Burning Calories Without Breaking a Sweat

The weight I'd love to be again, not the weight I actually am.  Photo editing is fantastic!

For many years I didn't have to think much about calories consumed or calories burned.  Throughout my twenties, I taught aerobics and yoga classes, hiked and played tennis, rollerbladed and rode my bike, lifted weights and played with my eldest daughter.  In my thirties, I was either nursing a baby or chasing after toddlers and preschoolers.  Even in my early forties, farm and homesteading tasks kept me constantly on the move, and I ate whatever I wanted without noticing a difference on the scale.  However, over the past few years as I have been inching closer and closer to the Big 50, that has changed.  The numbers on the scale have steadily climbed, as have the inches around my middle, and the size on the tags of my clothes.  I have had to face the difficult fact that I can no longer eat as many desserts as I like and spend hours a day on the sofa reading a book without consequences.  With the holidays coming soon---and typically with them a 4-5 pound weight gain for me---I have decided to make a conscious effort to not allow those numbers on the scale to creep up any higher.  I am a realist, though, and I know that I will probably never see the above numbers on my scale again without the use of photo editing on my laptop.

Climbing stairs: 95 cal./10 min.

Like most of you, I have to wear many different hats in the day, and I don't have time for a grueling hour-long workout, followed by a shower and a change of clothes and drying my hair and re-applying moisturizer, sunscreen, and makeup.  After doing some research, I was thrilled to see that much of what I do in a day burns quite a few calories without me even thinking about it or breaking a sweat.  For example, climbing stairs for 10 minutes burns 95 calories.  I have to climb a flight and a half just to use the bathroom in this old farmhouse.  Every time I do laundry, I climb 2.5 flights.  To put away most of our groceries, I have to go down and up a flight of stairs since our kitchen has so little storage space.

Laundry: 63 cal/30 min.

Speaking of laundry, I do two or three loads of it almost every single day, and our clothes hampers are still never, ever empty.  Doing laundry burns 63 calories in 30 minutes.  If you hang laundry on the clothesline or drying racks like I do, that burns 50 calories in 15 minutes.  There was a brief period of time several years ago when both of our washing machines broke, and I washed and rung out the laundry in our bathtub by hand for over two weeks.  I wonder how many calories that burns?

Scrubbing the tub: 85 cal./15 min.

This is the only time that I am glad to have just one full bathroom.  Scrubbing a bathtub is one of my least favorite chores, but it burns 85 calories in 15 minutes.  By the way, I found this shower curtain on clearance at Kohl's.  They also had the coolest rustic curtains with moose and pine trees that I'd like to get for our cabin once we finally get a new shower installed.

Vacuuming: 90 cal./30 min.

You wouldn't think I would have to do much vacuuming in a house with wood floors and no rugs or carpets, but that is not the case.  Nothing else sucks up the dust bunnies and crumbs stuck between the wide plank floor boards like a vacuum cleaner.  Each room in our house takes about 15 minutes to vacuum, and it burns 90 calories in 30 minutes.

Weeding: 115 cal./30 min.

We have weeds from May through October, so if I'm willing to deal with the pesky gnats and mosquitoes, I can burn 115 calories in 30 minutes when I'm out there weeding the gardens and flower beds.

Dusting: 50 cal./30 min.

I'm not sure if other old farmhouses are incredibly dusty or if our family just creates more of it than the average household, but we have more dust than I can keep up with.  I have used feather dusters, lambs wool dusters (like in the photo), dry swiffers, wet swiffers, microfiber cloths, old cloth diapers, and every other dust-fighting product I can find, and we still have dust everywhere.  Dusting burns 50 calories in 30 minutes, but it must burn more if you're having to climb up on ladders to reach the tops of cupboards, celing fans, and bookshelves.

Cooking: 150 cal./1 hour

I don't spend as much time in the kitchen preparing food as I used to, but I still spend a significant amount of time cooking, and it burns 150 calories in an hour.  You would think I'd be as svelte as Jennifer Aniston by now, but I apparently sample enough of the food to balance out any calories used while cooking and baking.  I've got to stop licking the cake beaters and tasting the raw cookie dough.

Washing dishes: 64 cal./30 min.

