LEGO Stop Motion Movie

The family went to see the LEGO Movie the other day and though it was one of the best we'd seen in a while. To celebrate, The Boy decided to make his own stop motion LEGO movie starring 2 ninjas who stab and decapitate each other. :) He's a boy...what can I say.

Pictures from the Garden

The garden is in full swing now. Lettuce is mostly gone, but I have a few late plantings that are still in good shape. The kale is looking good, zucchini and yellow squash are starting to be ready to pick, broccoli has side shoots ready to pick about every other day and there is almost enough purple beans to make for dinner. I'm still getting alpine strawberries, raspberries and rhubarb and the blueberries are almost ripe. I have baby cukes on my plants, baby cauliflower on those plants and even see a few tiny tomatoes on my volunteer tomato plants in the garden. The ones I planted don't have any yet, though. There are also baby butternut and spaghetti squash on the vines. But the big time winner this year in the garden are the turnips. Those babies are HUGE! We are eating them, but I wished we liked them a bit more. :) Cabbage and onions are moving along and hopefully will get bigger soon. And, lastly, the volunteer potatoes are growing like weeds...oh wait...I didn't plant them, so technically they are weeds!

A good year in the garden so far!

Making Egg Survival Suits

A few weeks ago The Girl had a Girl Scout event where they encouraged the girls to come up with a container that would cushion an egg and allow it to survive a 30 foot drop. Well, both the kids love a challenge like that. So we set to work building  Egg Survival Suits.

The Girl wanted to use popcorn as her cushioning material and found a box to hold it all, but she wanted to make some sort of net/hammock from rubber bands and balloons in the middle to hold the egg and keep it from rattling around in the box of popcorn. She then added a couple of balloons on top and bottom.

The Boy wanted to use mostly balloons for cushion making an orbit of balloons around a small egg carton then added a parachute and a couple of extra balloons to put it over the top.

When they were finished building, we added one of our backyard chicken's eggs then dropped the Survival suits from the top of our tree house.

Both kids' contraptions kept the eggs safe. So we had to drop them again! And both survived the second drop as well, although The Boy lost a balloon in the second round.

The Girl took her Survival suit to the Girl Scout event the next day. Her egg survived through both the 20ft drop and the 30ft drop! She was very excited!

I love this kind of activity. Both kids used their engineering skills to create something  from their imagination, then got to test it in a real world situation...and most importantly of all, they had a blast!

Taming the Crazy Morning Routine

I don't know about other parents out there, but I feel like I'm herding a bunch of cats every morning trying to get them to eat, get dressed, brush their teeth and get out the door in time to catch the bus. Yesterday was one of those not-so-good days where I felt like I was yelling at the kids from the time they got up till I put them on the bus. I don't like to do that; I don't like to feel like the "mean mommy"...and it stresses me out.

So after the kids were on the bus, I sat down and searched for ideas on making the morning routine less stressful and annoying. I found this article http://breezymama.com/2011/02/22/morning-dawdler/ called 3 Tips to get your Morning Dawdler Moving.  Basically the 3 tips are 1. Put kids in charge of their morning. 2. Tame the morning nag-fest by implementing “when-then” routines. and 3. Get yourself up and ready first. I found other articles with 10 tips and such, but these 3 seemed like the right ones for our family.

I then sat down and made a schedule for the kids' morning routine. This is the "when-then" routine where the kids know step by step what they should do from the time they get up till they walk out the door. My kids mostly know this already, but the times next to the items was new for them. If they know exactly what time they are to do a particular task, they can make that happen without thinking they have infinite time to eat their breakfast.

To implement #1, I then went out and bought alarm clocks for both of them.  I taught them how to use them and let them choose what time they wanted to wake up in the morning. The Girl chose to get up earlier than the schedule so she would have extra time to do her tasks. The Boy wanted to sleep as long as possible. But they made that choice on their own. They then carried the alarm clocks around with them all morning and referred to them and their chart to see what they were supposed to be doing.

End result was both got finished with everything 10 minutes early and got some extra playtime before school, and I didn't have to yell or remind even once! That is a total success in my book!

I also made a bed time routine chart...we'll see if that makes bed time easier as well. I'll keep you posted!

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

This weekend the Girl and I went on a Girl Scout camping trip on the beautiful Hood Canal. For one of the meals, the girls cooked it from start to finish in their cook shelter. The Girl volunteered to help with dessert which would be chocolate chip cupcakes. Since one of the girls in the troop also eats gluten and dairy free, I went to work making a paleo recipe that the girls could take to camp and easily make in a box oven. I mixed all dry ingredients into a Ziploc bag at home, then the girls added the eggs, honey and applesauce at camp. Simple!

