Thursday, July 29, 2010
WANTED! (Warning: Images Might Shock)
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Homemade Lemonade!
Making Memories: Nature Kidz’ First Lemonade Stand
It has been frightfully hot recently in Nature Kidz Land. Over 100, with heat indexes above 110 some days. We have often promised the Kidz that they could have a lemonade stand . . . someday. Well, last night when I spied a bag of organic lemons at Earth Fare, I decided that day would be today.
Not being one to do things halfway, I decided the lemonade we sold would have to be all natural—none of that powdered junk for us. I had some Trader Joe’s frozen lemonade as a backup, but making homemade lemonade seemed like a fun project for the Kidz.
OK, it was mostly my project, but each Kid plus a sleepver guest Kid tried her hand at squeezing the lemons. And the result was quite good!! It was probably too hot outside for people to even do yard work, but we did have some neighbors and other folks come by to purchase the wares. And the Kidz were rewarded with a trip to the pool and a few extra bucks in their pockets.
Here’s my recipe:
2 cups organic lemon juice (probably 8-10 lemons, juiced and strained)
2 cups water and 2 cups organic cane sugar to make sugar syrup
8-10 cups water to taste.
To make sugar syrup: Bring 2 cups of water to low boil; add sugar and stir until dissolved and mixture is clear. Set aside or refrigerate.
Mix lemon juice, sugar syrup, and water in a pitcher, stirring well to combine. Add water or lemon juice to suit your taste. Serve over ice. Options: make lemon-limeade by using 2/3 lemon juice to 1/3 lime juice.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Adventures in Composting
Last summer I began composting with the best of intentions. Nature Dad built me a nice raised bed for some veggies (here in NC the soil is orange clay and rocky), and I wanted to compost.
Gardening went okay. If you saw my post last summer about my peas, you saw that we had a bumper crop of snap peas that we all loved—not a one of which ever got cooked, as we ate them right off the vine. Nature Dad also spied a large pallet with some framing around the sides behind our local Ace Hardware; we thought would make a good compost bin. So he asked if we could have it, and they okayed it! And so it began…..
Into the compost pile went so much stuff—egg shells, veggie peels, past-its-peak produce, and other acceptable types of organic matter, including some grass clippings. I turned it periodically. After Halloween, I even threw our jack o’ lanterns in there and some snake gourds that we’d bought at Vollmer’s Farm in Bunn, NC—they looked like our last name’s initials and made the perfect spooky accessory on our Halloween-decoroted front porch!
Well, the cold weather came. Then spring sprung. I’d kind of forgotten about my compost pile. Let this be a lesson to all you mainstream suburban folks out there experimenting with organic living: never, ever, neglect your compost! It must be turned periodically. Purchasing a $200 composter is one way to take the work out of this, but I’m wary of just how “green” I can be by using a plastic manufactured barrel (though I am sorely tempted to buy a rain barrel and save on watering costs).
As you can see, before I knew it, My “compost” pile had become a fertile ground for growing things—I had tomato plants springing up, pumpkin vines, and what looked like miles of another vine—one with huge leaves and delicate white flowers that opened in the evenings. I decided to leave it so I could figure out what it was. Then one day I received my answer in the form of several rapidly growing snake gourds! These plants are threatening to take over my garden, but I am keeping them, if only to experiment with training them into letter shapes—my guess is that is exactly what whomever grew the ones we found at Vollmer’s did. So far I’m not having much luck, but it’s great fun. Through my research, I also found out that there’s a Gourd festival in the fall at the NC State Fairgrounds, and I’m planning to go—turns out there’s all sorts of fun you can have with these things!
And maybe next year I’ll have a pumpkin patch and pass out free pumpkins to the neighbors. As long as the HOA doesn’t catch me!