As I've mentioned before, there is no dishwasher in this old house other than the occupants.  Even with each child assigned a "dish night," I still have to wash breakfast and lunch dishes every day.  This chore burns 64 calories in 30 minutes.

Decorating: 54 cal./10 min.

Did you know that decorating burns 54 calories in 10 minutes?  How awesome is that?  This has got to be one of the better domestic activities I do.  Just think how much pumpkin pie we burn as we decorate our houses for Christmas!

Strength training: 63 cal./18 min.

So there are a few things I do that burn calories that are considered "real" exercise.  I try to get some strength training in two or three days a week, using elastic tubing, 5 pound dumbbells, and my own body weight.  I burn approximately 63 calories in 18 minutes, which is about how long it takes me to work every major muscle group doing 10 repetitions for each exercise and then repeating with another set.

Yoga: 26 cal./10 min.

The type of yoga I do now is very light yoga---stretching, really.  I can assure you that the more intense forms of yoga that I used to do in my twenties burn many more calories than this.  My body doesn't appreciate enduring those postures any more though, so for light yoga, we burn 26 calories in 10 minutes.  That's the equivalent of burning off one Hershey's Kiss, so I do this more for the stress release and increase in flexibility than for using up calories.  Even though it burns fewer calories, I'd still much rather do some yoga than scrub that bathtub!

Walking the dog: 125 cal./40 min.

For some of you, walking your dog probably means a great workout where you get your heart rate up and maybe even break a sweat.  This is not the case with beagles.  When I walk Tippy, we pause and run, pause and run---over and over again.  Her nose is to the ground practically the entire time.  We stop so she can sniff out an area, then we run to track it.  I haven't timed her, but I would say the stopping occurs every ten or twenty seconds.  This is a very frustrating workout for me, but I figure it still burns 125 calories in a 40 minute "walk."  Plus, it makes her very, very happy; although, she would be ecstatic if I just let her off her leash so she could chase a rabbit, squirrel, or deer all over the mountain for hours.

Hiking: 125 cal./21 min.

Hiking is probably the most strenuous activity I do unless I get out on the tennis courts (which happens about once every three years.)  If I hike up our mountain a mile or two in the middle of summer, I will actually perspire a bit.  Most of the time, I don't hike quite that far, and I am no longer able to hike straight up without stopping frequently to catch my breath and not feel like I am about to have a heart attack.  This is my favorite time of the year to hike in the woods, so I'll be doing more of it over the next few weeks before our weather turns too cold to enjoy.  Hiking burns 125 calories in 21 minutes.

A day teaching covered over 3 miles/6500 steps.

I purchased a pedometer a couple of years ago and wore it one day this week when I was substitute teaching in our children's old elementary school.  I was surprised to discover that I walked over 3 miles and 6500 steps during that day.  That's more than I often cover in a typical day at home, even with a mile walk to the mailbox and back!

It is my plan to engage in all of these activities on a weekly basis and not see the numbers on the scale ascend any higher.  I would love to see them descend, of course, but my husband says that if I hope to look like I did two decades ago, I need to seriously work out several hours a day and greatly change my diet.  Not wanting to do something so drastic, I think I'll see positive results as long as I ...

...Don't spend my days doing this!

Or...

...Eat too many things like this!  

Casual Autumn Dinner with Good Friends

Modified Szarlotka and Friends' Homemade Applesauce

Last weekend we had the privilege of spending time with some dear fellow homeschooling/homesteading friends as they spent the afternoon and evening here at our house.  The fall weather was incredibly beautiful since the leaves have really turned their brilliant autumn colors this past week.  I wanted to make some hardy, seasonal dishes for dinner, but I also wanted to enjoy spending time talking with my friend while sipping a modified Szarlotka (Polish Apple Pie Cocktail.)  The menu ended up being a hodgepodge of cooler-weather dishes that didn't take hours and hours to prepare.  For the drink above,  I simply used the Grey Goose vodka I had on hand and mixed it with apple cider over ice.  My friend was kind enough to bring along the freshly canned applesauce from her kitchen that we had along with dinner.