 

They first needed to make the box oven (instructions here), then mix up the cupcake batter and cook it at their campsite. The results were better than I expected, really. Once we got the placement of the cupcake pan right (don't sit the pan directly on the coals!), then the cupcakes cooked up like they would have in a regular oven. The window on the top, that The Girl insisted on including,  made checking on the cupcakes much easier! I highly recommend a window in your box oven. And I highly recommend giving box oven cooking a try, just for the novelty of the whole thing if for nothing else. :)

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes
1 C Almond Flour
2 Tbs. Coconut flour
3 Tbs. Cocoa Powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
4 eggs
1/2 C applesauce (one of those 4 oz cups of applesauce works great for traveling)
1/2 C honey
1 C chocolate chips (we used dairy free chips)

Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl, then add all wet ingredients to dry and stir in the chips. Scoop batter into lined muffin cups. Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes in a regular oven. For box oven, use 9 briquettes and cook for about 30 minutes. Cupcakes will have gooey melted chips inside when warm.

Paleo Camping and How to make and use a Box Oven

I spent this past weekend at Girl Scout Encampment with The Girl and her Girl Scout troop. I loved the idea of spending the time with my daughter outside on the beautiful Hood Canal, but I was initially reluctant to go for a variety of reasons 1. I'm always cold. 2. I like flush toilets and 3. how can I eat Paleo while camping and having many of my meals prepared for me by someone else?

I'm happy to report that I have figured out the right sleeping gear for me in the wild that allows me to remain warm enough and I got used to the Biffy (Bathroom In the Forest For You). :) But #3 was a challenge. During an encampment, many of your meals are provided for you by the kitchen staff at the camp. My registration form had me marked as gluten-free, but there wasn't an option for paleo, grain free, refined sugar free, legume-free, etc. So I went into the weekend knowing I'd have to be flexible and use this as my 20% non-paleo ration. I also had a discussion the other day with a friend about how I feel like stressing out over things I can't control (like the food at camp) or worrying about bringing all of my own food is releasing enough stress hormones into my body to negate all of the good I'd do by having better food on hand. So I decided to chill-out and go with the flow for one weekend knowing I'd jump back into my routine on Monday. I did take a number of fresh fruit items, larabars and trail mix to supplement what I was able to find in camp, but found it hard to remember to put them in my day pack every morning (had to lock them up from critters every night). So the meals I ate in the lodge were ok, but were not paleo. They contained rice, corn, soy and refined sugar I'm sure, but they didn't contain wheat (I think), which is the biggie for me. So I'm ok with it.

The one shining point in the food department for the weekend was the meal cooked by the troop in our cook shelter. Since we could decided on all parts of the meal, the girls (one of which is also gluten and dairy free) planned a tasty meal that was very paleo friendly. Their menu consisted of Chicken Soup, Veggie tray, Fruit salad, Grilled Cheese sandwiches (I ate the deli ham that came with it),  and Chocolate Chip Cupcakes (New creation by me and The Girl. Stay tuned for the recipe!).

In order to cook these Chocolate Chip Cupcakes the girls had to make their own box oven. This contraption  consisted of a cardboard box, tin foil, heat proof aluminum tape (found it in the hardware store) and a turkey baking bag.

How to make your own Box Oven
1. You will need a box that is about 2-4 inches larger in both dimensions than whatever cookie or cake pan you plan to use for baking. We used a muffin pan that holds 12 muffins. A sturdy banana box from Costco or a larger Amazon box will work well.
2. Cover the inside of the box with tin foil. You can cover the outside as well if you want it to look pretty. BE SURE NO CARDBOARD IS UNCOVERED INSIDE THE BOX OR IT WILL CATCH FIRE.
3. Cut a hole in the bottom of your box for your "window" (this isn't necessary but is pretty cool)
4. Cover the hole with 1-2 layers of the turkey baking bag and secure with aluminum tape making sure there aren't any holes.

In addition to the box oven you will need 2-4 aluminum or tin cans, 1 disposable aluminum tray to hold charcoal briquettes, Charcoal Briquettes, 1 rock about 2 inches tall.

To use your box oven
1. Mix up the cake, muffins, cupcakes, etc. that you plan to bake. Really you can make anything in a box oven that you can make in a regular oven. I've seen people make pizza in it. So I don't know why you couldn't roast veggies or bake some fish you caught or even bake cookies.

2. In the aluminum tray place your charcoal briquettes in a single layer. Each briquette will give you 40 degrees F when baking. So if you are cooking at 360F you will need 9 briquettes.

3. light briquettes and wait until they have turned light grey in color. When they have reached that color, place your aluminum or tin cans either inside the aluminum tray beside the coals or outside the tray depending on the size of the charcoal tray and the baking pan. (See the diagram below for placement options.) Then place the filled baking pan on top of the cans above the charcoal tray. Coals should not be touching the baking pan.

4. Cover the whole thing with the box and prop up one corner of the box with a rock for air flow. If the box is tight to the ground the coals will not burn. Fire needs oxygen to burn.

