Owen was rather disappointed that we couldn't use the sled as soon as we got home last night - in the dark, 1/2 past his bed time. This morning, he was keen to get going and try it out. He did a bit of training in the kitchen while I got breakfast ready. He had seen the big kids on the hill near Abram's office the other day, so he already knew he'd being going, "down, fast, sled!" I left them all bundled up to do some sledding at the park.
Afterwards, they also stopped by the museum to see the critters and see a planetarium show. Though Abram had taken a snack, Owen preferred to have sardines from Daddy's office. We all shared some warm coconut milk with honey and vanilla before Abram and Owen went down for naps; they were worn out.

Goodwill Find

We went toured the town this evening looking for a suitable sled for Owen. While we were out, we stopped by the Goodwill thrift store, and I picked up 8 board books for $4. One had a ripped outer spine, but otherwise, they were in good health. There were certainly lots of cruddy books to sort through, but these were some gems.
Even shopping for new items takes some sorting and looking around. We went to Walmart, Kmart, another Walmart, by the big gorcery store, and finally to a sporting goods store to find a suitable, tough, plastic sled that we wouldn't need a 5-year financing plan to purchase.

Facebook

I am no longer one of the few remaining members of the human race under the age of 125 who is not on Facebook. A few of you have already seen me there, and I look forward to seeing a few more of you. Tata for now!

Cosumer Product Safety Commission - Protecting Children?

In case you haven't already heard, a new federal law will go into effect February 10, 2009. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act in intended to protect our children from lead and phthalates - a laudable goal, right? Actually it seems rather than protecting children from dangerous chemicals, it will serve to squash small businesses, stifle entrepreneurship, and possibly even close your local library to children.
How so?
The new law requires all makers and sellers (or distributers) of any products marketed to children under 12 to have their products tested to ensure they do not have lead levels that exceed 600 parts per million, and they must not contain more than 0.1% phthalates. Lead is linked with decreased IQ as well as other health problems, and phthalates are endocrine disrupters because the body recognizes them as hormones. Certainly, parents and toy makers alike would do good to keep these "out of the mouths of babes."
The new law seems as though it will only create more red tape and expense rather than making it easier for parents to choose safe toys for their children. The recent recalls for leaded toys have not been over hand made wooden toys that stay at home moms make during their children's naps times or for diapers or slings sewn by hard-working mothers so that they can stay home with their children and contribute to their household incomes. Nor have they been for books, but these items are all covered by the new law along with the cheap, plastic, made-in-China toys that are actually problematic.
The CPSC issued a memo that suggests that people will still be able ot buy and sell used items as long as they do not contain lead and have not been recalled, but they have yet to issue a ruling on what to do about libraries - if they will be able to continue to allow children under 12. They are in library limbo, and may not be able to continue to distribute untested books to children unless the CPSC rules otherwise.
While large manufacturers will be able to absorb the costs and invariably pass them on to their consumers, small-scale operations will either have to operate inviolation of the letter of the law- though certianly not the spirit of it if, indeed, the spirit of the law was to make toys safer. This latest bow to the almihgty god, Safety, is not unlike efforts to make uniform safety reglations for foods. Just as I have a membership card that allows me to purhase underground milk, cream, and other dangerous goods, we may one day find ourselves going to underground libraries or secretively meeting knitters in back allies to buy contraband booties with matching hats. Whoever thought these would be acts of civil disobedience?

Hiding the Beef Heart

Did you say, "Eeeeewww!"? Many of us are not used to eating "parts," and as creatures of habit, we may tend to think of things we don't eat as gross. Abram, Owen, and I like the taste of beef, lamb, and chicken livers, and we try to eat them often because they are jamb-packed with good stuff. We also eat the heart. The heart is a muscle, of course, and tastes similar to other muscle meats, but I'm not particularly fond of the flavor or the texture. (It's probably all in my head :-).) It is has a different nutrient profile than beef "meat." In particular, it is much higher in vitamins B-12 and riboflavin. I used to grind it myself, but recently, I had an epiphany. I can ask the folks we get meat from to grind it for me for no extra charge - duh.
We just got another 1/4 beef from the grass-fed stand at the central market. This is a really economical way to purchase meat. We got 1 heart, 41 pounds of ground beef, 10 steaks (variety), and 5 roasts (liver and bones to come later as they forgot to bring them) - all organically raised and grass-fed - for under $400! This fits into about 1/2 of a large upright deep freezer.
So, back to the heart: Since I'm still not overly fond of eating heart alone, I parcel it out into ~ 2" balls, freeze them on a baking sheet, store them in a zip bag, and add one to a pound of ground beef when I cook it. It's really easy to pull out a package of ground beef and one ball of ground heart to thaw in the morning to dinner, and at this ratio, it is completely indistinguisable.

Yarn For Baby Blankets

Owen has been a bit under the weather this last week. Actually, he's had a runny nose (with a cough off and on) since Christmas. I have no idea what could be causing it. I just don't think we can eliminate anything else from our diets without starving and going insane. We finally went to the doctor yesterday; he gave us a homeopathic remedy, pulsatilla, for Owen, and he seems to be getting better. He ate last night and today, and he was much perkier!
He's needed a lot of snuggling and holding lately, but I have found a bit of time to get going on the three baby blankets I am making for the babies due this spring - baby Tuggle, baby Owens, and baby Ring. I found some undyed 100% wool yarn at the craft store, and have tried my hand at dying with cake dyes. The yarn above was made with green and blue dyes, and another one was made with yellow and red. I'm looking forward to crocheting it up into a blanket. Here's what I did to dye it:

• Divided the yarn into sections and placed them into large glass baking dishes
  
• Rinsed the yarn with a 1:4 solution of distilled vinegar:water, squeezing out excess but making sure all the yarn was wet
• Mixed dye solutions: 1:4 distilled vinegar:water plus Wilton Cake colors - I used about 4 cups of water to about 1/4 -1/2 t. dye for 4 ounces of wool yarn. This gave me pretty bright colors. I had 16 ounces of yarn in all and used 4 different colors.
  
