We found this guy heading down the driveway! I know he's not the largest snapping turtle, but we are so use to seeing box and painted turtles that it seemed pretty big to us! We couldn't get him to snap at a stick for us, but he kept lifting his back legs up and once he charged at us! 
How stinking cute is Reuben! He was there for size comparison, he looked at the turtle and then got this great big grin! I was glad Mark captured it! 
In past years I've kept a notebook containing my canning/freezing information. I thought it might be easier to keep record of it here on my blog.
All of this came from the strawberries in my patch and from my mom's patch. I made one regular batch of strawberry jam, and I made 2 batches of strawberry/rhubarb jam. I've frozen 10 bags of whole strawberries to use for smoothies or whatever else looks good in the winter!
I'm going to share my recipe for the strawberry/rhubarb jam. I found this recipe at Food.com, but I changed it up a bit.
On my first batch I used 3 cups strawberries, 2 cups rhubarb like it calls for and I used dutch jell instead of liquid pectin. I added a little more than 4 cups of sugar, which was plenty for us. (I can't imagine using 7 cups, like the recipe calls for.) The tart from the rhubarb wasn't quite as strong as I would've liked, so on my second batch I used 3 cups rhubarb and just shy of 4 cups of sugar. I haven't tried it yet so I don't know if it's any different than the first batch.
This recipe was super simple. It tells you to flip your jar over after you get the ring on for about
5 minutes.
(This recipe made 1pint and 6-7 half pints)
**All of my jars sealed, but I'm still storing this in the freezer for extra protection. My sil told me that one time she made grape juice, as it was coming out of the straino machine it was hot enough it was sealing the jars. They put the rings on and thought it was fine, it ended up fermenting and turning into wine! In my house this jam is like gold so I'm not willing to risk any of it going bad so that is why it's going into the freezer! If you enjoy strawberry/rhubarb together this jam is a must!
We finished our unit on survival this last week. We still have to work on fire making, and we want to try out our self defense moves we read about. I have to figure out how to put the punching bag up before we try them.
We got this bow and arrow set and have had a blast using it! I'm hoping to bring it back out for our next unit too. We went and shot at targets one day, both kids hit the target once. They were a little disappointed they didn't hit it more, but they got some good practice in.
We also practiced a fire drill. I was going to set the alarm off, but both kids begged me not too! So I was the alarm...they all pretended to be asleep in their beds. I "sounded" the alarm and timed them to see how long it took them to get out, a little over a minute. They had to unlock the window, push the screen out and hop out the window. They did great! Brie went to the boys room to help out so we discussed what the plan should be if she couldn't get to their room. We also talked about what to do if the fire broke out during the day, best way to get out etc. Thanks to my niece for pointing out that we needed a meeting place. We agreed on a place and talked about what to do if hubby and I aren't in that spot. It was good to have some plans in order, but I know if we ever have a fire it won't necessarily be like we practiced.
We also read about how to prevent drowning. We went swimming and worked on some of the things we read about. Brie is getting really close to being able to swim, I'm hoping with a little more work this summer she will get it. Zeke has improved greatly since last year! He's got a while til he's swimming, but he got in the pool willingly so that was good!
I think in a couple more years we will do this unit again so that the 2 smaller boys can join in too! It was a lot of fun! I will be sharing soon about the math we did during this study too!
I bet you wished you lived at my house, don't you!
(and yes, Zeke put a frog on his face!!!)
Here is the rest of the pictures from the botanical gardens!
I just love Brie and Titus in this picture!
We had planned a trip to our "local" botanical garden this spring when we were studying plants, but we weren't able to go. We were closer this weekend in location so we decided to go and check it out. We all really enjoyed it! I think the only bad thing was the temperature!
These pictures are just of the butterfly exhibit they have going on. ( pictures of the rest of the garden will be in the next post) I was hoping that we could get at least one to land on us, but we had no luck! They were still beautiful to watch!
We were able to work on our fire making skills this weekend. I'm happy to report that they built a very good fire Friday night and Saturday morning! (using matches)
Reuben found this big guy on Saturday morning! He was moving the chairs around and picked this chair up and saw the spider. Then he laughed and laughed and tried to pick it up! I don't mind crawly stuff normally, but this guy was another story. I made Mark come deal with him! I don't know what kind of spider it is, I just know I didn't like it!
This weekend we went camping, and after getting the camper set up we went out to do some hiking! Here are some of the pictures of the beauty we saw, Enjoy!
Posts
All Comments
© Free Blogger Templates 'Photoblog II' by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP
