Happy St Patrick's Day

 

 

Saturday was the Aunt's Meeting at Heather's.  Lori was off work and was able to go with us.  We headed out to be there a little early to help, and when we arrived she told us they seemed to be sharing some illness in the family.  She had be up sick most of the night, John was back in bed sick and not long after we arrived Connor got sick on the floor.  It was a great story for Baylor to rehash for next few hours.  He told everyone who would listen that Connor puked on the floor.  The rest of the morning went well other than Heather could not even stand smell of the food and I burned the first batch of corned beef hash.  I cannot cook on an electric or flat top stove.  But it was not so bad that there were no left overs.   Heather had her St. Patrick's Day parte the night before and had a photo booth set up with plenty of props.  Brigid and I got things going and then we rounded up everyone for their own photo op.  Baylor and Connor were too busy playing to stop for a photo. 

 

Joan and Lynda, sisters and my dad's cousins.  

 

Diann and Klaudia.  DiAnn is Lynda's eldest daughter and Klaudia is DiAnn's youngest child. 

 

Leslie, Rachel, and Eli.  Leslie is Lynda's youngest daughter. Rachel is her middle child and Eli her youngest. 

 

My parents. 

 

Kathy and Kay.  Kathy is Kay's daughter and Kay is Dad, Lynda, and Joan's cousin. 

 

Lori was having her puppy love time with the boys Murphy and Charlie. 

 

 

And Murphy, Heather's first child in a dog suit. He is younger than Eddy but looks older.   

 

I had prepared a craft and assisted everyone in making theirs.  They are toilet paper tubes, paper, thread, foam, pompoms and various kinds of glue. Each one was different and were fun to make.   I had just about everything prepped other than the ears. 

 

We stayed after everyone had left to help Heather clean up and let the boys play.  Baylor took a nice long nap but was then up really late!   

 

Sunday morning a leprechaun left parts of the rainbow all over our house with gold chocolate coins attached to them.  After one hint at finding the first one, he was off to find the rest.  

 

My camera was acting up and most of the photos are too blurry.  We had cloud for him to put his treasure in. 

 

Once it was all found, he ate all of the treasure!  

 

After that he found his pirate treasure and put it at the end of his rainbow. 

 

Too bad he could not eat those also. 

 

Last time we were at Heather's we made hand print shamrocks.  Today we hung the rainbow next to it. 

 

We spend the rest of the day cleaning, playing, watching movies, playing, etc.  For dinner we had corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots.  Eddy must have some Irish in her because she loves corned beef.  Or may be she is Jewish! 

 

This time of year is also special because it was on March 16, 2009 that Baylor was conceived.  It is a vivid, and wonderful memory for me.  Especially this year as I have finally come to terms with not having another child.  I asked Baylor this week if he was ok not having a brother or sister and he told me no, he wanted a brother.  I could just find a lost boy and he would be his brother.  It broke my heart at how sweet he was and how easy he solved that problem!  If it were only that easy! 

Easter Prep

 

We actually did this last weekend, but I am only getting around to posting it now. In February I was looking through a Hearthsong catalog which featured their Easter items. One of them was a sugar egg, which lead to internet search on how to make sugar eggs.  Which lead to an email to Steph to see if she would be interested in sugar egg making and of course she was.  So we set the date.  Along the way she suggested we make Easter candy that day too: peanut butter eggs and coconut eggs.  Well, I certainly could not say no to that.  I had discovered a Brazilian candy while watching a cooking show and I made a batch of them to take along.  They are called Brigadeiros and are like truffles but made with sweetened condensed milk, butter and cocoa.  And then you roll them in sprinkles! 

 

 

On Saturday Steph, the kids, and I went to a local store a coworker told me about but neither of us had ever heard of.  It is a nut and candy shop and they were packed full of all of that.  I bought giant bags of candy coating disks (Wilbur brand to support the local brand), lots of sprinkles, a few things for Easter baskets, and some candy for the trip. We went to Steph's and made the sugar eggs because they have to dry overnight.  I am glad I bought the 25 lb bag of sugar because we put a huge dent in it. 