• Poured the dye solutions over the appropriate areas of yarn and made sure all sections of the yarn were wet with dye
  
• Covered the baking dishes with foil and placed them in a 250F oven for hour, then turned it off and left them overnight - Actually, it was about 24 hours later when I got around to the next step.
• The yarn had taken up all the dye, and the solution that remained in the pans with the yarn was clear. I rinsed the yarn a few times with cold water, dried it in a clean bath towel, and hung it to dry.
• Wound it into a balls to use

It is important to use acid (vinegar) and heat to set the dyes. It is also important not to felt the yarn by agitating it during the process or shocking it with very hot or cold water.

Up To Speed #5

Soon after out return from the South, we spent a couple of days in Philadelphia where Abram attended the APA conference for an interview. We ate at the White Dog Cafe (known for serving local foods), visited the Liberty Bell (which Owen called the "Jingle Bell") and Independence Hall (Please see the picture with Owen and Abram in the room where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated and written.), and went to the Academy of Natural Sciences where we saw dinosaur (and other) bones, petted a variety of live critters including a hissing cockroach, and road a metal turtle. We shopped at the Reading Terminal Market and had lunch. Owen really enjoyed taking the train from Lancaster to Philadelphia and riding the subway trains in town. He also enjoyed the hotel pool.

Up To Speed #4

While we were in Norfolk to for Karie and Allen's wedding, we went bowling. Owen was impressed with the cool shoes he got to wear, and enjoyed rolling his 6# ball the first half of game #1. We all enjoyed having the gutter guards up; I mean, we used the gutter guards since we were playing with the kids.


Today, more snow fell. Now we have a nice, thick blanket the covers the grass well - maybe 2". Owen enjoyed playing outside for a little while with Daddy just before dinner. This snow, like the last one, was just not wet enough to make a snowman. Owen asked while he was nursing to sleep if we could try again tomorrow. We'll give it a shot.

Up To Speed #3 Plus a Recipe

Here's Owen in the adorable little gnome hat Aunt Lauren made him for Christmas; Roman and Keiko look on. Looking through the Christmas pictures from the Ring family, they are mostly blurry. I think people really were moving that fast. I also think we need to learn a bit more about our new (used) camera. Owen really loves his little hat. Today, we were almost ready to walk out the door to head to he natural history museum when I ran back to the bathroom to get a band-aid. Owen followed and looked through the drawer for a comb, took off his hat, very carefully ran the comb through his hair a few times, and placed the hat right back on his head.

Tonight I made a new recipe, coconut flounder, and we were almost through it before I decided y'all might like it too. So, I snapped a couple of pictures before it was gone. We also had a watermelon radish cut up with some olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. I just discovered these this week. They are fresh and local and organic. That's saying a lot when the temps are less than hospitable to life. They are about the size and shape of a turnip, and look rather like a green-tinged turnip. Inside, they are pink - like a watermelon. They taste like a very mild radish. We all love them.


































Coconut Flounder
2 lbs. flounder fillets (or similar)
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup coconut, dried and shredded (unsweetened)
1/2 bunch cilantro
1T. coconut flour (wheat flour would probably do just as well)
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
coconut oil for frying

Cut fish into ~3" squares. Blend coconut, cilantro, flour, salt, and pepper in blender or food processor. Dip fish into egg then coat with dry coconut mixture. Pan fry in hot coconut oil. Serve hot.
(Coconut oil is a great oil for cooking because it is stable at higher temperatures than olive oil. I think lard would work just as well.)

Up To Speed #2

This morning we all went to the Central Market where we ordered a 1/4 beef. Now that Abram has accepted another one-year appointment at F&M, we can live like people who aren't going on the lam any time soon. It is a lot more economical to buy meat in bulk, and we can store it in our freezer. Later, we dropped Abram off at the office to do a bit of work while Owen and I went to the toddler gym. After his nap, Owen got a trip to the library with Daddy; he'd asked a couple of times since we returned home from our travels to go there. They brought home a stack of books including an Italian picture dictionary and a couple of books on tape in Italian.

Here are a couple of photos from the day we picked up pecans at my great-grandmother's house. Allen and Karie invited us to go, and Owen slept through most of it. It was nice to forage for food from trees planted by our ancestor; I remember picking up pecans there when I was little, and Murmur, who declined any pecans since she had enough to shell already remembered her mother picking them up every day before school was dismissed so that the children wouldn't take them on their way down the hill from the school past her field and pecan trees.

Up To Speed

It's been a long time since I posted, so you will all need to be gotten up to speed. A lot of you have told me that you enjoy reading about what we are up to, and here I start off the new year by letting you down. We were glad to spend over two weeks visiting with our families, and we are glad to be back home finally settling back into the day to day normal life even if the highs here have been in the teens! this week. Let me tell you, in case you are wondering how that feels. It is COLD! - bone chillingly, painfully cold! On the way to Harrisburg Wednesday, the river was full of ice! (Can I use enough exclamation points to convey my shock?) Honestly, I've never seen a real river full of ice; I thought rivers only froze in Siberia and Alaska. Nope, right here in PA, the river freezes.
Here are a few photos of our early "Christmas" morning before we left on our long trip. I love the progression of Owen "opening"his kitchen. Abram is sporting his hand made gift - socks.