Getting Buggy with It

Smoosh has been very into the bugs lately.  He collected several mosquito larva and we watched as they molted, formed into pupae, and then hatched into mosquitoes.  I was a bit at a loss as to what to do with the adult mosquitoes as they were, after all, mosquitoes.  Anyways, his interested was peaked and we decided to get lots of books on insects and then found this great website:  Home Science Tools.  Like a kiddo on Christmas morning, I eagerly browsed through pages of petri dishes, forceps, beakers, and other cool stuff before I settled on some basic science goodies for the kids.  Smoosh counted down the days until we got an exciting package in the mail:

Smoosh wasted no time at all in collecting specimens to study:

He even set up a bug museum next to Beanie's lemonade stand to display his collection to any neighbor interested in the local bug fauna.

The sign says "Free Bug Museum;" we suggested he might want to offer it free as a community service.

I mean, really, who doesn't want to stare at a fat grub in a petri dish?  Since our science tools have come, he has been spending so much time outside collecting insects.  It has been pretty neat to see the diversity he has found in the pool, garden, and all about the house.  I'm not quite as excited about the jars of Japanese beetles, mosquito larva, and the terrarium with the slug in it hanging around my kitchen, but at least he has not found any snakes to bring home. 

Super Fun Fridays

Ok, I'm totally stealing that phrase from my neighbors.  Use a good phrase when you hear one right?  So, our day started out with some boy goofiness and girls getting primped with "pretty hair" while watching some Shaun the Sheep (best show on Netflix pretty much ever). 

 Then it was off to the library to collect prizes for the summer reading program and pick up lots of books on butterflies for our Super Fun Friday that is coming up next week....

Yeah prizes!  Everyone earned their free Dane County Fair pass!

Enjoying some reading time while waiting for the other librophiles.

Checking out books togethers...

She's turned into a full stink and will now swipe books off the shelves a we go down the aisles.  I couldn't get too upset thought when I saw what book she swiped this time.

Since everyone had fair passes and it was raining, I thought it would be pretty clever to head to the fair.  With it raining, no one could ride the rides or be asking to do them....right?  Well, yeah, right if the weather stayed the same.  Within 10 minutes of getting to the fair, it was all sunshine and heat.  We still didn't do any rides; I was granted some mercy as I begged to be free of them with 6 kids and the second mortgage I would have to take on the house just for them all to ride.  Needless to say, we found plenty of other fun things to do.

At the start of the fair.

Fair Food!!!

I think sitting on the cow was the highlight of the fair for some....

We seriously need a farm....seriously....

...like all of us want a farm...even that goat wants us to have a farm...

See Daddy?!?!?  We could have pet goats in our backyard!

Digging through the compost to find some worms....maybe she actually read something from that book she swiped earlier.

Making crowns....

...showing off crowns.

...sharing buttons.

Making buttons...

YEAH!! Baby yellow ducklings!  It was hard to get Smoosh to put his back and not sneak it into his pocket to bring home. Alright, alright, maybe he got the idea from me trying to sneak baby chicks into my pockets....

He broke away from the crowd of kids because he saw Squeaks in her stroller wanting to pet the snake.  Really cool guy with a great big heart and great big snake.  Awesome.

Cooling off in the sprinkler tent as we finished off the day.

And the end of the fair.

I was fairly tired by the end of this particular Super Fun Friday.  Perhaps a few of us were even cranky....maybe, just maybe...

RaSpBeRriEs!!!!

Even though our cherry harvest was a tad bit disappointing, I knew that we still had our good ol' raspberry patch.  OOOoooohhhh I love raspberry season!!!  The kids have the routine down pretty well; smother oneself in mosquito repellant, find large bowls, pick and eat away!!  Then comes the time for some jammin'.

Lots of Raspberries....check.

Sterilized jars.....check.

Employing child labor to make the jam.....check.

Jars full of delicious raspberry jamness.....double and triple checked

!

 The best part is that this is just the first pick of the season.  We still have another week or so to go of harvesting.  We will be throwing these guys in our pancakes, muffins, and all sorts of other goodies until that very last raspberry is picked and enjoyed.

Lake Exploring and Baby Duck Rescuing

One of these past days Joe and I had to tagteam the kiddos again because of Dr. appointments.  We met up this time at a lake right near the docs. Luckily, everyone had brought their adventure bags with them.  Even luckier, Squid came along to participate in the adventuring.

So, it was a little stinky today around the lake, must have been all those dead fish that we just had to look at over and over again.

The littlest explorer eagerly headed out to see what was going on.

We trotted around on the rocks and found some totally awesome ants:

A little further and we found an adorable family of ducks on the rocks (kinda sounds like a drink name - doesn't it?).

Well, those little ducks were quite happy on the rocks.  Then they saw us headed their way (us being two very excited boys squealing their heads off in delight of seeing the ducks) and hurriedly jumped into the lake.  Except two little duckings got stuck in the rocks.  Poor little ducklings.  I wanted to sing "there's an animal in trouble," but I think the Wonder Pets take the summers off.  I crawled down into the rocks and silently prayed I didn't slip into the lake during the rescue effort; it did smell bad and there were all those dead fish around after all.  With some effort and cheering from the adventurers, I was able to catch the little ducklings and plop them back into the water.

