The last update on the kitchen was over a month ago when I left the DW with two 5-gallon buckets catching water from the sink while we waited for the new counter-top to arrive. Luckily for her (actually, luckily for me) things were like that for less than a week – it was supposed to take over two weeks for the new top to come in – before we had the new top and sink installed and all of the appliances reconnected.

With the cabinets and plumbing re-assembled, I’ve been working on miscellaneous jobs as time permits to finish this project up. That included painting the entry door in the kitchen. The door was installed by the previous owner, but was just factory primed and never painted. That was so long ago, that no matter how many times we cleaned it, it still looked dingy and dirty. So with the help of a “volunteer” all of the glass was taped off before we pulled the pins on the hinges and carried it outside.

Five cans of spray paint over the course of the next 48 hours and the door looked as good as new – actually, it looked better than new since it had never been painted.

After letting the paint cure for another day the DW and I decided to try something a little different. The kitchen side of the door will be encased in white trim and next to a white pantry – is that starting to sound like a lot of white in one corner? Since the rest of the kitchen now has black accents, we got out a can of black spray paint and painted the grill on the door black.

What did it look like finished? I’ve been instructed not to post any more pictures of the kitchen until it is completely finished. That means I need to fill this hole first…

One pantry… coming up.

We had plans for Saturday afternoon/evening that had to be canceled last minute. The kiddos were looking forward to it and rather disappointed, so the DW and I thought we’d pull the tents out of the closet and go camping.

I use the word camping rather loosely. You’ll notice we didn’t even leave the back yard. But, for a last moment get-a-way for the kiddos. It worked perfectly.

With plenty of help, it only took a few minutes to have both of the tents ready. There was some great debate over who was going to sleep where that night – the DW and Peanut already decided they were sleeping in the house. At first, Sissy and Potato Boy thought it would be cool to share the small tent – and be independent. That didn’t last long once Sissy saw how much larger the other tent was. Then, Potato Boy was set on spending the night by himself in the small tent. That lasted until dusk. That’s when I was told I was sleeping in the small tent while the kiddos slept in the large tent. (This actually sounded like the best deal all night.)

Even though Peanut didn’t spend the night in the tent, she still got to join in on some of the fun before dark. Once she figured things out with a little help from her sister, the tent door became an instant game of peek-a-boo.

Oh, and once it got dark and the dog started barking at a distant dirt bike my exile to the small tent was over for some reason.

With four kiddos running around, I’ve come to learn there are many funny-scary-humorous-interesting-never-know-what’s-next aspects of parenting. Sometimes, it’s simply their perspective, and how they express it, that keeps us on our toes. Here’s just a few examples from this week…

During supper one night the conversation somehow turned to 90’s music. Potato Boy was listening as Sissy was naming songs she knew that were so old they had to be from the 90’s when he speaks up with “Can you tell us what it was like to live in the 1900’s?” Sissy immediately added: “Yeah, where you alive during disco?” If you consider they were born when the “Y2K” scare was just a bad joke and have never mistakenly put 19– on anything, I guess it could seem like an ancient time. I’m just not sure where the disco thing came from.

And then there’s Lulu. Lulu and I were walking back to the house from the garden one morning when the dog goes running past as if in a race to beat us there. Lulu, after watching the dog run past, goes “Dad, dogs lick their privates. They don’t have toilet paper like we do.” I’m willing to bet that’s a thought most of us have never processed before.

With this group, who knows what’s next.

Just in case you needed an excuse to swing by DQ and treat yourself to a blizzard…

From UIHC…

BRRRRRRR! Blizzards in August? Ice cream fans can help children treated at University of Iowa Children’s Hospital by visiting their local Dairy Queen on August 8. During this day, participating Dairy Queen locations will donate proceeds from the sale of every Blizzard to UI Children’s Hospital through Children’s Miracle Network.

By the way… today’s the 8th, so don’t miss out. Can’t make it? That’s ok, just call and order your blizzard vouchers through the Children’s Miracle Network and you can treat yourself any time before the end of the year. More info here.

A few weeks back I was helping my brother set a few fence posts in his pasture. Here’s what the corner post hole looked like when I was done digging….

The hole was just under four feet deep and full of water. Now compare that to what we dug through while putting the pasture fence in at my place…

Plenty of rock and occasional buried “treasures.” I guess if it was prime land neither one of use would be fencing it off for pasture.

When I mentioned in passing on Monday that we took the kiddos to the drive-in for a movie over the weekend I didn’t think it was that big of deal, but judging by some of the feedback I received I guess the drive-in is worth a little bit of discussion.