 

We went back to her place on Sunday to decorate them and make the candies.  The moms decorated ours first (Tierna joined us).  I did not take many photos because my hands were usually covered with royal icing or peanut butter filling or coconut filling or chocolate.  But while I was helping the kids with theirs and Steph and Tierna were mixing and shaping eggs I did snap a few.  Baylor was an old pro with the piping bag.

 

Gavin is missing on this one but Robin and Lilly were very intent on making their eggs.  Gavin ended up making two and I cannot remember if the girls did one or two.  I had made the royal icing critters to go inside the eggs and Steph picked up a few at the candy store. 

 

The girls making the peanut butter eggs. 

 

The table was full and this is just the peanut butter eggs.  We repeated the scene with coconut eggs.  And I had made dark chocolate truffles and then wrapped some of them in peanut butter filling for a truffle peanut butter yummy treat! 

 

After the eggs dried, which did not take long we headed home.  I think we did pretty good for our first try. 

 

Friday was Baylor's St. Patrick's day party at school and I made pretzel shamrocks.  After Baylor saw them he said he did not like them so we also brought carrots and green ranch dip.  When I picked him up he told me he at the whole pretzel treat!  Little stinker. They had a lot of yummy food at school and he said it was a good day! 

 

General Update

 

We have a ten gallon aquarium that started out with red cherry shrimp. Over the last year they did not multiply enough to maintain their population.  Since it is a planted tank and is growing well I did not want to take it down. I have used it as a hospital tank for a panda cory that has a fungus or bacterial infection.  Actually he is back in the because his tail is about gone.  I have treated him twice with antibiotics and with other treatments and it is just getting smaller.  I am not sure what else we can do but I will keep trying.  But in them mean time we bought a blue Betta for the tank.  At first his name was Turkey but then Baylor changed it to Peter.  Since all the fish in the other tank are Spud, I kind of liked Turkey better.  But I did not win that discussion.  But I did guide Baylor to the one I thought was the prettiest. Or most handsome since he is a boy. 

 

 

Last week at Baylor's school the read Elmer the Patchwork Elephant.   So we made elephant cookies to share.  I had grand ideas of brightly frosted patchwork but it was becoming late and frosting smothered in sprinkles worked out just fine.  I did drip some with color and swirled it around. 

 

But I think they turned out just fine and Mary side the kids enjoyed them. 

 

This week they were reading Dr. Seuss in honor of his birthday.  After a bit of internet(Pinterest) searching for inspiration I came up with our own green eggs and ham with supplies we already had in the house.  We used an ice cube tray with little round bottoms to make the green yolk with green candy melts. I used the white melts to make the egg whites and dropped a yolk in before it set.  For the ham I smeared green on top of tiny pretzels and added a white spot for the bone.  We brought them in on Monday and the kids were excited to see what was in the container.   

 

Wednesday was supposed to be a potentially big snow storm that did not hit our area.  We had snow in the morning but it was raining and gone by noon.  Since Baylor did not get to play outside in the snow we made snow in a bin in the house.  It was one box of corn starch and almost a whole can of shaving cream.  It bought about an hour of play.

 

And then he wanted to take a bath with his box of new fun.  He filled it up and played for quite a while. I walked by once to find him sitting in the little tub with a happy smile on his face. 

 

When we got home Thursday night, he wanted to make snow again.  But this time we put the lid on the bin to keep it for another night. 

Maple Syrup Anyone?

Saturday morning after Baylor's swimming lesson we headed to Heather's for a visit.  When we arrived the kids were not out of their jammies but that was fine.  Baylor just wanted to play anyway. The boys took to each other right way and were running around with the new S.W.A.T guns we bought Connor for his birthday.  We eventually bundled up everyone and all piled into her new GMC.  She had flier about a maple syrup demonstration at a local park we wanted to take the kids and of course see it ourselves.  She had never been to the park but a quick Google search and she felt comfortable about getting there.  We did not have any problems and we rushed from the car to the building because it was only 30 degrees out there.  I love the boys are holding hands. 

 

 

Baylor and Connor both asked for hot cocoa while Heather bought the tickets.  The boys also played by the fire to warm up, although they had both taken off their coats. 

 

Of course they had to be boys and pull some funny faces.  I do love Connor's swishy hips! 