Our Casual Dinner Menu:

Pseudo-Polish Apple Pie Cocktails (aka Spiked Apple Cider)

Homemade Applesauce (made by our friends)

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Fall Garden Salad

Crescent Rolls (store bought, I'm sorry to say)

Easy Chicken Pot Pie

Baked Pears

Fall Decorated Sugar Cookies

Broccoli Cheese Soup

This was a very laid-back affair, and there were eleven of us for dinner with most of them being children, so everything was put out on the countertop and stove at once in a buffet style.  This Broccoli Cheese Soup is fantastic in the fall and winter.  Thick and creamy and filled with fresh broccoli and onions, it is chocked full of vitamins and calcium, but also some fat and calories, I'm afraid.  A small bowl will go a long way.  I discovered that doubling the recipe was unnecessary, and we are still eating it three days later.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

Saute 1 pound of chopped onions in 1 stick of butter until clear.  Add 2 pounds of chopped fresh broccoli and 1 quart of chicken stock.  Cook until tender.  Add and blend 1 quart of half & half cream and 1 pound of American cheese.  Thicken soup with approximately 4 teaspoons of corn starch dissolved in 1 cup of water.

Fall Garden Salad

We are still harvesting peppers and cherry tomatoes from our summer garden, and now we are in our second planting of radishes, Swiss chard, spinach, and arugula.  It's refreshing to have fresh greens amidst the typical heavier fall vegetables of squash, sweet potatoes, and pumpkins.  I cheated this weekend and used bottled honey mustard salad dressing.

Easy Chicken Pot Pie

The main dish was this Easy Chicken Pot Pie.  I think it's easy because it doesn't require making and rolling out your own dough.  Packaged crescent roll dough is used instead, so it saves a lot of time and additional mess.  This is terrific as a leftover too.  I doubled the recipe below to fill a rectangular cake pan.  The normal recipe will fit in a casserole dish.

Easy Chicken Pot Pie

For the filling, combine 1 can of cream of chicken soup, 2/3 cup of evaporated milk, 1 Tablespoon of dried parsley flakes, and 1/2 teaspoon of dried rosemary.  Pour into a casserole dish with 3 cups of cubed cooked chicken and 1 package of frozen mixed vegetables (succotash).  For the crust, unroll 1 package of Pillsbury crescent rolls and place over the top of the filling.  Bake in a 400 degree oven for 25-30 minutes or until the pastry is golden.

Baked Pears

We have so many pears right now, and they are getting soft quickly, so this dish was a bit of a necessity.  We ate them without ice cream, so they could be eaten with dinner or as a dessert.  This recipe is from the book Homesteading, edited by Abigail Gehring.

Baked Pears

Slice 6 pears and cut out the core and seeds, making a small "bowl" in the center.  Place them in a greased baking dish.  Then mix together 1 cup of brown sugar, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon cloves.  Gradually add 4 Tablespoons of melted butter until it resembles coarse crumbs.  Fill the hollows of the pears with the sugar mixture, and bake in a 375 degree oven for 20 minutes.  Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream if desired.

In addition to the above items, we also had more crescent rolls (again, I cheated and used store-bought) and frosted sugar cookies.  Our teen daughters cut out and decorated the cookies before dinner.  I found these cute little metal cookie cutters in fall shapes in my attic and thought they would make great sugar cookie "sandwiches."  However, they all baked together into big lumps of sugar cookies in the oven, so the girls just made orange frosting and decorated with fall sprinkles.  They were gobbled up before the end of the evening by all the kiddos, but they didn't look pretty, so no pictures were taken.  

This was a leisurely, stress-free dinner with good friends and a wonderful end to a busy, rather hectic week.  Sometimes I feel guilty that I'm not doing "real" entertaining when the dinner is a hodgepodge of foods served from the stove or countertop on everyday plates.  But while life is so full and busy with a farmhouse filled with children and so many chores to do, I remind myself that simply enjoying the rare treat of making and sharing a meal with the people we care about is more important than an impressive presentation.  The Pinterest-inspired centerpieces and formal table settings can wait another season or two.

