Super Easy Personal Pizzas

If it’s easy and has to do with cooking, then it’s loved by me.  When it’s loved by the kidlets, it’s a bonus!  Pizza should be a no brainer then.  Even when I take the time to make pizza crust (which really is easier then it sounds), pizza is an easy meal.  And when I go all out and make personal size crusts and let them make their own, I become the Mom Hero…at least for that day.  I found an even easier way to make personal pizzas.  Other then lining up the ingredients and oven duty, I don’t have to put any effort in it at all.  Can’t get easier then that! (…except maybe ordering a pizza in…but then I stress about the cost…and having to open the door during a bad hair day…)

1-2-3 Mosquito Punch!

If it’s not one pest, it’s another!  The battle to have a healthy, productive garden is an ongoing thing here.  But the benefits and rewards outweigh all the troubles…usually.  Last week I could barely walk into my garden without being attacked by a cloud of mosquitoes.  Not a fun experience…plus it makes it kind of hard to tend to the garden needs.

Ants

“Ants are found on all continents except Antarctica, and only a few large islands such as Greenland, Iceland, parts of Polynesia and the Hawaiian Islands lack native ant species.Ants occupy a wide range of ecological niches, and are able to exploit a wide range of food resources either as direct or indirect herbivores, predators and scavengers. Most species are omnivorous generalists but a few are specialist feeders…More than 12,000 species are currently known (with upper estimates of about 22,000)…” quoted from Wikipedia.

Thinking Outside the Box

Or in the box as the case may be.  I mentioned in Chickens, Chickens Everywhere that we’ve run across a few minor issues with the chicks.  Nothing earth shattering that would make us not want to continue in our Chicken Nugget adventures, but annoying nonetheless.  Thank goodness I have a GadgetMan living here!

Chickens, Chickens Everywhere

I introduced our newest additions in an earlier post.  They’ve grown so much in the couple of weeks that we’ve had them…and thankfully we haven’t lost any of them.  The kidlets are loving every minute of it…well almost every minute.  It turns out I’m allergic to the pine bedding we’re using in the brooder.  There’s not much I can do about it except take allergy stuff.  I know…I know.  You’re thinking we should just get different bedding, right?  That does seem like a simple solution…except we bought a big block of the stuff and I’m loathe to waste it.  Taking allergy stuff and cleaning out the brooder daily helps.  That’s the part CareBear and GadgetJunior aren’t too thrilled about because they get to do the cleaning.  Little do they know how much more work cleaning out the coop is going to be!

Beans, Beans and More Beans

My family likes to eat things like chili, refried beans and baked beans.  But dry beans are not my favorite things to cook with.  I never seem to be able to get them cooked right no matter how long I cook them.  They never get soft enough no matter how long I cook them.  So it’s always been easier to just buy the canned stuff.

Burn Healer

A few weeks ago, GadgetMan took the 3 older kidlets on a Ward camping trip.  I wasn’t feeling up to it and kept the younger ones home with me to give the older ones a break and some time with daddy.  The directions weren’t accurate on time so they didn’t get there until after dark, got rained on, the tent leaked while they slept, and they got thoroughly dirty the next day….a typical camping trip.  CareBear made a friend out of a former “enemy” and got teased for hanging out with a boy.  KnightJester and GadgetJunior got their teeth rattled on the dune buggy rides and climbed every rock and log in the area.  I think they all had a blast.  At least they all got some fresh air and freedom.

The only real mar on the whole trip happened at the end,

Adventures in Pickling

Over the weekend GadgetMan and I had the opportunity to participate in a Preparedness Workshop.  We were asked to teach a class on pickling.  Okay…I can not say why this happened

Garden Triumphs

Winter seemed to drag its feet into spring and now spring is racing into summer.  Even though our weather here doesn’t get to freezing very often, little spring is still frustrating for gardens.  Weather in the high 90s and low 100s is always hard on young plants…any plant really.  I always worry that my little garden is going to scorch.  But so far so good.  Things are covered and shaded as need be and seem to be doing well if not thriving.  Here are a few pictures of my particular triumphs.

Breathe Easy Candle Tarts

I’m pleasantly surprised at how well these homemade essential oil candle tarts are working.  I was hopeful of course, and all my research indicated that it should work at least as well as the store plug in vapor things.  But I’m always a little cautious with my hopes about things like this.  Often things are really “too good to be true”.