 

They did Ring Around the Rosie in front of the vendors.  They had a water color artist, a photographer, basket weaver, jewelry maker, Stamping Up, and Pampered Chef.  We watched the artist paint a cardinal in the snow. We liked his techniques and when he was done he gave it to Connor. He was selling note cards and I told Heather that my first thought when I saw them was to buy one for Molly.  She would have loved one. 

 

Around 1:00 our tour was starting.  The boys suited up and played with their play phones.  They originally had play walkie talkies but I think Baylor left his in the car.  Thankfully he had packed his Elmo phone in case of emergencies. 

 

The guide walked us to pavilion to give us a history lesson of maple syrup, a taste testing of three syrups to guess the real syrup (it was number three), and give us a overview of what we would be doing and the tools we would need.  There is legend that an Indian (not PC but that is what we called them growing up) came back from a hunt and was swarmed by children.  He did not want to hurt the children with his ax so he threw his ax into a maple tree.  The sap dripped into a wood basin all night long. The next day his wife wanted to cook the deer and used the 'water' from the basin.  Apparently she made candied deer and he loved it.  But the mystery was where the sweet water came from.  Of course we will never know the real story but they may have watched the yellow bellied sap sucker tap maple trees.  The insects would be attracted to the sap and the bird would eat them.  Some how they figured it out but they also had to find a way to get the water out because the sap is only 2% sugar.  That is a lot of water to get rid of to make it mildly sweet.  One method they used was to let it freeze overnight.  The ice could be discarded and the liquid would be a bit more concentrated.  They did not have cooking pots until the Europeans arrived so I doubt they made syrup as we know it.  Then they passed out small pancakes and went around dotting them with three unmarked syrups.  I could tell my the thickness the first two were not real and by taste the third one was.  Heather liked the first syrup best which turned out to be Giant brand. The second was Aunt Jememia. 

 

Baylor was interested in the phone of course but when you look around these days, most people are.  It amazes me how many people are more involved with their phones than they are with what is going out around them. 

 

She passed out the tools we would need to tap our tree.  We sent the boys up and Baylor got the spile and Connor got the funnel.  Others had a hammer, awl, bucket, lid, and strainer.

 

We headed out to our tree. 

 

It was number 19.  He showed us a few tips for identifying a maple in winter (rough bark), what side to tap (the south side), and where to tap (look for a big root below and a big branch above).

 

They started the awl and then let anyone take a turn that wanted to try.  We sent the boys up for a spin. 

 

Baylor took the spile up to be put into the hole and as soon as she had it in sap started dripping out. 

 

Each tree will yield about 10 gallons of sap in a season.  I don't think this bucket had a whole gallon and they could not remember if it was a day or two that it had been collecting. There was some ice in the bucket too. 

 

 

Conner had the funnel and another boy had the strainer.

 

Between the two of them they strained and poured the sap into a collection container. 

 

And then it was back to the sugar shack.  Baylor loves bridges so he loved going back and forth over the two. 

 

The creek was quite pretty in its winter austerity. 

 

The first fire we went to was to heat a huge copper kettle.  It was the first step in boiling down the syrup.  It had some in the bottom already steaming away but we added our fresh sap and it really steamed up. 

 

Once it has cooked down some they move it to an evaporator tray.  The sap moves between three chambers while a wood fire burns underneath. 

 

And then we the syrup was ready it was moved to a big stock pot on another fire.  

We found out that it takes 40 gallons of sugar maple sap to make one gallon of syrup and 80 gallons of red maple sap to make one gallon of syrup.  In PA we have mainly red maples.  The concentration must go from 98% water to only 34% water to be syrup.  Once it boils down in the stock pot they move it to the small sauce pan to finish down to a proper syrup. She explained the Vermont grading system and got a bit snotty about VT syrup.  She cannot help it, I am sure she has never been there and is a bit biased to PA syrup.  She passed out popsicle sticks and we all had a taste.  It was fine but I mostly could taste popsicle stick. 

 

While all this evaporation talk was going on Baylor was swishing leaves with sticks.  It made a lot of noise so I had him move down away from the group so he would not bother anyone. He had a lot of fun with the rocks, sticks, and leaves.   

 

And we had a little fun with the camera.

 

After that we were on our own.  We did not stop an buy any PA syrup but nearly ran to the car to warm up!