Soup Making

Well, it seems that my project lethargy continues, so my son has stepped up to the plate to fill our family's quota of "making stuff."  In his history book he is reading about how Christianity spread out from the former Roman Empire into the rest of Europe.  The book had a discussion on monastic life and suggested that the student make a "Monk's Meal" to get a little idea of what it felt like to be a medieval monk.  Ian jumped all over that idea, He decided to make a simple Lentil Soup.

 He practiced some knife skills, cried a few tears over the onions, reviewed doubling fractions (the recipe was way too small), and produced a pretty tasty end product.

Bonus for me: I didn't have to make supper!  Next time I'm going to teach him the medieval habit of "washing up."

Lentil Soup Recipe:

1/4th cup Olive Oil\

1 onion, chopped

2 carrots, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 bay leaf

1 tsp. dried oregano

1 tsp. dried basil

8 cups water

1 cup dried lentils

1 can (14.5 oz) can crushed tomatoes

1/2 cup spinach, rinsed and thinly sliced

2 TBSP. vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large soup pot, heat the oil over medium heat.  Add onions, carrots, and celery; cook and stir until onions are tender.  Stir in garlic, bay leaf, oregano, and basil; cook for 2 minutes.

2. Stir in lentils, and add water and tomatoes.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for at least 1 hour.  When ready to serve, stir in spinach and cook until it wilts.  Stir in vinegar, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Makes 6 servings

Science Experiment #28

I'm gonna be honest with you.  I seem to be suffering a severe lack of motivation these days.  My get-up-and-go, as they say, got up and went.  I've been managing to stay mostly caught up with the laundry and dishes, but not much else.  I think it is a case of post-Aestas (Latin for summer) Depression.  I'll recover as soon as the leaves start to change color and the fall chill gets the blood moving again.

Despite all that, I did manage to get the kids going on their weekly science activity.  I gave them buckets and sent them out into the yard to collect seeds and fruits.  They wandered around for a while finding seeds and other things (The most notable "thing" was a bat-the mammal not the toy- huddled in a ball on the ground.  Thankfully they did not touch the bat.  When I went back later to check on the bat it was gone, so I have no idea what was going on there.).

After they had collected for a while we brought their findings inside and organized them on a large sheet of paper.  Once we had them all separated we counted 16 different types of fruits and seeds.

We talked about all kinds of seed words like "legume" and "pome" and "fruit" and "nut" and "grain", each of which they were able to find an example of in their collection.

It was a nice and quick little nature study, and didn't require much productivity from me, so it worked out perfectly.

Happy science, everyone!

Science Experiment #27: Hatching a Butterfly

Image found at https://networkofideas.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/the-monarch-butterfly-vs-the-viceroy/

This week's science experiment  actually started several weeks ago, when I spotted a caterpillar on the sidewalk near my Butterfly Weed plants.  It was a rather distinctive color, so I immediately began to investigate.  I was hopeful because two years ago the kids and I went on an epic "Search for a Monarch Caterpillar" which ended in failure.  Last summer we also kept our eyes open whenever we were near milkweed plants, hoping to find a caterpillar we could raise, but again we were unsuccessful.  Then wouldn't you know, here was the very creature we had been searching for two years for, crawling along in the middle of the sidewalk.  I quickly gathered the kids and we collected our specimen.  Ian made a quick tour of the neighborhood to search for milkweed plants to gather and I ventured into our basement to dig out our dusty bug cage.

For the next few days the caterpillar wandered around inside the cage, doing what caterpillars do: eating.  Then after about 3 days (I know, I should have been keeping a journal of observations or SOMETHING, so I could be more precise and scientific) we made one of our random observational visits and the caterpillar had attached itself to the side of the cage and entered its pupal stage inside a green chrysalis.

After that nothing happened for about 10 days, except that we pulled the dead milkweed plants out of the cage so that we could see better.  On the 10th, or possibly the 11th day, we observed that the chrysalis was beginning to change color, and by the 14th day it had become clear and we could see the colors of the monarch butterfly inside.  He was about to hatch!  The only problem was, we were getting ready to head out the door that morning to attend our homeschool group, so we were afraid we'd miss the culmination of our experiment. There was nothing to do but pack up our little pet chrysalis in the car and headed off.  Midway through the morning "Orangy" (affectionately named by Brynn) hatched out of the case and all the kids got to check on him as his wings hung down and began to fill out and his body transitioned to the shape we are familiar with.  It was all very exciting!

A website I checked on the subject of raising monarch butterflies said that we shouldn't release our butterfly into the wild until the day after it hatched, so since Orangy didn't seem inclined to fly anyway we kept him in the cage until yesterday.  We carried the cage outside and set it down on the patio and then waited to see what happened.  Nothing.  He just sat.  Eventually the kids and I headed off to other tasks and eventually the butterfly flew away.  Thankfully it was a very unemotional parting.

Summertime Stepping Stones

Hello!  I'm still here!  Well, I wasn't here for a while (let's call it "due totechnical difficulties"), but I'm back now.  So, to catch up: summer was good.  We had lots of adventures and fun times with friends and family.  Now school has started again and we are getting back into that routine.  But, before we leave summer completely behind I thought I'd share some photos from one of our annual summer projects: Hand Print Stepping stones.

The process doesn't change much from year to year: I go to Hobby Lobby and buy the mix, we add water and stir, dump the mix into the mold, insert hands, remove hands, decorate, and let dry.

This year one thing did change, however.  Cam was actually willing to have his hand printed and didn't scream like a banshee when it was his turn.  It was a developmental milestone.

Once these stepping stones were dry they joined the stepping stones from previous years in lining my backyard flower bed.  It's fun to see the kids wander from stone to stone, finding their baby hand prints and laughing at how they don't fit any more.  It's a summer tradition I am really glad I started and I intend to keep it going forever (or until my adult children refuse to return home in the summertime to cooperate).

P.S.  To check out previous stepping stone projects click here, here, here, here, and here.