Earlier last week, the DW’s sister called and asked if we’d like to join her family at the drive-in. So Saturday night we all piled in the car (Hey! I wanted to sit there!) and were off to the movies. (Nooooooo!!! This isn’t the way to the movie! This is the way to daycare! No! No! No!) The drive-in is just over an hour away. (Are we there yet?) Not bad if you consider drive-ins are not that common any more. (Can we open the gummy bears now?) According to Drive-Ins.com there were a total of 72 drive-in movie theaters in Iowa back in the day. (Do you smell that?) Of those 72 theaters, only 3 remain open in addition to the one we visited in Maquoketa – one in Grandview, Newton, and Spirit Lake. (Stop touching me!)

The drive-in in Maquoketa is called the 61 Drive-In Theatre. (How much longer?)I don’t think the place has changed a bit since the first time I was there over 15 years ago. (I’m hungry.) There’s a screen and a concession building that houses the projector in the middle of a corn field – not much to change. (Did I say you could eat my popcorn!)

I think what I like best about the drive-in is that it’s a great spot to take a kid to a “big screen” movie without the theater drawbacks. (I wanted the last Milk Dud!) Most of the people sit outside their car in lawn chairs or on blankets – so the kiddos aren’t restricted to bouncing on a chair with a folding seat like in a theater. (I don’t want to share the last juice!) Additionally, with so much open space they can still act like kids during the movie and not disturb anyone else – within reason, or course. (That’s my chair!) Plus, since the audio is fed through an FM station, we can control how loud the explosions are if anyone falls asleep.

The only draw back of the night, besides the chilly weather (You stole my blanket!), was that the first movie of the double feature started at 8:45. (When’s it going to start?) Often the double feature is a G or PG followed by something geared more towards an older crowd, but Saturday night was a double kid’s animated movie night. (I gotta go potty!) Meaning the second movie – which the kiddos wanted to watch just as much as the first – wouldn’t start until around 11.

It was the first time for any of the kiddos at a drive-in, so once darkness settled in and screen lit up they were a little beside themselves the entire night. (Dad, this is the best movie ever!) Sissy and a couple of her cousins claimed the back of the SUV and eventually had it looking like a slumber party. (Mom, can we make this something we do at least once a year?) Potato Boy claimed his comfy lawn chair and all the popcorn. And, Lulu simply proclaimed it was the best movie ever… three minutes into the first movie. (Yeah… how about next week?)

By the way… July 29th marked the 30th anniversary of the release of National Lampoon’s Vacation. Who can’t relate in some fashion to the Griswold’s cross-country trip to Walley World?

It’s the end of July, so I thought I’d share a few pictures of where the garden’s at. With a few exceptions, things aren’t doing too bad with the goofy weather.

Despite cutting the red raspberries back this spring to skip the summer crop and encourage a heavier fall crop, we still have a bunch of berries already. I’m not sure what’s caused it, but I won’t complain.

The potatoes are finished blooming and have started to die off. We’ve been digging a hill at a time for a while now – just enough for a meal. I’ve started to notice bugs in a few potatoes so the kiddos and I spent a few hours on Sunday digging about a third of what was out there – probably just shy of 100 lbs – and moving them into the basement.

The red potatoes seemed more constant than the whites this year, but both did well. The only light spot was the Yukon Golds. One hill would have a meal’s worth of potatoes and the next would have one the size of a golf ball and nothing more.

The peas have all come and gone at this point.

Since the kiddos passed on having their own pumpkin patch this year, we found a spot in the garden for a few seeds.

The leaves are so thick from the top that you can’t see any of the pumpkins that have set on, but they’re there. If I remember correctly, there should be some butternut squash in there somewhere as well.

I always have an issue with missing cucumbers until they’re the size of zucchini, so this year I planted them along side of a cattle panel. It’s pretty simple to convince them to grow up instead of out and it makes finding the cucumbers a lot easier.

We even took a crack at making our own dill pickles last night. If you look closely, you’ll notice there’s a few spears in with all the slices. Lulu was helping and thought some of the cucumbers should be sliced differently. I didn’t think it’d be a bad idea of have a few spears each time we open a new jar. All of the jars sealed up perfectly, but don’t ask me how the pickles turned out. The jars have to sit a few days before we can open one back up and taste.

The green peppers are just getting started, but stuffed peppers aren’t far off.

It’s hard to say how the eggplant are doing. There were two eggplant that set on early and were just about ready to pick… until the dog decided she wanted them. I need to start watching them a little closer to see if she’s picking the smaller ones, too. As of this morning, there were only blossoms and eggplants the size of golf balls. I won’t get too excited if the dog steals a few veggies throughout the summer. If she didn’t keep the raccoons out of the garden as well as what she does (we have a lot of them in the nearby timber and cornfields) we wouldn’t get anything out of the garden.

