The McCoys

I missed the equipment coming in to yank the old dead tree out of our yard, but as soon as it left the kids came and told me and I grabbed my camera as Utah proceeded to leap over the hole, duck down in the hole and stand up in this huge hole in the ground that was as deep as he is tall.

Mud and a boy... oh my!

And then they brought the new tree, a White Birch... which has an amazing rustling sound when the wind blows through its leaves.

I'll try to get a picture from the front of the house without the equipment in it soon. The last couple of days have been pretty busy and crazy and I expect tomorrow will be the same.  Yesterday the kids and I took Max to the emergency vet because he was really not feeling good and acting totally different than he normally does.  They checked him out and ended up giving him some medications to help his stomach and put him on a bland diet... which had me busy today boiling chicken and making rice for his food for the next few days.  He loved that, but still is acting like he is in pain and yelps when he gets up too quickly.  If he is not doing better by Monday, we will be bringing him back in.

Tomorrow the kids will be in a parade and demo with karate.  The first parade of demo season, but we've already had a few demos.  Utah especially always has fun with them.

Utah is also having his birthday party tomorrow at a place that has laser tag.  It will be a fun time with his friends.  He has such a good combination of school friends, neighborhood friends, and karate friends.  He could only invite 7 and then Ciera invited one friend as well.

Counting down until Daddy comes home next weekend!

So, this last week was a pretty busy one.  It seems like we are constantly going... which is good because we stay busy and have less time to be missing Daddy, but at the same time it gets exhausting after a while!  We had a slower day on Friday and Saturday afternoon, so we were able to get some rest in.  Here are some pictures from the last week in no particular order.

The kids being super silly one evening and pulling the cushions off the couch to make the thousandth pallet or other contraption on the floor because they love having to put it all away... or rather, watching Mommy put it all away:

Our garden is growing little by little.  Our blackberry and raspberry bush have blossoms on them this year, but I don't think we'll get much.  We probably need several more planted to be able to produce enough to be able to make anything.

The tomato plants are coming in good.  I need to put trellises around them in the garden before long.  The upside down tomato plants in my planter are doing good also.  Should have lots of Roma's for canning.

We enjoyed the first week of our farm share produce this week.  We picked it up on Tuesday and have been eating farm fresh veggies all week.  The kids have been experimenting and mostly Ciera will just have lettuce with ranch dip, but at least she is eating leafy greens!

Garlic scape... I had never heard of this but it is wonderful!  It is the tops of the garlic plant from what I understand... never would have thought of that as being edible, but it is.  It can be stir fried, made into pesto, and I'm sure other things as well.

Garlic Scape Pesto- can you say YUM!  Utah and I had a couple spoonfuls of this mixed with angel hair pasta and salad.  Ciera tasted the pesto and wasn't loving it so she had her noodles plain.  She likes a lot of food plain and is rather picky when it comes to veggies.  Garlic scape pesto is easy to make... garlic scape chopped into 1 inch pieces and thrown into a food processor, Parmesan cheese and olive oil.  Pine nuts can be added if you have them... we didn't.  I have been using this the last few days to make Garlic Scape and Tomato Bruschetta... broil on low for a few minutes and a very tasty addition to dinner or a snack.

 

Here is our bounty from farm share week one:

Check out these berries- they were the yummiest I have ever had.  There is something to be said for veggies, fruits and berries that haven't traveled halfway across the world to the market.

On Thursdays, we've been driving about 45 minutes NW to Sauk Prairie where there is another Karate America school that is in a partnership with our karate school so Utah can take the Bo staff class there.  There aren't as many students taking the Bo staff class there and he can get more advanced instruction that he can currently get at the Bo staff class our school offers because it is primarily brown and black belts taking the class in Sauk currently.  Here it is blue and up and beginning to a few advanced all within one class.  The class today had 12 people, so driving once a week or every other week to a class that offers a challenge for him is worth it right now.

On Thursday this last week we packed a picnic lunch and left a little early to enjoy a field trip to Wollersheim Winery near Sauk Prairie.  We went on the winery tour and did the taste testing, and Utah was very intrigued smelling all five of my wine samples.  He really liked the sparkling grape juice they were given.

Okay.. this picture is somewhat out of order, but I made strawberry jam from our farm share u-pick strawberries.  YUM!  Have you ever used organic sugar?  It is AMAZING!  It looks like a very light brown sugar but the texture is similar to regular refined sugar.  It has a mild molasses aroma and tastes SO good.  This jam was made with organic strawberries and organic sugar and tastes fabulous drizzled on vanilla ice cream. 

More pictures from our afternoon at the winery:

Gorgeous, isn't it?  Utah he said he wanted us to buy it:

Sports.  Sports are keeping us BUSY.  Utah had basketball camp last week Monday through Thursday in the mornings.  For an hour and a half we got to watch him learn about basketball, and he made so much progress from the first day through the end of camp.  He now has spiffy Jordan's that he is only allowed to use on court and is playing Monday and Wednesday mornings for the next five weeks.  He said karate is still is favorite, but he seems to really enjoy basketball.  He does better at defense rather than offense and is amazingly aggressive for a new player... trying to steal the ball from some of the best players out there... and succeeded on occasion.  It's crazy, but starting him when he is going into 5th grade I thought we'd be ahead of the curve, but they start this camp at Ciera's age and leagues as well, so some of the kids have already been playing for 2-3 years!

Utah had a pretty busy birthday... basketball in the morning, Marley had a vet appointment, and then he worked at karate and had two karate classes this afternoon.  We are holding his birthday party on Sunday at a place in Madison that does laser tag, but he had a couple presents to open today (most of his stuff he received early from us) and a cake and at karate he had a big class signing happy birthday to him as he stood in front of them all beaming.  He had a good day. 

We were in a tornado warning for an hour and a half earlier, but they issue those county wide if there is a chance of a tornado occurring... basically if the conditions are right.  We stayed in the basement in our unfinished area under the stairs with the dogs, cell phone and laptops watching the news on my laptop.  Technology is great!  We had a lot of rain but our immediate area had no damage that we're aware of.

Utah started basketball camp today and then tonight we went to the athletic club so I could school him in the art of not double dribbling or walking with the ball.  Hopefully this will help him out tomorrow!!

We have a farm share this year at a farm in Sun Prairie and as part of our farm share we got to pick ten pounds of strawberries.  We made strawberry jam, froze a bunch of berries, made chocolate dipped berries and strawberry shortcake.  We will go back weekly to pick up all our veggies and hopefully some new recipes to try out.