Family Nature Bucket List!

Have you made a Nature Bucket List for this summer already? If not, you might want to try it out! A few weeks ago, we sat down and tried an idea we found on Nurture in Nature by Tania Moloney. Find her post here. It has great inspiration and ideas for compiling your own list.

We made this a Family Home Evening activity. One night a week, we try to get together as a family and have a short spiritual thought, activity, treats, and time to talk about our week and where our family is going. It's family time! A few weeks ago, we decided to think of the many natural creations we have been given during this time and make some plans for our summer fun!

We used a few resources, such as our 2015 Michiana Summer Guide, various kids getting outside book, Tania's post, and specifically a new book for us called Go Wild!, as we wanted to to incorporate some adventure and skills we haven't tried just yet. We especially are looking forward to making bowls out of wood and embers. We'll need to blow for a long time!

We started with a big piece of paper we reclaimed from a shipping box and a bunch of markers.

Some kids drew pictures to illustrate what they wanted to do, others helped research or write. We spent time on our WHY first, sharing things like family together time, getting outdoors, exercise, etc. Then we started writing down our lists. At first we just started brainstorming and then we started making different categories. Tania had a few different ideas for this--we did parks/places, sunny days, water, conservation, giving, and learning. 

We skipped the step to decorate our bucket as I use these for all kinds of things and wanted to use it for other purposes later. I let the kids write on most of the clothespins, as they were very engaged and motivated. They became more into it as they wrote more activities. We color coded our activities choosing a color for each type of activity. 

In just a few weeks, we have already had plenty of summer fun from our list! We went to the Indiana Dunes with friends (Silver Beach this time--so much to explore!). 

We pulled garlic mustard (an invasive species) when we visited a cool nature inspired park in Beaverton, Ohio.

We experimented with fire and made s'mores! I'm sure this will be repeated many times. 

We visited Allan Kauffman Park in Goshen, one of our favorite nature play areas nearby. 

And we picked up ice cream at The Chief while playing in the trees. 

It has been a great experience. I feel like these are all things we would be doing anyway. However, there is more buy in from many of the kids. We pulled it out this evening to look at our week and what activities we might do this week. We are using it to document what we have done as we look at the clips we put in the bucket as we finish them. We plan on printing one to two pictures for each activity and writing a card to remember our excursions, putting them in a Project Life book to remember our Family Nature Bucket List Summer! This could be extended year round or recycled. I know many of these are favorite activities for our family. It reminds us of our traditions and encourages us to get outside as a family, spending time in nature together! 

It's currently strawberry picking time, so we will tackle that clip tomorrow. It's an activity we enjoy. Find our strawberry pursuits and tips here. Imagine that--with 4 growing boys, many of our excursions involve food! I was surprised how much they want to forage for food, pick berries, and cook over fires! We will be eating well as we go through the summer! We look forward to more Family Nature Bucket List items! Thanks, Tania! 

Black Raspberry Picking

Early July is one of my favorite times of the year! Mulberries are usually still going strong and black raspberries are usually ripening. We have a little patch of black raspberries on our property. It doesn't seem like we usually have enough to make anything with our raspberries, as four boys and their momma like to snack on them whenever they're out in the yard, eating them freshly picked from hand to mouth. They are delicious!

Pasta Throw Down

My son turned six this weekend! He has really been enjoying Master Chef Jr, along with his brothers. He enjoys helping cook, garnishing things, and made a great triple decked strawberry shortcake recently. He even whipped the cream on his own! Having a cooking contest was a perfect way to celebrate his birthday! We even got him a chef's hat and jacket but he wouldn't wear them. He would have been even cuter than he already is with them on. See our tips on hosting your own Master Chef Party at the end of the post.

For the contest, we brought veggies, cooked chicken, several types of pasta, ingredients for past, sauces, seasonings, etc., as well as a few tools, such as a pasta maker. A friend (thanks, Ryann!) gave it to us after she found out our 8-year-old has been interested in making homemade pasta. I will say we have more to learn on how to use it! :-) It will be a fun journey. We've made homemade noodles a couple of times recently and the boys get really excited about and think it tastes great.

Making Butter

It's that time of the year again! Science Fair time!