5. It will take about 15 minutes for the box oven to come to temperature. Your cooking time will vary based on materials, temperature outside, briquettes, etc. But you can assume it will be similar to your regular oven. Every time you raise the box to test for doneness, you will lose 25 degrees and 15 minutes from your cooking time. So don't raise the box unless absolutely necessary. (this is why the window is so nice!)

(picture of the Chocolate chip cupcakes I made at home in preparation for the camping trip. The ones made at camp weren't this pretty, but they tasted great!)

The Chicken Coop Remodel

 

We've been keeping chickens for about 6 years now...wow, has it really been that long?!? We began by buying 6 laying hens from a farm in southern Washington then moved on to brooding our own chicks. The largest number we ever had at one time was 60 chickens including chicks and full grown birds (we sold a few of the chicks and slaughtered some of the grown roosters shortly after). Right now we have about 25 (mostly old hens and a few chicks), which is probably more than we really want to have. It's nice to have a large supply of eggs coming out of the hen house every day, but now our chickens are old and not laying like we would like. And we haven't replaced them with new chicks like we should have. So we have a dozen plus chickens eating feed and producing nothing while the rest are still too young to lay. Yesterday we got 1 egg...yes, you heard that correctly, 1 egg...from 25 chickens. How pathetic is that? So we have a plan to revitalize our hen house and reduce the size of the flock in the process.

 (this is the original coop before paint)

When we started keeping chickens we built a cute little red hen house that is perfectly sized for about a dozen chickens...then we got more chickens and outgrew that cute little hen house. It got pushed aside to use as a brooder and we bought a 8x10 metal shed to use as a coop and expanded their run space to be a good portion of the back yard. That shed was plenty big enough to for our largest flock, but feeding, watering and egg gathering got to be a messy production after almost no time at all. All of those things lived inside the metal shed with the chickens, which means they got covered in chicken droppings, mud and such. Hubby's morning routine of feeding and watering the chickens got messier and messier until he was ready to throw in the towel and throw out the chickens. So I got to work on a plan to remodel our original cute little coop into something easier to use and much less messy, and since our goal is to reduce the flock down to about a dozen chickens again, the size is perfect. After remodeling and adding a nice sized outside enclosure it could probably house closer to 20, but I don't really think we want that many anymore.

The original coop had a few problems that I planned to address this time around.

1. It had no indoor space for feed - the feed usually sat outside in the run which made it hard to reach and it often got wet even though we had a large roof overhang. 
2. The egg boxes sat on the floor inside the coop under the roosts and often got pooped on from above.
3. The coop sat on the ground and made a perfect place for rodents to burrow under to make their homes. With the ready supply of food just above, they had it made.
4. The large door on one side of the coop that was supposed to be used to clean the floor and add/remove chickens when necessary wasn't large enough and was hard to get into and out of easily.

To remedy these problems I made some modifications to the coop design.

1. We put the whole thing up on stilts so it wasn't sitting on the ground. The new site was on a slope, so hubby had to do some work to get it level, but he made it happen.
2. I wanted a few additions built onto the original structure. We added a bump-out to house the food and water and doors on the outside of it to easily refill the containers each day without having to step in any mess. This bump-out also puts the food and water out away from the roosts so it doesn't get pooped on at night either. And we added another bump-out with 3 egg boxes for laying. These have doors on the outside as well for retrieving eggs.
3. We also took off one whole wall and replaced it with double doors that open completely to easily clean the coop and rearrange the chickens when necessary.
4. The roof was having some water seepage issues that Hubby discovered when he removed the tarp that was covering it. So he put a shingle roof over the top and over both additions. So far the inside is staying nice and dry. 
5. Lastly, we cut a small chicken-sized hole in the floor of the coop and wrapped the stilts in chicken wire so the birds have a place to scratch at the ground and walk around outside while still protected from the numerous wild animals we have walking around our back yard. Eventually we'll put up some more fencing to make a larger enclosure for them to walk around outside, but while snow's on the ground they aren't really interested in going outside anyway.

Bump-out to the right is for food and water. One to the left is for eggs. Notice the nice roofing job on all horizontal surfaces!

New front door that opens completely on both sides. Everything needs a red coat of paint, but otherwise it's pretty well finished.

"Chicks" in their new home. Soon to be joined by a few select old ladies. Not sure if you can see it in this picture, but we put hot pink zip ties on the legs of these gals. When it comes time to eat the old ones we need to know which ones really are old. If we put a different color band on the legs of the chicks each year we can keep track.

Girls going for a walk under the coop. I put a couple of roosts down there as well, but I'm not sure they are using them. 

 

So far, it seems this newly remodeled coop is working pretty well. The chickens drop down to their outside space to peck around, and they sleep up on their warm dry roosts every night. The real test of how user-friendly the coop is will be when we tell the kids they are now in charge of the food and water refilling and the egg gathering. If they can manage to do all of those things without getting messy, then we will know we've succeeded!