New warm mittens!

 While we were on our lengthy road trip I decided I should keep my hands busy with handwork. I finished a baby sweater that I had started over a year ago (I ended up not liking the way the yarn was to work with so I had gotten frustrated with it and skipped over it to do other projects) and then I made some mittens!

I had fun combining some fuzzy green yarn with cream wool yarn to make some mittens that should keep hands quite warm. I doubled the yarn throughout the mitten- sometimes using to strands of cream and sometimes using cream and green.

 I was able to do these mittens all on Sunday as we came home so that was fun to have a quick project like that. I especially like knitting because with a simple project you can look out the window at the passing scenery while you still knit away.

 I have been trying to finish up a bunch of projects lately as our county fair is next week and as usual we want to enter quite a few things.

  What have you been working on lately?

Our jungle garden

The jungle- Wild cucumber is growing all over the right hand corner.

 We came back from a week of vacation to find our garden had turned into a regular jungle! Many of the plants grew at least 2 feet (Corn, Tomatoes, Beans, Cucumbers and Weeds anyway!). There were weeds everywhere but we also discovered that the corn was tasseling, there were little zucchinis, a bunch of little peppers, tomatoes and tomatillas were looking good and the beans and peas were in desperate need of being picked.

 We even have a tomato that is almost ripe. There is plenty of basil to be made into pesto, The herbs are growing a lot and the onions are big! It is so fun to see just how much a garden can grow!

 We picked some of our beans today (maybe half) and got two gallons. I shared some with my parents and now I need to find time to can some as well.

 The bees have also been doing well. I haven't really checked in the hives since we got back (I wanted to today but when I had time it was sprinkling) but before we left on our trip I had needed to add 2 more honey supers (the boxes with frames) to Catnip Castle (one of our hives) since they already had 5 full. The other hive- Moonbeam Manor isn't doing as well and only has 3 supers on but I think we will be getting plenty of honey. I am actually out of supers now and I am pretty sure I will need more honey space for the big hive. I am trying to decide if I should make another super box (as I do have extra frames to go into it) or just go ahead and extract some honey (I still need to get an extractor!) and then put the emptied supers back on.

This evening we went out to my parents and picked around 2 gallons of raspberries. I am hoping we can avoid going grocery shopping this month and just make use of all the food the is growing so abundantly around us.

How is your garden growing?

Our trip to Glacier National Park {We can just say "Wow God, You are amazing!"}

 Yesterday we arrived home after spending a week at Glacier National Park in Montana. It was a wonderful trip and an absolutely beautiful place! We live in a beautiful place here in Minnesota and so I am used to thanking and praising God for his amazing creative powers but I was incredibly in awe of Him during this trip. He is awesome!

I took 450 pictures but I won't share them all! (are you terribly disappointed? ) Here is a few odds and ends of the ones I took. I will probably share quite a few more pictures one at a time in my Sunday posts.  I have tons to do here at home (mountains of laundry, a weedy garden and a dirty van to name a few) so I will just quickly tell a few things about our trip.

 We met up with Ken's parents - Terry and Sharyl, at the park. The park was about halfway between our homes. We each had to travel nearly 1000 miles one way. We enjoyed spending time with them.

We hiked every day we were there. The first day we ate our lunch at the edge of this rushing river. 

 Then we crossed over it on a very wiggly cable/plank bridge. What fun!

 There was a mountain stream near our campsite that the kids had fun moving rocks around in, creating rapids and changing it's course.

 When in camp we had fun playing games and of course had to work on cooking. The camp cooking here was different for me as we were in bear country and so had to make sure to pack everything that had anything to do with food and put it in our vehicles as soon as we were done eating. Leaving dishes or a stove out could result in a fine.

 One rainy day we drove over the mountains on the Going-to-the-sun-road (though it didn't go to the sun that day) and visiting the cedar forest on the other side. There was a river there with all colors of beautiful rocks. The girls and I had fun making people out of the rocks. Terry and Sharyl made a cross.

Some of our rock people.

Ken and I in the Cedar Forest.

 This big cedar tree took Ken and Terry and the four kids to get around it.

Aaron on a stump or a cedar.

A beautiful river in the woods.

 Lakes and trees and mountains are such a beautiful combination and we got to see that view (with different lakes and mountains and trees) over and over again.

 Granddad with his granddaughters. Standing on a bridge made of a couple of flattened logs. On that fun hike we got to cross over a bunch of little waterfalls and a couple of rushing rivers.

 The large Saint Mary's river near our campsite.

 Cliff climbing was a great favorite of the boys. Mara after falling once (not badly) wasn't as fond of it.