Just about a month ago, we bought a Jersey cow with a nearby family. The cow stays at their place, yet we take our turn milking every day. I will say it's been great to share the cow as we have built in people to share the work and spoils with each day. I'm sure I'll share more about our adventures with the cow and our super local milk! Today I wanted to share about experimenting with butter as our 8-year-old son decided on doing an experiment on making butter.

 

Our son has been a "let's make butter" advocate since we started getting milk. I must admit that it was really fun to bring a jar of cream to Thanksgiving and pass it around as we waited for the meal until the buttermilk separated from the butter. I saw awe and shock on the faces of my uncle and male cousin who are over 60 and 30. It's pretty neat to watch the natural process of cream turning into whipped cream and then separating out into the cream colored buttermilk and yellow butter. I know I've "helped" make butter at a couple of events, but used to just always buy butter from the store. I think we all typically buy butter from the store so we forget exactly how those sticks of butter get there from milk.

Our son decided to try two different temperatures for his butter--room temperature and cold from the refrigerator. He measured 1/2 cup each into pint mason jars and replicated the experiment 3 times for each temperature.

Our son found it took about half as much time to make butter by the shaking in a jar method when using room temperature cream than it did using cold cream. Still, the cold cream only took about 5-6 minutes for his half a cup of cream in each trial. It was interesting to see what how he gathered information. Initially, he wondered about warm milk, too. He heated 1/2 cup cream in the microwave for 1 minute and then shook. And shook. Shook some more. Yep, more. Most of this required an oven mitt to protect our hands. At about 20 minutes he finally gave up. Later he read about the melting point of butter and started understanding why it never formed butter--it was too hot! 

Each half cup of cream made about a walnut sized ball of butter. You can see the picture of the butter separating from the liquid below. It is really yellow! It's also a lot harder than store bought butter as there are no additives in it--it's pure, unadulterated butter! After a ball forms, I pour off the buttermilk and run the butter through cool water. This helps firm it up and also helps it last longer. 

So there you have it! If you want to make butter quickly (or with less exertion) from cream, use room temperature butter. My son anecdotally thought the room temperature cream did not yield as much butter as the cold cream did. Sounds like another experiment in the making where we measure the resulting butter! We've thought of other extensions--does the size of the jar matter? What if we have more cream in the jar--does that affect the outcome? We've read about making butter in the mixer, food processor, or Vita-mix. I understand the mixer just makes a huge mess and I think the Vita-mix would be messy. For the amount of cream we usually have (at most a couple of cups to make into butter), I think the shaking process is just right and makes my kids MOVE to get their food!

As my son finished up his poster, he mentioned, maybe we should just have a farm. I thought about how much work that is! I also reflected on a recent article I read on Follow the Flavor, a local food blog, about a farmer in Elkhart that is managing Rise Up Farms. Alex Smith wrote, "Farmer isn’t on the list of “professional” careers (i.e. doctor, lawyer, professor), and lacks the social cachet that those careers carry. When you ask young people what they want to be when they grow up, only a small number will say they want to be farmers, though that number is certainly on the rise. I’m not immune to these considerations of wealth and status, and sometimes they make me doubt what would otherwise be a happy career choice. What if the mainstream folks have it right, and I’m wasting my effort?" 

While my dollar spending doesn't always show it, I appreciate all that local farmers do to add to our local food economy. It's nice to know that our beef came from a couple of miles down the road. Any effort we can  to grow our own food and/or buy local food adds to that local food source. Last month, we went to Kalamazoo to listen to Michael Pollan. What a great talk that help me think of our food choices! We also went to Food Dance before the event--delicious and locally sourced! Here's to local food one shake at a time! I have joked that our cow is doing the foraging for us. :-) 

Mushrooms, Anyone?

This weekend, I stopped by Better World Books in Goshen for an author talk by Stephen Russell, who wrote The Essential Guide to Cultivating Mushrooms. My sister and brother-in-law had done some cultivation in the past and were interested in what the author had to say. I decided to tag along and learn what I could learn. I have been following the Hoosier Mushroom Society online for some time, so was familiar with what they are doing. I had found an article about the event online from Flavor 574, which piqued my interest in learning more.

