Baby R got to pick out her first pumpkin this weekend.
We talked about pumpkins and knew what color they were. Talked about the little gourds and how they are different colors. Then, we talked about fall and showed her some leaves. We are such teachers.
So, we got to take a field trip to a pumpkin patch. Our first choice was out because it was just too commercial and I didn’t feel like spending all that money on games, when what we really wanted were pumpkins. So we ended up going to DeVries Farms and getting some really good looking squash.
We also got to play in their spooky train yard. Miss R liked the John Deere and the ducks. When she was done ringing the bell to scare away the ghosts, she picked out the cutest little pumpkin to take home. I was really impressed. She went right to it, scooped it up, and said, “this one, Mommy.” Like it was just sitting there waiting for her to take it home. I’m so glad we didn’t go to the Humane Society instead. We would have ended up with a poodle or a tiger kitty.
We took our Halloween goodies home and set them all up on the porch until next weekend when we go to carve them out. I was hoping for something like this, but I may have to wait until Miss R is a little bigger and less spooked by all this stuff.
So I heard through the grapevine that today is officially Blog Action Day.
While I am not normally one to follow the crowd of crazy days that are sometimes made up, I thought this one might be kind of interesting.
The idea is to talk about the environment and bring it to the attention of your readers. Now seeing as I have a total of 5 people reading this, I’m sure you already know about some of the things we do here in Rimestimes land.
Our first major undertaking has been the recycling. St. Joe is lucky to have a curbside recycling program that we take full advantage of. In fact, we had to call the city to have a second bin dropped off for us, since we have SO much to recycle.
Our second big thing is the grocery list. We shop with reusable canvas bags (there’s a great site here that is offering a free pattern) that we have gathered on our many trips and educational outtings. We also have cut back on our pre-packaged food items. Not only are we saving packaging, we’re also eating healthier-which I’ve noticed in the last couple of days since none of my pants fit (in a good way!). And we also try to eat local as much as we can in the summer with the farmer’s market. That way we save on the gas and shipping of the bananas from Costa Rica and frozen fish sticks from who knows where.
One other thing I do, is to make recycled art projects. Recently, it has been costume central at our house, and just about everything going into a costume has been rediscovered either in the basement, a closet, or the attic. I promise to post pictures of our creations really soon. I do the same at school where many of the art projects require students to reuse paper towel tubes, cardboard boxes, and other such things. Being an art teacher is really tough on your eco-friendliness and there’s many a day when I look at my classroom recycle bin and see how full it is of kids’ unwanted art projects. But at least they are recycling them and not throwing them into the garbage.
Hopefully, Daddy Rimes and I will have a daughter who grows up to be eco-conscious and will take better care of her planet than those in the past.
Last weekend, miss R, Gramma, and Mommy went out to the apple orchard to pick some apples. I have the most beautiful shots of a cute little blue eyed blonde picking apples, but they are on Gramma’s camera, and I, being the computer illiterate person I am, cannot figure out how to get them to this computer. So, you’ll just have to imagine the cute pictures of a rosy cheeked little girl picking rosy apples.
After picking a 1/2 bushel of apples and splitting them with Gramma, we still had enough apples to make these.
That is an apple crumble pie followed by a few of our remaining jars of apple sauce. The pie turned out great. Little Miss R helped stir the apples and mix up the crumble topping. What a good helper.
After spending an ENTIRE morning peeling, coring, slicing, and cooking 15 lbs. of apples, I spent another ENTIRE afternoon learning how to can. I ended up with 11 jars of apple sauce. After one week, we have only 8 jars left. I’m going to have to make some more applesauce to keep us through the long winter.
You’ll also notice one of my favorite cook books. It’s the Blue Ribbon Country Cookbook. If you want some serious down home, full of fat cooking, this is the book for you.
What is that?!? What pray tell is a NaBloPoMo? Well, it’s this crazy thing about posting every day for one WHOLE month.
Do I really think I can accomplish that? Probably not. But I might just try. So if I’m feeling frisky come October 31st, I just might sign up for this crazy thing and see how well I do.
But I make no promises.
In order to practice for this incredible event, I give you a picture.
This little guy was growing in the desolate regions of our driveway against our front porch step. Yup, I know it’s in need of some painting. I blame the previous owners though.
If you look closely, you can see the artistic talent of little miss R there on the step. She got some sidewalk chalk and loves to draw on anything that will hold still.