Blue Ribbon Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

My family loves pumpkin, but I usually only cook or bake with it in the fall and early winter.  I know a lot of people turn their noses up at this wonderful vegetable, but these muffins have been known to change the minds of the most avid pumpkin haters.  This recipe was given to me from an old friend over twenty years ago, and I have been faithfully baking these muffins every October ever since.  They won the blue ribbon at our local fair several years ago, and I made a big batch for my son's fourth grade class this past week to celebrate their school-wide walk-a-thon.  Since most of them went to his class, and our family only got one a piece, my children have been begging me to bake another big batch next week just for us.  These are terrific even without the chocolate chips, but the chocoholics in this house wouldn't conceive of that option.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Mix 1 (16 oz.) can pumpkin, 3 cups of sugar (no wonder they taste so good), 1 cup vegetable oil, 4 eggs, and 2/3 cups of water together.  In another bowl, combine 3 1/2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons of baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon nutmeg, and 1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and stir just until moistened.  This will be thick.  Add a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips.  Fill paper-lined or greased muffin tins 2/3 full, and bake in 350 degree oven for 35 minutes.  This makes about 36 muffins.

ENJOY!

New Development Below our Farm

Last evening, our youngest son was stressed out about rushing from school to homework/dinner to judo to bed, and I did something I don't usually do...I let him skip out on judo.  Normally, if our children want to participate in a scheduled activity and they are signed up for it, then it is their responsibility to attend every lesson or practice unless they are sick.  He's been doing judo now for a year and a half.  It goes year-round with no breaks.  After a week of rain and cool temperatures here, the sun, blue skies, and near 70 degrees made all my children want to run around and play outside.  So I gave in.

I am so glad I did.  We all hiked/rode bikes down our mountain lane to check out the progress at the sportsman's club located just below us.  There used to be a great pond there used for fishing and ice skating, but it was drained a few years ago and had been dry ever since.  A few months ago, however, they excavated and dug it deeper, but it still sat as a dry hole.  The rain simply gave it little mud puddles that the frogs and salamanders enjoyed.  My boys were heartbroken because they desperately wanted to fish in it again.

We were thrilled to discover that all the rain we had last week filled that pond to the brim.  As the sun was setting, I was fortunate enough to capture these October moments with my tablet.

My little ones were super excited that the owners built a dock, and they were deliberating whether or not they could jump from the bank to the dock without getting wet.  I intervened and told them there would be no jumping allowed.

I'm not sure what the cement slabs will be used for, but our little girl stood on them so her blue sparkly Frozen sneakers wouldn't get muddy.  Don't you love her pink flannel shirt and her brother's camouflaged ball cap with the deer on the front?

Even Tippy was excited!

Now my boys just have to wait until the pond gets stocked with some fish.  Our teenage son already took a catalog to the owners and put in requests for his favorite species.  

It was a perfect October evening for a walk in the woods, and on our trek back up the mountain to our house, I discovered this leaf lying on the ground.  I think I'll press it and frame it to remind me that sometimes I need to let go of what I think we should do, and instead just let our hearts lead the way.

Fall Porch Makeover

We finally completed a summer-turned-fall project: giving our porches makeovers.  This farmhouse has three covered porches, and we've only really worked on two of them, but I am so excited to finally have most of this project done.

Our front porch actually needed some work when we bought it nine years ago.  A few of the floor boards were starting to rot, and it needed new paint.  Through the years, this just got worse, and we also battled mildew on the white wooden ceiling repeatedly.  Last summer, we finally hired a carpenter to replace some of the floor boards and all of the columns, but before we knew it, it was fall and we had not gotten around to repainting.

After bleaching and treating the mildewed ceiling, my husband repainted it and the columns white, and then he and our teenage son set to work painting several coats of Benjamin Moore custom-mixed paint on the floor.  Our biggest challenge was keeping our four cats off the wet paint.

Part of this job entailed removing pesky hornets' nests that were constructed at overhangs all around our roofs.  There were also birds' nests in the eaves and vines that had attached themselves up under the siding.  There are so many living things that like to live and grow here with us.  Sometime I'll have to tell you about the geese in our pool, the snake in our attic, and the bat in my swimsuit.

Once the hard work was done, I got to come in and do the fun part: decorate.  I had a difficult time  deciding which colors of mums to buy.  I love the purple ones, but I wasn't sure they would match everything else on the front porch.  I may go back and purchase more.  Most of our pumpkins will end up being carved into jack-o-lanterns, but not until closer to Halloween or they will be filled with fruit flies and mold.

