A Manly Day

Sr. D bought a gun. A 270 rifle. Then he bought another one. A 22 rifle. He takes the boys to shooting ranges and they shoot and feel like men. It's a good bonding experience. They like it.

This is Spencer at an outdoor range. He likes his sunglasses too. He is a good shot. The holes below the bullseye were Sr. D's. He didn't want to shoot over Spencer's.

This is at an indoor range. They rented a pistol and really had fun shooting with it.

He has this hanging in his room now. Hmmm.... It's a man thing is all I can say. :)

A Garden is Growing in My Backyard!

I have had very small luck with gardening in my adult life. But!!! At the beginning of November, Uncle Brandon and Aunt Mindy installed this awesome garden in our backyard. It is heavy plastic bags with holes for drainage, filled with sand and a top layer of soil and mulch. There is a small sprinkler in each bag that is hooked up to our hose with an automatic timer which waters the garden 4 times a day for 1 minute each time. Once the plants start growing, we have a nutrient spray that we spray on the leaves once every two weeks. We planted seeds and waited. This is right after installing and planting. The sprinklers are on. Here are the radishes coming up a couple of weeks later!
And now look at it! We have had a couple of sub-freezing weeks when I had to cover it with sheets, but the plants survived and the garden is starting to really take off! All of this was started with seeds! We have planted radishes, carrots, peas, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, beans, cilantro, thyme, basil, chives, dill, marigolds and zinnias. Some are further along, obviously than others. We also have planted tomato, squash, cantaloupe, peppers and more herb seeds in little peat pods that we will transplant into the garden soon.
Just a few days ago we harvested the bigger spinach leaves in the lower 4 corner bags. In the 3rd to the right bottom bag is our cabbage.

This bag has several things growing. At the top is a pole bean and most of the greens are cilantro. There are also dill and flowers growing.

These peas took off! I harvested about 7 pea pods today. Can you see some of them? Me and Mindy are super excited about this. I will probably do more posts as we keep going.

The Janis Restaurant

Our house is a restaurant. Since Spencer returned from BYU-I, he has taken over the food department for him and Taylor. They have set body building goals and are working hard to acheive them. Spencer gets a portion of the weekly food budget, plans the meals, buys the food and makes the meals for himself and Taylor. For Christmas Spencer got a book he asked for called Muscle Chow. He has made many recipes from it including a very delicious homemade granola. Another recipe was Bison Burgers. Here he is modeling himself with the freshly made bison burgers and an apron Grandma Janis gave Sr. D for Christmas. Spencer loves the apron!:D And here is a beautiful grilled chicken salad.
Emily has also changed her eating and for about 5 weeks (with a week lapse) has eaten almost completely raw foods. Here she is with a salad she made herself that she ate for two consecutive dinners.

She is also doing a cooking class with a good friend from church who is homeschooling and wants to learn to cook healthy. So one day we made, among other things, a raw chocolate mousse pie. The crust is made of walnuts, unsweetened coconut, dates and a pinch of salt. The filling is made with dates, maple syrup, a few drops of vanilla, avocado, cocoa and water. This is topped with sliced strawberries and is a very rich, sweet, chocolate dessert.

So, many evenings when we sit down to dinner, there are three different meals.

Our house is a restaurant.