Random 5 Friday~ The Dells

We took a mid week excursion this week, to do something for the kids' split spring break.  For this week's random 5, I thought I would do a brief re-cap.

1.  Mid-week vacations, if you can do it, are the bomb.  They are almost half price, and when doing a theme park type of thing, much less crowded.

2.  In the thirteen years that we have lived in Wisconsin, we have never been to the Dells.  I know, I know, almost treason worthy.  Funny how life has moments of cross-over.  From the moment we walked into the Kalahari, I was transported back to our years living in Las Vegas.  The big, bold colors, attractions and a massive property, felt so familiar.  Such a throw back!

3.  I just finished reading a book called Joy for Beginners.  It was very enjoyable and I guess that you could say the theme of the book dealt with doing things outside of your comfort zone.  It must have been the lingering spirit of that book that lead me into doing a 3 story high ropes course yesterday, and quite successfully I might add.

4.  Boys will be boys in an arcade, but mom reigned supreme on the basketball shoot out, being the only one to make it to the bonus round.

5.  A location with a huge waterpark, theme park and bowling ally to name a few of the activities leaves very tired kids.

Tapped

Several years ago we bought taps online so that we could collect sap and make maple syrup.  This year, with the help of some friends, we are making our first attempt.  This week began with a few days in the 40's (though as it turned out only one of them sunny), so on Sunday B tapped eight trees on our property.  Most of our trees are of the silver maple variety, so not the preferred hard wood, but our research has shown, that we can still get a nice product from the trees.

By Monday morning a few of them were flowing freely.  So far we have collected about a gallon of sap, and our weather is briefly turning cooler again.  It looks like, over the weekend and next week will be the perfect weather for a nice flow. 

With rain expected yesterday afternoon and evening, B rigged some tubing from the taps into lids for the buckets, so that we could keep the water out of them.  So far it has worked pretty slick.  With 35 mile per hour winds overnight, I am anxious to get outside and see if all of our buckets are still attached to the trees.

The most surprising thing is how water like and lightly sweet the sap flowing from the tree is.  I am also struck once again how easy this process is, at least so far.  We will see how it progresses when it comes to cooking time.  More soon.

Random 5 Friday

we have a little stone garden turtle that sits next to our cold frame, look who I found peaking out as I was shoveling the walk earlier this week.

1.  We had another five inches of snow this week, but it looks like we are headed for a real thaw over the next week with daytime temps hitting the mid to upper 30's!

2.  I can not wait until next year when the kids are at the same school.  Right now their breaks are on different schedules which puts a real crimp in trying to plan any fun family travel.  Charles' spring break is next weeks and Sidney's over Easter, so not even close.  We will be taking a long weekend next weekend and packing a weeks worth of fun into it.  Exhausting?  Probably, worth it definitely! :)

3.  We seeded all of our onions in our basement greenhouse last weekend, as of this morning I am on sprout watch.  It is down right crazy how excited that I get seeing those first babies poke through the soil!

4.  I always like to cook traditional dishes around any holiday or festivity.  On Tuesday I made a traditional gumbo for Mardi Gras.  We used to cook Cajun food regularly, on those weekends when I would spend the afternoon watching Justin Wilson and Paul Prudhomme on PBS but it has been years.  It was so tasty, and the kids did not even mind the kick of spice from the andouille.

as found on the paintedpear via pinterest

5.  Who else is ready to throw their windows wide open and let in the Spring air?  I may even try to do it later next week, near 40 is a heat wave, right?  I came across the above graphic last night and had to laugh, oh so true!

 

TEDx

As I sip my coffee before my morning carpool, the snow is once again falling.  My thoughts have been consumed with the food movement even more than usual after Saturday's viewing party. TEDx Manhattan, 'Changing the Way We Eat' left me at once invigorated and overwhelmed.  Virginia Clarke's talk in part illustrated previous social movements and the number of years they took to build, make social and legislative headway and then finally go into a homeostasis.  This calmed my natural instinct of wanting things done right now, a quite exhausting characteristic of mine, again breathing my husbands mantra 'it is a marathon not a sprint.'  The food movement is enjoying exciting expansion and bridging through individual social organizations collaborating, much the concept that I discussed here.

One of my favorite speakers was Matthew Moore, a fourth generation farmer and artist, of Urban Plough.  He is the creator of the Digital Farm Collective and their phenomenal living library.  A resource that is being used in many venues, including grocery stores, to educate people on where their food comes from.  This particular clip was the one he showed during his talk.  It was hypnotic. I absolutely loved how the plant took on the characteristic of breathing as you watch the time of the lifecycle.  Please watch.



Of course when you attend an event such as this, it seems that everything that I have read in the following days dovetailed nicely into my thoughts.

Check out what $5 worth of food can get you around the world...OTHER than a fast food value menu. 

Oh, my this would be fun!

Off topic, but did you see this crazy story?  Wow!

PRAH-leens

I have so many thoughts and so much energy floating around after the TEDx Manhattan yesterday, that I need a few days to process it all and perhaps include some thoughts with my Good Food is Culturally Authentic writing for the Blog Camp Goes to MIT class. 

What to do on a Sunday in early March following a snow when it is a balmy 8 degrees outside? 

Spring clean
bring out the Easter tree and spring decorations
buy a far too expensive bouquet of tulips
paint your nails bright orange
and, make Pralines

After all it is Fat Tuesday in a couple of days!