Post 1: Very short. We are making these energy bites all the time this summer. It's a great way to make a yummy (and kinda healthy) summer treat. This is an especially nice recipe because it's a "no bake" treat. Which means kiddos can "help" a lot! Also, no need to turn on the oven and heat up an already warm country kitchen. Check out the recipe below. (I add toasted, slivered almonds as well)
http://www.cookingclassy.com/2014/04/bake-energy-bites/
Post 2: Here is our flock- all six of our sheep! It's getting harder to differentiate the "lambs" from their mamas. Farmer J can quickly tell all the lambs apart. I'm really good at telling "little boy" from the girls (due to his visible boy part and his longer tail). With some teaching from J, I'm getting better at telling Una, Lily and Jane from each other. We try and use the sheep as our "lawn mowers" as much as possible! Less mowing for us, more nutrition for them. The only drawback... sheep droppings on the lawn... but hey, it's good grass fertilizer! The last picture is the clean wool from Aoife and Beatrix. Miss Mary (the farm owner) shared some with us just this month. Now I need to think of something fun to do with it!
Post 4: Mice. It's official. We have a rodent problem. And we can't have an indoor cat for numerous reasons but mainly because JJ is allergic to cats and I'd be way too OCD about the cat hair. So... we use the "tomcat" mouse traps (see picture below). J told the boys that this was the most humane way to kill the mouse. My youngest assured me that the mouse does not suffer (after his conversation with his Dada). A few events lead us to realize we had to start trying to eliminate some of the tiny rodents from our shared farmhouse. The first event: Pickle was holding a toy baby cradle and our summer babysitter noticed a little mouse was poking his head out of the cradle! She tried to calmly tell Pick Pick to put down the cradle but when he realized a mouse was in with his baby... "and down will come baby (and mouse) cradle and all". Luckily for us, our babysitter (despite being a girl and 16) is awesome and stayed calm and even set a few mousetraps for us! Go Miss M! The second event: Farmer J swore he saw a little "mouse party" in the boy's upstairs bedroom. I guess there were having a little mid-night town meeting. It's one thing to see one mouse scurrying around. It's another to see them congregating.
The next day, J set traps all over the house. Within 30 minutes of setting 5 traps, we had 5 dead mice. It was exciting, frighting and sad all at the same time. Snap! Snap! Every time I heard that very particular mouse trap snap noise, I jumped. It turned into an odd, morbid sort of event (i.e., "We got one!" versus "He got away with the peanut butter!") Don't worry, I don't have any pictures from that afternoon! Below though, you will see some baby mice that J and the boys found outside (in the bottom of a metal bucket). I must say, they are very cute as babies (I wanted to hold one but farmer J said no). And I'm fine with them living OUTSIDE. But when they are bigger, and I almost step on one in my mudroom, which results in me screaming and almost falling and breaking my neck... not so cute!
That's it for now. Four posts in one! Do you feel ripped off or like you got a deal??
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