put the blueberries or blueberry mixture into a pie pan.
I use a hand-crafted-in-Vermont pottery pie pan given to me by my father early in my marriage.

In a bowl, combine flour, oats, brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon. Combine ingredients with a pastry blender, two forks, or your fingers, mix until coarse crumbs form. Top your blueberries.
You will want to put a cookie sheet underneath the pie pan. Bake crisp 35 to 40 minutes or until it looks good. The fruit should be bubbly. Cool slightly and serve with vanilla ice cream.

Even the beer residue left in a can or bottle need not be wasted. In the evening, if you have an “empty” beer can or 2 or 3, try to remember to place them in your vegetable garden or among your landscape plants like hosta (slugs love to eat your hosta). During the night, slugs will go inside lured by the beer. In the morning, remove the cans from your garden. I don’t even waste the slugs because I feed them to my chickens. After shaking the slugs out, I rinse out the cans or bottles and put them in the recycle bin.

This Super -size slug was found outside my vegetable garden. Thankfully! Do you see the slime?! Check out the breathing pore.
Does anyone know what kind of slug this is?

 

 

 

Catching fireflies is the quintessential children’s summer evening activity. Every new generation is captivated by these magical blinking moving lights and instinctively wants to know the source.
Make one today or If you are having a summer party that will continue after dark, make a bunch for your young guests.

How to make a firefly lantern:

Save your empty glass juice bottles. Take off the label and clean it.
Use scrap electrical wire to make the handle for your lantern; you will need a piece about 30 inches long. We had some pieces left over from an addition to our house. You might try calling an electrician in your area; maybe they could give you some scraps that would otherwise just go in the dumpster. How-to make the handle:

1. Start on one side of the lamp (point A), go half way around (point B).
2. At point B, bend the wire up for the handle. After you form the loop for the handle, you should end up on the other side of the bottle (point A; where you started).
3. At point A, bend the wire end around the handle loop to secure it.
4. The wire will continue around the neck of the bottle and attach at point B. Use wire cutters to trim off extra wire.

It is a lot easier done than said.

You will want to cover the top of the bottle to prevent the fireflies from prematurely escaping. You could put holes in the cap and use that. Or trace a large cup on a scrap piece of fabric and cut out with pinking shears if you have them. That circle of fabric is held in place with an elastic band. I have a little stash of elastic bands that came off of vegetables or other packaging. You will find a second use for them in projects like this and many others.

Did you know that there are thousands of different species of fireflies? Fireflies blink to attract a mate but some mimic the blinking pattern of a different species of firefly in order to lure them near so they can eat them. Yikes!

Did you know that Fireflies produce light via a chemical reaction?

Find out more about fireflies at The Firefly Files  or National Geographic.

Have any other bright ideas or a clever variation? Send me an e-mail and I will pass on your great ideas.
Are any of the directions unclear? If you have any questions about this project or any other, send me an e-mail. -Jane

To make your own clipboard, you will need to find a thin scrap board. If it isn’t the right size, you will have to cut it to fit standard office paper. If you don’t want to bother cutting your board, ask around until you find something approximately the right size. Paint it with spare paint from your shed or leave it natural. When it dries completely, attach a clip like the one in the photo. The clips can be found at office supply stores.

These clipboards make excellent frames for displaying artwork. The clips already have a hook which makes hanging up easy.

Also see: Adding pictures to clips, clipboards made from scrap wood, and salvaged laminate flooring clipboards.

You can choose to add a picture to your clip. This picture of a fox was too cute to put in the recycle bin. Cut to size and glue it on. Seed catalogs are also a good source of attractive images.

Also see: Clipboards made from scrap wood, salvaged laminate flooring clipboards and using clipboards to display children’s artwork.

This clipboard was made from left-over laminate flooring. Do you know someone doing some home improvement? Find a good piece and attach a clip like the one in the photo. The clips can be found at office supply stores. Reuse one-sided paper: here the paper was cut in half to make a smaller sized stack.

Also see: Adding pictures to clips, clipboards made from scrap wood, and using clipboards to display children’s artwork.

To make your own clipboard, you will need to find a thin scrap board. If it isn’t the right size, you will have to cut it to fit standard office paper. If you don’t want to bother cutting your board, ask around until you find something approximately the right size. Paint it with spare paint from your shed or leave it natural. When it dries completely, attach a clip like the one in the photo. The clips can be found at office supply stores.

Clipboards like these have a lot of uses. Drawing is just one.

If you are using your clip board to leave messages you may want to attach a pencil to your clipboard with a piece of string or ribbon. This clipboard was made from the top of a wooden box of liquor and the string was found at a second hand store.

Also see: Adding pictures to clipboard clips, salvaged laminate flooring clipboards, and using clipboards to display children’s artwork.

 

Happenings At Our House: Summer

It smells good, looks good, and tastes good.
Home-made salsa has to be one of my favorite edibles in the summer. I really look forward to the time of year, with the help of the sun, tomatoes ripen. Most of the ingredients for this tomato salsa come straight from my garden: tomatoes, onions, parsley (provided by my kid’s garden), garlic (friend’s garden), and hot peppers. A splash of olive oil and a lemon are the only store-boughts. Perhaps I’ll get a lemon tree someday, but I’m going to wait to see how well my lime tree grows first.

My Fresh Tomato Salsa

6 or more large ripe plum tomatoes or garden fresh beefsteak tomatoes (Whatever is ripe in your garden)
¼ cup chopped onions
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley (I prefer parsley over cilantro.)
1 large clove of garlic, minced
1 jalapeño pepper, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil -optional
2 or more teaspoons fresh lemon juice
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
I hesitate to write amounts here. Taste it then add more of this and a bit more of that. This is art.

1. Cut the tomatoes in half lengthwise. Dice and place in a medium-size bowl.
Add the remaining ingredients to the bowl. I sometimes add a can of organic black beans and/ or some organic frozen sweet corn. Let sit in the refrigerator overnight so flavors can mix. Serve with tortilla chips and refrigerate leftovers.

 I make it just the way I like it. Go and make some just the way you like it!

Happenings At Our House: July

This morning when I was outside checking for squash and zucchini to harvest, I took time to cut some flowers off my hydrangea bush nearby. This hydrangea that I planted a year or so ago is looking great. No shortage of blooms on it. I can’t locate the tag I got with it but I think I’ve identified it as Hydrangea paniculata. It is so nice to gather a bouquet of flowers that are as clean and fresh as a summer’s day. Corny but true. When landscaping, don’t overlook white flowering plants or underestimate the beauty they add.

Happenings At Our House: May

 

I have always tried to keep in mind the needs of the wildlife in my yard. I admit that it is for my enjoyment as much as it is for them. I plant flowers for the butterflies and hummingbirds because I love to see them fluttering about. I have also included plants in my landscaping that have berries that the birds eat during their migration. I feel good about that. Furthermore, I find it charming when I see a few deer cross through our property or a snapping turtle laying her eggs in a spot behind the Japanese maple tree in front of the house. We keep most of our land in its natural state, wooded, to maximize wildlife habitat.

Hence, my family decided to have our property certified by the National Wildlife Federation’s Certified Wildlife Habitat^TM program just before Earthday 2008. We proudly display our NWF Certified Wildlife Habitat sign along the side of our long gravel driveway.
Interested in certifying your own backyard as a haven for wildlife? Here is the link. National Wildlife Federation website. They are the same people who make the award winning Ranger Rick magazine for kids.

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