Ox Tail

 

Another new food sampled and enjoyed.  The next new food in our culinary adventures was ox tail.  Yet another good pick that Little Man also loved.  So far we are two for two. 

 

Andy put this culinary delight in the crock pot for the day and served it over rice.  It was wonderful.  

Vermont City Marathon

I have been blessed with an amazing community of runners around me.  One of those amazing ladies won a relay team in the Vermont City Marathon, and I really had no excuse for not joining the relay team.  It was the perfect day for running, and I was able to cheer on, run with and celebrate with the amazing running community in Vermont. I loved every minute of it! I was able to hang out with co-workers, my cross country runners and Little Man's friends who's moms were also running the same leg as me while we waited for our teammates running the leg before us.  I was able to run with and cheer on friends who were running longer distances than myself (either a full or half marathon).  It was an incredible day and I was so glad I was able to share it with so many amazing people.

Garden Time

It is Memorial Day weekend, the happiest weekend of the year.  Why, you might ask?  Because it marks the weekend that New England gardeners put their veggies in the ground.  To be honest, there are still a few plants that we bought but have yet to plant (tomatoes, peppers) because the fear of frost still looms. This said, all of the plants/seeds have been bought and all the cold-hardy ones are in the ground. 

 

Task 9: Dandelion Wine

Like most people, I have a million dandelions in my yard.  Unlike most people, I look at them and think, now what can I do with all of those?  Admittedly, the first time I made dandelion fritters; it did not go well and I would never recommend it to anyone.  On I go trying to figure out what to do with all of those darn dandelions. 

This time I decided to try something a little different.  This time I am making dandelion wine.  Even if it does not go well I received all the things I need to make wine out of the whole deal for my birthday this year.  Admittedly, in a year when we pop open that first jar if it does not taste good, I am not doing it again.  There is a reason there are not a lot of people making dandelion wine out there; it is too much darn work.

For starters, you have to pick 2 quarts worth of dandelions (for the recipe we used).  This does not include the green part.  Nope - for dandelion wine, you just use all those little flowers.  This means that after you have picked all of them, you have to separate the flower from the rest of the plant.  After doing this your fingers are this wonderful yellow color that takes days to wash out.  Then you take all of those little flowers and let them steep into a dandelion tea for two days.  After that, you boil them up with a few ingredients, which varies depending on which recipe you are using.  All include orange peels and sugar. 

Once you have achieved the optimal mix, you let it ferment for 6 weeks.  It takes a few days for you to get used to the random bubbling sound that occasionally echoes though the house.  Now, I just view it as my wine happily fermenting away into perfection.  At the end of 6 weeks, we will bottle up our wine and let it sit for a year.  In a year I will let you know how it turned out.  Sorry, if my impatient self has to wait, so do you.  

Task 8: New Food

Since variety is the spice of life, I decided that I would add "try new food" to my list.  I made a list of foods I would like to try, and where to find them, and found that I had a very large list. We are just going to have to try several new foods this year.  To kick off my food curiosities, I decided we would try quail eggs.  Little bite size snacks. 

For starters, I have to admit I was a bit worried about this one.  We have ducks and chickens, both of which we eat the eggs.  Despite what people might say, other then the yolk being darker in duck eggs, there really is not a huge difference between the two.  These however, were a slightly different story.  We hard boiled half of them (we are going to do something different with the remaining 6) and I have to admit, this time there really was more flavor in these snack sized eggs.  I was also worried that the shells would be hard to peel off and found it to be a fairly quick process.  So will I eat them again? Absolutely!

Kale Kid

As we walk through the grocery store, there is this little voice trailing along behind me asking if we can buy kale.  Kale is not on my grocery list; it is not what we have come to the store to buy.  After a few quiet requests for kale it hit me; "What am I doing?"  I should be encouraging this craving. Back to the kale we go for a healthy snack; Little Man for his kale.  There are kale chips in Little Man's future. 

