Sommers Ranch Homestead Field Trip

We have an awesome group of homeschoolers here locally, and we often have the opportunity to go on field trips together.  What's even better is that there are some great Moms in the group who are willing to let my nine year old tag along when I'm stuck at home with the daycare kids.  A few weeks ago they went to the Sommers Ranch Homestead, and someone just shared pictures with me, so here they are.  (They also went to a Painted Sage Farm that week, which is a local co-op greenhouse and farm, but I don't have any pictures from that trip.)

Our son (on the right) had a blast with his friend.

Despite their size difference these two are less than a year apart in age.

This is a picture of the homestead in winter.  I love that they have preserved this place.  

 There are a lot of interactive things for the kids to do - such as gathering eggs from the chickens.

 There are demonstrations showing the kids how things used to be done.

They even got to help make bread, and then enjoy the end product.

 There were horses for them to ride, and other outside play things.

(I pulled this photo from the internet - these kids were not part of our group, but how fun is this see-saw?)

They learned to do a little roping.

And they did a little leather work.  They made coasters.  

They've really done a nice job of making this a hands-on historic site.  I highly recommend it if you're ever near Pinedale, Wyoming.  Here's a link to their facebook site if you're interested https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sommers-Ranch-Homestead/215858238436648

June Reading

 Well, I guess I'm back on track with my reading.  I made it through 9 books this month.  This is what I read, in the order I read it.  In the picture, the first book I read each month is always on the bottom, with the most recent on the top.

1. A Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama (The Samurai's Garden, which I read earlier this month was much better)
2. City of Saints by Andrew Hunt (set in 1920's Salt Lake City - an excellent book with a Dick Tracy/Dragnet feel to it)
3. The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult (the first Picoult novel I've read and I LOVED it.)
4. 22 Britannia Road by Amanda Hodgkinson (not great)
5. Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap (Horrible. Not worth reading at all. Had to read it for book club. Complete waste of time.)
6. Trekkerman: Walking the World's Best Trails by Ric Samulski (Samulski is from here, and used to own the newspaper I wrote for when I first came to town in 1994.  He didn't own it then though.  I'm not at all into hiking, but this was a local book club selection, and it was surprisingly good.  Very humorous.)
7. The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall (interesting non-fiction book about how story is such a part of being human.  Very thought provoking.)
8. You Are One of Them by Elliott Holt (good book about the cold war)
9. The Walnut Tree by Charles Todd (fluff fiction, with an impossible storyline, but entertaining)

I read a total of 11.5 inches this month, in nine books, with a total of 2,769 pages.  For the year to date that makes 42 books, 49.25 inches (over four feet!) and 12,045 pages. :D

The stack on the left is the pile of books I read this month, and the books on the right are the ones I have checked out to read soon.  This doesn't include two of the book club books I don't know about yet. I should find out what they are early this week.  I don't expect to get through the whole pile, but I'm hoping to make good progress on them.

 The other day when I had my daycare kids out on our playground, I couldn't find my four year old.  A quick search found him in my bedroom, in the chair.  He told me he was reading books. (He had been reading the one that is at his feet in the picture.  He threw it down when I came in with the camera).

He loves to read, and he loves to be alone.  He had been outside alone right before we all headed out, then went in when all the kids came out.  Later, he went back out after all the kids came in :)  He's his own private little man.  I guess he takes after me in that respect.  I love to be alone where it's quiet too.

 And then there's this creative little guy.  He found a knight, but couldn't find the horse that goes with him, so he grabbed a little stuffed horse to improvise with.

Pretty sharp :)

Wyoming Wildflowers

I took my nine year old up to Bible camp yesterday.  He's very excited.  It's the first year he is old enough to stay the entire week.  He's gone to science camp up there before but that is just over one night.  So getting to stay the whole week is a real treat.  Along with the preaching services, they have tons of great activities, including horseback riding, rappelling down a huge rock cliff, and a zip line.  He was nervous but excited.  

 I never can resist taking my camera along when I drive up to that camp.  The scenery is amazing and this week the wildflowers were everywhere.  I don't know the names of all of these, but I still love taking pictures of all of them.

This was the plant I was really hoping to find.  It's called elephant's head (for obvious reasons).  I didn't find any.  I grabbed this photo from online.  

 Even though I didn't find the one I was looking for, there were plenty of other beautiful flowers of all colors, shapes and sizes.

 The area the camp is located in is gorgeous.  Some day I'd love to live up there - somewhere very remote where we would be snowed in all winter ;)

Speaking of being snowed in, I found this book at the library - Snowed In by Barbara M. Lucas - and it has become my new favorite. :)

 

 I don't know what these are, but they're very interesting, tall plants.  I wonder if they will bloom, or if that white at the top is the extent of their showiness.  I might have to look closer at these when I go back to pick up our son on Saturday.

I love this exposed tree root. :)
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 I think my favorite flower though is the columbine.  The white flowers in the photo here are columbines.  They grow in clumps and seem to like low areas - like they've been washed down the hill or something.

