Ice Cream Social

Bernie showing off her yummy bowl.

 We held our annual Midsummer Night's Ice Cream Dream this year. As always, it was so much fun. I made five plus gallons of goat milk ice cream that was delicious. We provide the ice cream and each family brings a topping or mix-in to share. This year was especially fun with the variety of toppings brought. We had crushed oreos, no-bake cookies, sprinkles, mini Reese cups, whip cream, and jelly beans, just to name a few. The hardest part was choosing which ones to put on!

Beautiful Ezra.

There *may* have been some pee on the slide. I'm not naming names.

 It just so happened that the ice cream social coincided with milking time, which usually draws a crowd. It always fascinates me to see who is interested in trying their hand at it. Jane, for instance. Jane is my good friend Bon's mother-in-law. Bonnie now lives in California with her new hubby, Colin. They happened to be in town for the ice cream social (yay!). I then found out that Bon's in-laws would be in town, too and promptly invited them to be part of the fun. I don't know them very well, but I never would have expected that she would jump at the chance to milk a goat! Who knew!? I was so pleasantly surprised!

Bonnie and Me. She came all the way from Cali for my ice cream! 

 The thing I love about recent parties at our house is the kids. They run wild. They have free, safe reign of our huge yard. I love to feel so confident that nothing bad is going to happen to this wild group of kiddos. They are crawling through the corn rows, whooping, hollering, finding secret hideouts and being beautiful, happy children. I really love it.

Not quite whooping and hollering with the big kids yet.

My gal Melissa and sweet Cece or "Baby HeHe" to Maggie who doesn't say her "S"

 Here's one of my favorite pics of the evening. Bonnie, her sister Amanda, Melissa, and me. We all grew up together and I was glad to capture this fun moment with the four-of-us.

The most exciting part of the evening happened after most of the guests had gone. There was a missing set of keys. It was well after dark by this time, so we got out the flashlights and scoured the yard. Looking in every nook and cranny we could think of. Alas, no keys. I got up the next day and searched the yard in a grid-like-cop-show fashion. Alas, no keys. Luckily, the keys were found later that day in the belongings of one three-year-old boy who may or may not be the culprit of the slide pee. Can't wait to see what next year brings!

Father's Day

Father's Day has long since come and gone. I've been waiting to post because I wanted to get a picture of Cam in his gift. Alas, I'm still waiting, so I'll share what we made for Poppy and Opa.

First, Opa. 

Opa has been sharing Greek Mythology with the girls. He has several children's books on the subject and shares with them about Perseus, Medusa, Zeus, Poseidon and the like. One of their favorite stories is about the Cyclops. I really thought Opa needed a Cyclops hood to have on hand at his house for Greek story-telling. Of course, I couldn't find a pattern for a Cyclops hood, so I had to make one up. I used a ping pong ball for the eye and drew on it using permanent markers. I added big ears and some fake hair. I think he loved it.

Now Poppy. Poppy is my dad. He grew up in the mountains of West Virginia. His family ran a grocery store and his dad worked in the coal mines. He has a handful of stories from his childhood that he likes to tell. He used to tell them to me when I was little, and now he tells them to my girls. One of the most memorable is about his encounter with a rattlesnake. Or, "Poppy's Snake Story". It is only a matter of minutes from when Poppy climbs in our car that the girls, usually Maggie, ask for "The Nake Tory". The girls have the story basically memorized. So, I decided it would be cute if they retold the story in their own words and illustrated it for him. Then I created a Snapfish Photobook that I was able to pick up at Meijer in a matter of hours. It turned out really cute and personal. I loved hearing how they told the story and what they felt were important elements. 

If you're interested, here is their version:

Lila: Well, you know when Poppy told us the snake story? He always told it for Maggie.

Maggie: I always like the nake tories.

Lila: So, he started off as “you know where Poppy came from?” And, I forgot it right now.

Lila: So, once upon a time when poppy was little, Poppy and our cousin Norman heard about a peach orchard on top of the hill

Maggie: No when poppy was grown up.

Lila: So, they went on top of the mountain and they took Norman’s dog Buster.

Lila: It was a short time.