They hurriedly swam back to their mama duck, who had been yelling at me the whole time about getting near her babies.  Sorry Mama Duck, we were just trying to help!  We will have to write to the Wonder Pets and let them know we did some baby duck rescuing that morning.  I am sure they would be very proud.

Early Morning Bike Ride

Sometimes the kids tag along with me on the early morning bike ride.  This time Manatee tagged along with me as well.

Not sure which one is cuter.

Take a closer look at that Manatee there - notice anything odd?

Hmmm, yup, why does Manatee have underwear on his head one might wonder.  And wonder I did, in fact, I wondered out loud to my son who was the caretaker of said Manatee.  Smoosh was absolutely astonished that I would even say that.  "Mommy, that's not underwear, that's Manatee's helmet!!!" he said in shocked amazement at my clear inability to recognize safety equipment when I saw it.  Well, keeping with his concern for Manatee, we made sure he was completely safe and ready for the ride.

I can only hope that any of my neighbors that saw a Manatee with under...uhh...a helmet on his head and buckled into my bike seat knew that 1. We were just being safe or 2. We're all crazy over here, Manatees included.

Some Pics from Kentucky

Where good livin' is going to lead to lots of good memories....

Lovin' some baby cousins and secretly planning with Mommy on ways to steal her home with us.

Maybe this baby cousin would fit in our car with us and Aunt Kake and Uncle Sean would never know....

Finding "baby stingrays" in puddles, which actually turned out to be tadpoles.

Lookin' at tadpoles and listening to Aunt T bore us about frog embryos....

I've never seen an explorer look so stylin'.

I think this is about all the pics I took while we were there; I think I was much too busy having a good time :)

Cherry Picking

My awesome father-in-law bought me a cherry tree and a plum tree a few years back.  When we went to the nursery together to get them, I loved hearing the stories about him and his siblings climbing up the plum tree and collecting all the fruit.  He told me about the cherry tree we were going to get and how the cherries were good for pies and jams.  We got home and right away he set about to getting my two new trees planted, dragging Joe on over from what he was doing to get planting with him right away.  I stood by and could just see my kids climbing on the branches of the plum tree a few years ahead.

The blooms the first year were incredible on both trees, but no fruit.  I sadly watched that first summer as the Japanese Beetles made minced meat of the plum tree leaves.  I eagerly waited the next spring to see if it was permanent damage, but thankfully, no it was not.  There was a beautiful show of blossoms again on both trees!  Then, even more incredible, we saw cherries coming in on the cherry tree!  My mind started racing with the cherry jam and cherry pies I would make.  Cherry cobbler, cherries on ice cream, cherry soda....I could just taste them all from looking at those unripe little white berries.  We went off for a week vacation and came home to discover the cherry tree void of any berries..white or red....gone...all of them....stinkin' birds.  They left us the pits still attached to the stems...super stinkin' birds.

This year, I got a little smarter.  I actually decided we would get a bird net for the tree. With the help of the JackRabbit next door and Smoosh, we headed out to the garden center and made our purchase.  Of course it took the Big Daddy to actually get the net on the tree, but at least now the cherries were protected.  As seems typical this time of year, we had a getaway scheduled and left our little cherry tree with its net on.  There were definitely little white berries waiting to ripen on the branches.  We got back to find CHERRIES!!  Bright, red, edible CHERRIES!!!  Oh those jams, pies, and cobblers to be made!  I might even have to throw a few extra in pancakes or on top of waffles!


With the older kids off at various summer activities, JackRabbit, Smoosh, Squeaks and I set out to do some cherry picking:

Its still a small tree, so they could all reach and pick just fine!

Playing peek-a-boo was a good diversion after she grew tired of her cherry picking....all full 30 seconds of it.

Happy cherry pickin' crew.

Please note from that last pic the bowl of cherries.  There it was...our full bounty.  A bit dismayed, I started erasing the visions of cherry jam and pie and whatnots from my cherry daydream.  Hmmmm...barely a bowl full of cherries.  Nonetheless, they were our cherries and we had waited a few years for our harvest and they were from the tree that my FIL bought AND planted for me, so for those reasons alone, they were extra special cherries and something wonderful was going to happen to them.  And something wonderful did happen to them....Otter.  He and I spent the afternoon pitting the cherries and he found a recipe to make cherry cobbler with.  He then proceeded to make the cobbler entirely by himself.

Messy cherry pitting process.

Yum...cherry cobbler.

We all enjoyed talking about our cherry picking and cobbler making that night at dinner.  We enjoyed that cobbler down to the last bite and talked about all the cherry goodies we were going to make next year.  We have the net ready and will be doing  a cherry dance for a bit more of a bountiful harvest.  And who knows...maybe we will even get a few plums as well!