Lavender Hill Farm

We were in Niles last week to visit the Fort St. Joseph Museum so stopped by the U-pick Lavender Hill Farm. It is open mid June through mid July for picking, yet also has an online store.

 

Sugar Camp Days!

This is our second year visiting Sugar Camp Days at Bendix Woods County Parks! What a tasty adventure! Here is our report from 2013 if you are interested.

There are several areas within Bendix Woods for the event. We started near the historical encampment where we found candle dipping. My kids have done this many, many times so we skipped it, but many children were enjoying it! I know mine have enjoyed it in the past.

While it's neat to see the encampments, I really enjoy talking to the people more as they share information about the time period they represent, how artifacts were used, and bring to life the past. 

 

Michiana Master Gardeners Spring Celebration

I manned a booth at the Michiana Master Gardeners Spring Celebration this last weekend. There were various nature and gardening related booths set up outside the main presentation hall. People had time to chat, mingle, and check out the various topics and ideas. Sally Roth was the main speaker . . . read about her presentation at the end of the post.

Sugar Tapping Day!

Finally! Temps above freezing during the day and below freezing at night!

Here are a few posts I've done about maple tree tapping in the past. There are many community resources on it. Will you try it this year? :-)
Sugar Camp Days at Bendix Woods
Maple Sugaring--this gives more of the basics
Maple Sugaring from InMiddlebury Magazine

This is perfect weather to tap your maple trees! Yesterday was sunny and beautiful. Our son was okay outside without his coat on even. To prep, we washed out our buckets, spiles, and plastic tubing lines, gathered our tools, and refreshed our memory on what angle, drill bit size, etc. we needed. It has been a year since we tapped our trees.  After drilling the hole, we tapped the spile into place with a mallet. I love the tongue sticking off to the side while my son was working hard! Such concentration. He's almost five and very much wants to be involved in cooking, cleaning (maybe not enough!), and working right along us. He's gaining more independence.

While we were working on the buckets, he started playing in the snow and counting. Reminds me of a dice or dominoes. Nature is a perfect place to practice counting! Love that it was completely spontaneous and self-directed.

Then he started making snowballs and patterns in the snow with his tracks. It almost reminds me of a bee dancing in its communication pattern. 

He looked up high in the sky. It was a lot different than what it looked like in the spring, summer, and fall. I look forward to seeing it wake up! He went to a program earlier in the week about seeds. He noted earlier this week there weren't any maple samaras or helicopters out, but when we looked in the tree, we found a few! I actually found a few in the buckets when I was washing them out, too. :-) 

We explored the bark while we were tapping in the spiles, connecting the tubing, and adding our buckets with lids underneath.

The toddler fell forward in the snow and left a great handprint. It was pretty crunchy in this area. He was a little unsure of the snow. 

We even found a bird's nest that fell from one of the maple trees.

Even little guys get interested in natural things like this! Of course drawing in the snow with a stick is fun, too. While we were outside to tap the maple trees, I'm glad we had a little nature exploration as well!

Another Snow Day!

We certainly had our share of snow days in January this year--8 to be exact! It wasn't always snow. Many were from extremely low temperatures and high winds. The cousins visited again and everyone made a contribution to the bird book we started earlier in the week.

Local Honey

On our way back from Kalamazoo, we found the honey spot! We bought a gallon from here when we first moved to the area and were needing more. Did you know that honey pretty much lasts indefinitely? This is located on M40, near M12 in southern Michigan.

CSA: Community Supported Agriculture

Look at the beautiful colors in our roasted veggies! Our CSA season is winding down. I liked gathering our food each week at the farm on the east side of Elkhart.

Kercher's Apple Picking!

My son was so excited about his field trip to Kercher's Sunrise Orchard this week! We've already picked apples this summer, but it's different when you get to go with your new friends from school. The field trip was $5/child and $4/adult, which I thought was well worth the money for what we did and brought home with us. Kercher's is located south of Goshen on County Road 38. They even have a fall festival on October 5th and 6th and other special activities throughout the season.

10 Reasons to go Apple Picking!

My aunt mentioned she had a tree full of transparent apples heavy with fruit. She never sprayed. She didn't know it was an apple tree as she had purchased an assortment of flowering trees. Well, apples appeared!