What's wrong here?

Is there something wrong with these pictures?  Or is it just me?  Is it normal to take your chair from the porch, place it in your chicken yard, and enjoy an afternoon of reading with your chickens??

And to make matters worse the book he is reading is called The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer  by Joel Salatin.

I'm not sure if he has the farmer part down quite yet, but I think he's doing just fine in the lunatic department!!



New York City

Jack's 4th grade class got to take a field trip into New York City, so of course I went along!  Here are some pictures...many of which do not do justice to what we actually saw.

Our first stop was at the Cloisters which is constructed from the remains of several different monasteries that were used in the medieval period in France. 

Next we stopped at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  We were told that the Statue of Liberty without her pedestal could fit inside this church.  It is quite grand and the architectural details are unreal!!

The bigger window in this picture is 40 feet in diameter and is made of over 10,000 peices of glass.

Our last stop was at the Metropolitan Museum.  Apparently if you stopped at each piece in the museum for 10 seconds each it would take you 27 years to see everything.  So of course we didn't see everything, but here were the highlights for Jack.

Part of the scavenger hunt in the museum was to find "William".  Well, after quite a while, we finally found him...a little blue hippo!!  He was by far the highlight of the museum for most all of the kids.

By the time I chaperone all of my kids on this 4th grade field trip, I may be able to give the tour myself!!

Crock Pot Yogurt

It seems that we wipe out all the yogurt at the grocery store each week, so instead of spending a fortune feeding my kid's yogurt frenzy, we decided to make it ourselves.  It really is such a simple process that I should have done it years ago! 

Here is the basic idea of how to make it.  If you're really going to try making it you can get better details on other websites .

First, heat you whole milk in a crock pot to 180 degrees.

Second, cool it to about 115 degrees.

Third mix in a bit of plain yogurt that has the live active cultures.

Maintain the heat at 115 degrees overnight by wrapping the whole crockpot (unplugged) in a big towel to keep the heat from escaping.

And voila...yogurt for breakfast!

Ours turned out a bit runny, so next time I am going to try using cheescloth to give it more thickness and I am going to have to experiment with different ways to flavor it so that the kids will actually eat it!!  Let me know if you have any good ideas!