It feels like we’ve been picking green beans forever, but they’re still blooming. At least all of them are being put to good use.

I’m only going to show you the “good” picture of the carrots. I sowed all of the carrots in beds instead of rows this year, but with the wet spring/summer we weren’t able to keep up with weeding all of them. Some of the beds look great. If the carrots underneath look as good as the tops, we’ll be set. We just don’t talk about the other carrot beds.

And then there are the tomatoes. I’ve been looking at green tomatoes for 6 weeks and have yet to have one ripen. To make matters worse, blight has set in and all of the plants are slowly dying off. With the cool, wet summer it is apparently a pretty wide spread problem this year. At this point, we won’t have to worry about freezing many tomatoes later this summer.

Finally, it wouldn’t be summer if we weren’t swimming in zucchini. The DW and Lulu whipped up a batch of zucchini muffins yesterday while Peanut was napping. Muffins with zucchini in them have to be good for you, right?

With a week of weather that felt more like the end of September than the end of July, we had a weekend packed full of things to do – the county fair, a movie at the drive-in, more work in the kitchen, and catching up in the garden to name a few – which means a Monday post with more pictures and less talking.

A Rainbow After A Midweek Thunderstorm

Peanut and Lulu Working on Their Social Skills

We Started Digging Potatoes

Clowning Around While Picking Beans

Peanut’s Belated Birthday Crown – Complements of Lulu

Progress in the Kitchen

A July Afternoon – Who Would Have Guessed

A Happy Group of Kiddos

When planting the garden this spring, the DW and I thought it was a safe bet to go heavy on peas, carrots, and green beans given Peanut’s diet. So far, we missed on the peas – Peanut doesn’t care for them pureed and though she loves to pick them up and eat them whole, her stomach can’t handle digesting the skin on them quit yet. (No worries, there’s plenty of room in the freezer so they won’t go to waste.) If the carrots turn out, we expect them to be a hit – Peanut loves cooked carrots and the rest of the kiddos will eat them raw faster than I can wash them.

As for the green beans, though we’re currently picking green beans by the bucket, I think we underestimated how many we might need. The main staple of Peanut’s diet is still her green bean shake that we started her on this winter.

The “recipe” has changed slightly over the last few months, but the shake is still mainly green beans – so much so, that until recently, it was a common practice for me to stop by the grocery store and (almost) clean them out of green bean baby food once a week (I didn’t have the heart to take the last one or two.) That is, until the last few weeks.

We’re now picking over 2 gallons of green beans every other day. It’s become a nightly routine around here to put the kids to bed and then start to clean and cook beans. Since Peanut will be on her green bean shake into the foreseeable future, we haven’t messed around with trying to can any of the beans. Instead, they’re cooked until soft and then straight to the blender to be pureed.

We normally have to add just a bit of water to get the beans to “baby food” consistency. Then it’s poured into ice cube trays and placed in the freezer for a few hours to freeze.

Once frozen, the beans are removed from the trays and put in freezer bags. (The DW has gotten pretty good at knowing exactly how many cubes she needs to thaw out the day before we need them.)

If you want to make a big pile of green beans disappear in a hurry throw them in a blender. If you want to make them disappear even faster, start calculating how many ounces of pureed green beans Peanut consumes in a week. We have a slightly larger standard blender – the last graduation mark is at 56 ounces. Conveniently, that’s exactly what it takes for one week of shakes.

I occasionally follow a garden blogger who has come up with a pretty creative way of unloading extra zucchini by combining it with the old juvenile game of ding-dong-ditch. Simply sneak up to the neighbor’s front door, drop off a few zucchini, ring the door bell, and take off. Tempting… very tempting.

Traditionally, there’s three main uses for zucchini in our house: 1) sliced, battered, fried with a little butter, and topped with a homemade lemon sauce, 2) diced and sauteed in olive oil with various seasoning, 3) grated and froze for zucchini muffins.

At this point the zucchini is rolling in and we have enough grated zucchini for muffins every other week for a year, so the DW and I have been testing out some other creative ways to use zucchini this year. We haven’t made it all the way through the list, but we haven’t been disappointed yet…

Zucchini Grinders

Ratatouille

Zucchini Fries

Zucchini Spaghetti

Zucchini Bake

Zucchini Fritters

Zucchini Relish

Zucchini Salsa

What are we missing? Do you have a favorite zucchini recipe you’d like to share?