I ordered this hand-painted monogrammed sign from Southside Signs & Such and have it hanging next to our front door.  They will custom design and paint just about anything you have in mind.

My husband agreed to bring down a haybale from the barn loft as long as the goats and sheep will get it once fall is over.  We hoard hay because there have been some long winters where hay was hard to find by late February or March.  The past two winters we still had snow on the ground until April.  I picked up the welcome mat from Target, and all the pumpkins, mums, and Indian corn from Weis supermarket.  I would have preferred picking our own pumpkins at a local pumpkin patch, but it rained here most of the week. The wreath is very old and will probably be replaced next year.  

I put the wooden folding chairs away, but the rocker and swing stay out on the porch year-round.  It's always good to have a place outside to sip some coffee in the morning and some wine or hard cider in the early evening.

Now I need some help with the color of the front door.  Both the screen door and main door are currently a dark forest green.  That went well with the old porch color of a dull slate gray, but this new paint color is much more blue.  My in-laws and I have debated over canary yellow, dark red, or a slightly gray khaki, if you can picture that.  I can't make up my mind.  

What color would you recommend?

Butting Heads: The Joys and Frustrations of Owning Goats

     My husband wants to buy another billy goat.  I am reluctant to agree to this.  We have only had five female Nigerian Dwarf goats on our farm for the past year, and there have definitely been fewer hassles.  Once we bring in another buck, I know my frustrations with the goats (and my husband) will greatly increase.  When it is breeding season (which it is right now,) we have never been successful at keeping these goats under control.  All bets are off as the male does everything in his power to get to the does, and sometimes the girls do the same.  Then there are these extremely cute babies born in late winter when we have freezing temperatures, and my entire family wants to bring them inside and raise them like house cats.  It does not make me happy.  But I have to admit that I do love seeing little goat kids jump and twist and play in the pasture, and I miss the fresh goat's milk that I turn into pudding, yogurt, ice cream, and butter.  So today I sort through the positive and negative aspects of raising goats, and maybe by the end of this post, I'll come to a decision to either concede or remain stubbornly opposed to a new addition to our farm.

     Goats have personality---way more so than our sheep.  Some are shy and stand back to watch what you and the rest of the herd will do before they come near.  Some are bullies as they are always trying to keep someone else below them in the pecking order.  There is always a Queen Bee who gets to be first at everything, even if it's something she won't enjoy, such as vaccinations or hoof trimming. Some are more athletic than others and go to great lengths to get out of the luscious green pasture you have put them in to get to the other side of the fence just to eat the same grass that they were already eating.  Some are the most wonderful, attentive mothers to their kids and never let them out of their sight.  Others want nothing to do with them and we have to hold them still just to let their babies nurse from them.  Most of our goats are extremely friendly and absolutely love to be scratched and talked to.  The queen of our herd is especially fond of my husband and acts like he belongs to her. Once we got goats, they quickly became my favorite animal to own.  They feel more like our pets than our livestock, which makes it hard to sell the surplus to others, but once they start having babies, there are just too many goats to keep.

     I forgot to mention that there is a clown of the herd too with lots of quirky habits, such as jumping into open vehicles and hoping for a ride.  This leads me to my biggest frustration with owning miniature goats: their ability to escape and their total lack of respect for boundaries.  We thought we were being so smart to use metal stock panels for fencing.  My husband moves them around our land to practice rotational grazing.  They are supposed to be escape-proof, but obviously, the designers never owned this breed of goat.  Not only can the kids squeeze right through the openings when they're little, but the adults find all kinds of ingenious ways to get out.  Sometimes they put all their weight against the middle of a panel until it bows out enough and sags down, and they either jump over it or push their way under it.  Even though we disbud our goats as kids, the bucks sometimes keep a remnant of a horn, and we have witnessed them use that horn to pull a fence panel hard enough to pop the staples right out of the wooden fence posts.  Several of our goats have been able to jump straight up and over six feet high fences.  Sometimes the younger ones get on the backs of our larger sheep and jump over the fence that way.  One of our goats can actually climb the stock panels like a ladder, as could her twin brother, who was the infamous billy goat who could always find a way to get to the girls when it was time for breeding.

