Stir Fry

Here is the stir fry I made for dinner, in which all of the vegetables, except the garlic, were plucked from the ground a mere 4 hours before being cooked in this dish.  Mmmmm.  It was tasty!

Oh, and the broccoli for the kids was picked from the farm, too.  It turned so dark green when I steamed it.  Mmm as well.

CSA Share #12

Asian greens, broccoli, peppers, lots of summer and winter squash, beans, tomatoes, eggplant, cilantro, parsley, leeks, little carrots, daikon radish and a pumpkin- who could ask for more.   We tried to find another egg to fill out the dozen, but those hens were done producing for the day!  Andrew got to hold some baby chicks on the farm today.  Now he wants some.  Don't think we're zoned for chickens here!

Wampanoag Corn Bread

Another Story of the World Activity Guide project in action.  We've been learning about the Jamestown settlers, the Plymouth settlers, and the Powhatan and Wampanoag tribes in history.  This morning we made some corn bread, Native American style:

Then they ate it for snack while we learned about the Jamestown settlers planting tobacco and buying slaves from Africa to plant and harvest all this tobacco.  

Lake Farmpark

I kind of miss this place.  Eddie and Andrew both loved to go there all the time when they were little, but as Eddie's phobia of bugs increased, his desire to go to the farmpark drastically decreased.  Grandma and I took them there today because I wanted them to see the display made out of balloons by Swifty the Clown.  It was pretty amazing.

The kids liked this cow poop with the flies on it!

My favorite was the bins of balloon vegetables.

They also got a kick out of the Angry Bird.

We started to watch the border collie demonstration, but Eddie was not a happy camper with a bee flying around, so he and I went up to the Plant Science Building, while Grandma and Andrew finished watching.

 They joined us at the Plant Building, and our mouths were watering at the produce growing in the hydroponics lab as well as in the garden beds outside.

Andrew and I also braved the corn maze, which seemed to go on for an eternity, but I think that was mostly because of the blazing sunshine.  It was such a gorgeous day.

Random other photos of the beautiful, sunny day at Lake Farmpark:

Japanese Star Festival- Tanabata

We were learning about the daimyo warrior Hideyoshi and the shogun Tokugawa of 16th century Japan in our history lessons.  For a craft activity, we made vertical wind poems like they do for the Tanabata festival in Japan (which happens in July).  It has been too rainy to hang our wishes and poems outside like they do in Japan:

So, we brought some sticks in the house and hung ours up in the dining room archway.