New Baby Chicks

Every two years we purchase a new batch of baby chicks to replace the older ones.  Every year Little Man becomes a bit more interested in the chicks, and becomes better at handling them.  This year he is even a bit more attached to them, as he was incredibly disturbed by the fact that I started referring to them as nuggets.  This may have been partly because Andy processed the older ones on his own this year.  Either way right now they are in their cute stage and a lot of fun. 

Task 7:Ottawa

Due to the extended winter, my "To Do list" for 2014 was temporarily put on hold (kinda, I have been working on some of the longer term things).  Now that the sun is shining, it is time to get back to business.  The next completed task: Go the the Tulip Festival in Ottawa, Canada.  I have heard it is absolutely beautiful.  Maybe.......extended winters can throw things off a bit.

 

When we first arrived in Ottawa we headed up to Parliament Hill.  Beautiful, completely amazing buildings.  Not a single tulip in bloom and slightly overcast.  Bummer.  It actually became a joke that night as we walked around Parliament, as we took pictures of Little Man smelling the tulips that had not opened yet.  I am sure next weekend it will be stunning.  

 While the tulips were a bit of a wash the first day, not all was lost.  Friday was the equivalent to our Memorial/Veterans Day in Canada and we were in the capital city, at what is essentially their White House (which by the way is much easier to walk right up to). We were late enough that we missed all the pomp and circumstance, but not late enough that all the military vehicles were on the main lawn for you to walk right up to and check out.  Not only did we get to check all of them out, we picked a restaurant across the street for dinner and the boys were able to run out and watch the Chinook Helicopter take off. Little Man went to bed happy. 

 The following day I decided to make the most of it and went for a morning run along the canal a block away from our hotel.  Best decision ever! The canal was amazingly beautiful along with the weather that day. They have a pedestrian path and a rec path (on both sides of the canal).  Anyone who has ever run or biked in a tourist area will totally get that amazingness of this.  There were tulips and daffodils in bloom all over the path.  I got back to the hotel and actually did some research to see if there is a marathon in Ottawa that runs along the canal.  There is (I might have to retract my Vermont City statement of never wanting to run another marathon).  Needless to say, I came back from my run and pretty much pushed the boys out the door and into a beautiful day. 

 After my amazing run we spent the morning riding the tulip shuttle from one cute neighbourhood to the next.  Don't be fooled by the picture below, Little Man was less than thrilled by this part of the trip.  Thankfully there are these wonderful lolly pop vendors dispersed throughout the tulips.  A child can not complain when he is sucking on a lolly pop.  Thank you, Mr. Lolly Pop man. 

 After letting the slightly annoyed six year old hang out in the hotel pool for an hour, we were ready to set our sights on other parts of the city and walked to the Byward Market.  This place was amazing and I regret that I was not able to get a good picture of it.  It is four blocks of markets that open to the street, farmers selling their products in the street and restaurants.  It was simply amazing. If I lived anywhere near a place like this, I would be there every day.  I totally fell in love with the market.  

Despite the tulips on Parliament Hill being a total wash, the trip was amazing and I have already planned out a summer and winter trip.  In the summer, the locks are open to boat travel and there is a changing of the guards at Parliament Hill.  In the winter the canal becomes the worlds largest skate trail and Ottawa is home to the Ottawa Senators.  I can't wait to return. 



Green Up Day

The first Saturday in May every year is Green Up Day in Vermont.  A day when all the tree hugging environmental types go and make our state a better place to live.  Little Man loves it! We have our little stretch of road we sign up for, and away we go with our bright green trash bag.  I am not sure if he loves cleaning up or  the fact that our little section is one big swamp in which he gets to test out just how far he can go into the mud before he gets stuck, or floods his mud boots.  He came pretty close to the latter this year, and we found a dead owl.  A little gross, but to a 6 year old it was the coolest thing ever! Just one more successful Green Up Day in the life of a 6 year old. 

Finally!

They are sad looking, but there is finally some color on the ground.