Maggie: No, a long time.

Lila: No, it was a very short time. They picked and picked and picked and picked and picked and picked and picked peaches from the hill. Well, actually it’s a mountain. Not a hill. So, when they were done picking peaches, they started down the mountain. But, suddenly…

Maggie: They heard a tss tss tsst

Lila: He heard a rattling noise and a “hiissssss”. Poppy said, “Stop, Norman! There’s a rattle snake ahead!” But Buster kept going. And he trampled right up on the snake and the snake bit him right in the neck. But not very hard and not very easily, too!

Lila: The bite swelled up for a couple days. Poppy came to check on Buster, Norman’s dog of course. He was better, but it was a little swollen.

Maggie: Poppy thought he was going to die any minute, but he didn’t! Them ran home as fast as they could. Them thought Mustard was going to die any minute, and he didn’t die! Their friend was there and they went on top of the mountain again to shoot it and there was no snake. It’d crawled into his hole. The hole was this wide.

The End

I had some extra pages, so I decided to do an "About the Author" for each of the girls. The book turned out so well and Poppy really seemed pleased. 

Ravioli!

I made ravioli from scratch!  Sometimes I even amaze myself.  =)  I stumbled on a recipe for it the other day and thought, “I could make that!”.  I decided I would try my hand at make the ricotta as well.  We have Alpine Goats here on the farm that produce an abundance of milk.  Up to this point, Cam has done all the cheese making around our house.  I watch him spend several hours, or even days in the process and it's never appealed all that much to me.  Heck, with aged cheeses, you can wait years before you taste the fruit of your labor!  But, amazingly, ricotta is super easy to make!  It’s like the easiest cheese ever!  And, you can try this at home!  You can use cow’s milk, too.  I only had a quart of milk on hand and that made about a cup of cheese.  All you do is raise the temperature to 185, add a Tbsp of apple cider vinegar per quart, stir, and drain into a colander double-lined with cheesecloth.  That’s it!  After 20 minutes of draining, you have ricotta cheese ready to use!  Aghhh!  How could it be that simple!? Are you as excited as I am!?  Probably not.  Anyway….  So, I followed a recipe I found in Hobby Farms magazine of all places, for the dough.  The hardest part about that was rolling out the dough. 

 

After tasting our ravioli, I decided I should have rolled out the dough thinner.  Live and learn.  I rolled out the dough, scored it, scooped in my filling of homemade ricotta, garlic, onion, and some fresh chopped spinach, and put the other layer on top.

 

I cut the squares using a pizza cutter.  I don’t have any fancy ravioli equipment, so I just used a fork to pinch the edges of the squares together.  

  I boiled them for 8 minutes and, voila! Ravioli.  So, to recap, I made the cheese, pasta dough, rolled it out, filled it, cut it, pinched it, boiled it.  Then, I’m a little embarrassed to say, after all that, I poured on a JAR of RAGU spaghetti sauce.  But, it was really tasty!

Shower the people you love with love....

Today I co-hosted a bridal shower for Cam’s cousin Katie.  I was in charge of games and favors.  The games we played were a big hit.  And, these are the favors I decided on:

They are pins to attach to your blouse, bag, or headband.  I put each one on the top of a long, thin wire and arranged them in a little bouquet in a pretty purple vase that doubled as table decoration.  I think they turned out really cute and they were pretty inexpensive to create a unique favor. Each guest got to "pick" her flower at the end.   I can't find the blog I got that idea from.  =(  It's somewhere out there!  Marsha and Renata co-hosted with me and took care of everything else! We made a great team, I think. 

For a gift, I made Katie a casserole cover with her new initial on it that I got from someone else's cool blog.

The pink strip is a pocket for a serving spoon. 

Katie "H"... hmmm takes some getting used to. =)

The wedding colors are black and hot pink and I got tipped off that Katie likes polka dots.  Our family does pot luck (or bring a dish for you folks who don’t know what that is) for most holidays and I thought it would be a fun way for Katie to bring Grandma Howard’s famous mac and cheese.  It was a lovely afternoon to celebrate the bride-to-be, meet some future family, and enjoy the company of some great women.