See the millions of flowers?

The photo before this was a close-up of this same area.  There are so many flowers in this area that you wouldn't be able to walk without stepping on one.  The whole forest is like that right now.  So pretty.

Here's a closer view of a clump of columbine flowers.  I'm going to plant some of these seeds around here (though I know they will probably just turn into a deer and moose buffet.)

And here's a close-up of the individual flower.

 

 This is blue lupine, which also grows in a clump or bush.  These are very pretty too.  I might plant some of these seeds while I'm at it.

Anyway, as you can tell, I had a nice, slow, peaceful drive home from the camp.  I was looking so forward to the nine year old getting a chance to go to camp that I wasn't anticipating the slightly sad feeling I had after dropping him off.  They say absence makes the heart grow fonder.  Well last night all I could think about was how helpful he really is around here.  I get easily annoyed with him because he's loud and all boy, but in reality, he's a pretty great kid.  I'm not sad today.  I'm excited for him to be having a fun week at camp :)

Picnic Food and a Bike Basket

 We've been eating a ton of strawberries.  They're a favorite around here and we've been able to get some really good ones lately.  The one year old is particularly fond of them.  He brought me one this morning with the leaves still attached and told me to "open it." :)

We had a church picnic this afternoon.  This was a pasta salad I made for our allergic-to-everything one year old.  It consists of rice noodles, peas and carrots, egg-free mayonnaise, salt, pepper, and dill.

I also made a tomato cucumber salad that was a hit with everyone. It's another thing our allergic-to-everything son could have.  I just chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, added a little red onion and parsley, then tossed it with a little olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper.  It looked so good that it was practically gone by the time we went though the line.  Thankfully I had grabbed a big serving of it ahead of time for our little one.  

 I also made an attempt at cheesecake brownies, which I really feel like were a flop.  They were too soft, so it was difficult to peel the papers off and have the cupcake hold it's consistency, and all the chocolate chips that had been mixed into the cream cheese mixture just ended up sinking to the bottom and sticking to the paper.  I also didn't think the cake part was all that flavorful.  I'll have to try a different recipe if I ever do these again.  I like the concept, but wasn't thrilled with the results.  I still took them to the picnic though since I had made four dozen of them and there's no way I wanted that many sitting around here :)

When I ordered my bike, I forgot to order a basket for the front.  I'm still going to do that, but in the mean time I needed some way to pack stuff around.  I run to the post office and to stores and want to not have to wear a backpack or carry a bag.  I checked one of the local stores (they specialize in bike stuff) and yikes!  I don't want to spend my life savings on a basket. Ha.  So I came up with a simple solution.

I attached a $3 crate I had sitting around the house to the platform piece on the back of the bike.  Originally I planned to put a baby seat there, but the platform makes it so that won't fit, and I don't want to remove it because it's part of what makes the style of the cruiser.  I looked at saddle-bag type baskets but they have the same problem.  Because of that platform piece, they won't fit.  I do still intend to get a basket for the front of the bike, but for now (and maybe for good) I like the basket on the back ... even if it looks a little odd.

 I attached it with zip ties.  It works okay, but I need quite a few more of them for this to be more stable.  That or I just need to tighten the ones that are on it.  It is fairly stable.  I went to the dollar store and had a full load coming home, including several bottles of gatorade, and it held everything fine.  But it does wobble a bit.  I also saw online that I can get a net type of bungee cord for fairly cheap, and I definitely plan to do that.  Then I won't have to worry about mail blowing out or losing anything when it's windy.

This evening we went to the park with our boys.  The nine year old and I rode our bikes, and the four year old rode his tricycle.  The one year old and Dad walked.

When we got to the park, our four year old just rode around and around the park on his trike.  See the bird in the picture?  We could hear him saying, "Birdie! Wanna ride with me?" and then patting the yellow "trunk" of his bike ;)

We took a few snacks along, including a bag of chocolate covered raisins.  Aren't these just the biggest chocolate covered raisins you've ever seen?

I took my book along but never had time to open it.  I wanted to finish this one by tonight, but it didn't happen.  Trekkerman by Ric Samulski is our library's daytime book club pick for the month (to be discussed next week).  Samulski lives here and used to own the newspaper I first worked for when I moved here back in the mid 90's, though he didn't own it when I worked there.  It's about hiking some of the world's greatest trails, and it's very interesting and humorous - even though I'm not at all into backpacking.  I wasn't too excited about this being the pick since I absolutely hated Wild by Cheryl Strayed, which our club read in February.  But this one is way better than hers.

 The one year old took his cow to the park.  He's all about cows these days and usually has a little cow with him or nearby.

Wild man on a motorcycle...

And another wild man on a dinosaur.

 We live so close to the park that the nine year old ran back to the house for his football and we all played catch.  It was a lot of fun.  Even the one year old got in on the action.

Anyway, we had a pretty fun day!