There were flowers all over the park. It looked like a flower garden so many places. It was, but a natural one planted by God. I took tons of pictures of them but decided you might not want to see every variety as there were so many! 

Miniature Lupine. It was all over and beautiful!

 Hiking down the trail. On this day Ken and Terry were off climbing a mountain so just Sharyl, the kids and I went hiking. We had a bunch of fun and also found our first bear evidence- some big bear scat and a place the bear had dug for grubs. We decided to turn around and go back.

 Another gorgeous falls. This was just down from Sunrift gorge- one of my favorite areas of the park that I saw.

 One morning we went to an Art class at the park. Here Megan is adding her touch to a painting. We also did our own watercolor paintings.

 Checking out Many Falls. This was the area we finally saw a bear but were thankful that it was on the other side of the lake. (so I didn't get any pictures).

 Our final stop before heading home. We drove down to the Two Medicine Lake area.

Now I had better go get busy!!! Have you ever gone to Glacier National Park? What is your favorite sort of family vacation?

Pleasing God

 "Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased."

Hebrews 13:15 & 16

 My goal is to please God as I hope it is yours. I love verses like these that tell us right out what makes God happy. He wants us to praise and thank Him. This really isn't hard at all when you start looking around you and realize all there is to thank and praise Him for.

  He also is pleased when we do good and share. Sharing is something we are taught when we are tiny kids but are we still being careful to apply it to our lives? I hope to get better and better at doing good to those around me and sharing what I have. I am very blessed- I have plenty to share, I just need to do it.

You can compost more than you might think

Do you have a compost bin? We have a very simple one made out of old wooden pallets, simple as it is it still does a fine job of making our old yucky scraps into nice fine dirt.

  We have long composted the normal things like apple cores, potato peelings, fall leaves and banana peels but did you know you can also compost:

• Hair (human or pet- collect it after your haircuts, especially easy if you do it at home, and it is good for your compost.)
• Used paper napkins or paper towel as long as it isn't greasy.
• Dryer lint
• Used toothpicks
• Tea bags
• Coffee Grounds and the used filter
• Stale dry food like noodles, flour, etc.
• Weeds
• Toenail Clippings
• Animal Manure
• Shredded Paper
• Used Kleenex
• Moldy bread
• Pencil shavings
• Vacuum bag contents
• Cardboard
• Wool scraps
• Feathers
• Pine needles
• Old Bouquets
• Old Oatmeal
• Straw

And much more....

If it breaks down and isn't greasy it probably can be composted. A much better alternative to throwing it in the trash- instead it can turn into something useful for your garden.

 Do you have any items to add to this list? Please share in the comments.

Pinwheel Cookies! {tutorial}

My little brother is getting married soon and since I love weddings, and love to be involved in them I offered to help out in any way that I could. I have also had fun sharing a bunch of ideas with them.(probably to the point that Luke and his fiance cringe when they see me coming- I hope not!)  There are so many fun ideas for weddings anymore that it would be a shame not to use a few of them.

  Luke and MollyBea are planning a fun, bright and colorful outdoor wedding. They are using a few of my ideas and I do get to help out a bit. I am excited to see the finished result when the wedding day arrives. I have been working on projects for that recently but I dont' think I will share those just yet. However I thought I would share an idea that I shared with them that I think they have decided not to use.

  It is pinwheel cookies! MollyBea likes pinwheels so I thought they would make a fun addition to their reception and I even volunteered my older sister to make them for them (grin). I think they are doing something else but maybe you would like to make some fun pinwheel cookies at your house. Just in case you would here is how:

First you need to mix up the dough:

Here is the recipe:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Step 1. Cream butter and sugar together in mixing bowl. Step 2. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Step 3. Stir in flour and baking powder.

Step 4. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough into a 14 x 10 inch rectangle.

Step 5. Spread on Jam. I used raspberry but you could use any type you desire. You can also use a date filling (which is the way my aunt makes pinwheel cookies and they are delicious!) or chocolate sauce or whatever your heart desires.

Step 6. Decide what sort of pinwheel cookies you want (or if you want to make both styles like I did) You can make round ones or the ones that really look like little pinwheels that you can blow. If you want round ones you roll the dough up (with the jam on it) and wrap it in plastic wrap and but it in the fridge for 3 hours or more. You can also stick it in the freezer to pull out at a later date. If you want to make the other type then you need to cut the dough into squares (around 2 1/2 inches wide).

For the square type you then cut slits as shown above. So it looks like you have 4 triangles in each square.

Then take one corner from each triangle and pull it to the middle. Then they are ready to bake.

For the round type simply take the now cold and hard roll and slice into 1/4 inch rounds.

Place on cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

They make a cute and yummy cookie!

I hope you enjoy them!