     In addition to the escape methods I already mentioned, we have a few very agile goats who can climb trees.  Okay, they can't actually climb straight up a tree (at least, I don't think so) but if a tree is growing at an angle or has partially fallen, they climb it and walk on it like a tightrope until they are on the other side of the fence, and then they leap down.  When the wind uprooted this willow tree, it was like a jungle gym for some of our goats.  My husband didn't think they would do this because it was quite high off the ground, but they did.  Of course, our garden was directly underneath the end of this tree.  When one goat would do this, the rest would watch, and then one by one, they would all give it a try.  The heavier ones weren't successful, fortunately, but the ones who were did it over and over again until our son cut the tree into pieces.

     One of the best things about having goats is that they do help with keeping a couple of acres "mowed" for us, and they also eat up all of the fruit and vegetable scraps and peels that we have.  This comes in especially handy now when we are saucing and drying apples and have the cores and peels remaining.  They gobble this kind of stuff up like candy.  They are our living garbage disposals.  The flip side of this is that they also eat things you don't want them to have.  Since they are escape artists, they run to berry bushes, grape vines, strawberry patches, and young fruit and nut trees.  In the four years we have had goats, they have destroyed a rare chestnut tree, all of our newly planted pear trees and blueberry bushes, our entire strawberry patch, numerous wild raspberry bushes, and the entire row of grape vines.  Not to mention crop after crop of just about everything in our gardens.  I told my husband that he can either have goats or he can have produce, but he can't have both at the same time.  He, however, believes he will outsmart them and will successfully keep them contained.  We shall see.

     Last Halloween is a perfect example of how their culinary tastes can be a good thing and a bad thing.  While we were carving our jack-o-lanterns, the herd escaped and came straight to where we were on the front porch.  While it was great that they wanted to eat the pumpkin pulp and some of the seeds, it was not good that they also tried to eat our pumpkins.  It was impossible to get any carving done with them loose because we couldn't keep their heads out of the insides of our jack-o-lanterns. There were also no seeds left for roasting.  This is also a huge problem in the winter time when we keep 50 pound bags of sweet feed stored in the garage.  Every time we would bring in a goat to milk, the whole herd would ambush us and devour the bag of feed in minutes.  Moderation is not their strong point.

     What is one of their strong points is winning blue ribbons for our children at the local county fair.  This summer was the first one in five years that none of our children showed goats, and it was rather sad.  Because we sold our last remaining buck last fall, we had no breedings, and therefore, no kids this year at all.  Since Nigerian Dwarfs are considered dairy goats, they don't place well in a show without an udder full of milk.  With none of the nannies in milk and no kids to show, there was no goat show for us this year.  The miniature goats steal the hearts of people walking through, especially the children.

     If we purchase a new billy goat now, we will probably have kids in March or April.  Our goats typically have twins, but singletons and triplets are not uncommon, and we have even had quadruplets once, so it is possible to have as many as twenty goat kids here next summer.  That would be a lot of fun for the children, as well as give them a chance to be in the 4-H Youth Fair again.  It will mean I'll have to find homes for most, if not all, of the kids after the fair, but that's also extra income, and our children get to keep some of that.  It will mean lots of milk for us, but also the extra work of milking that someone has to do every day.  It means no vacation because it's so difficult to find someone to come and not only feed and water all of our animals, but also milk five of them daily. Even though goats are small and easier to handle than cows, if they don't want to be milked, they do everything in their power to make the task nearly impossible for you.  They chew on your hair or your collar, kick the milking pail, step in the milking pail, and even collapse their entire bodies on the milking stand so you can't even get your hand underneath them.  We had one goat that someone had to hold upright while the other person milked as fast as they could.  These are some of the frustrations I'm referring to.  Do I really want to deal with all that again?

     Yes, I think I am willing.  In an unexplainable way, these goats bring us together as a family. When our son comes running up from the barn to announce that babies are being born, we all throw on our coats and boots and go running down, ready to assist if necessary in eager anticipation of witnessing the miracle of new life.  When a smaller one looks too weak or cold to make it through the night, we take turns wrapping it up and holding it and giving it all our warmth and love and positive energy.   From youngest to oldest, we all go out to the pasture to watch the kids frolic and play with one another.  We can't resist holding and brushing them and taking lots of photographs.  As a family, we decide what to name each one because it's our tradition to name all kids born on our farm the name of a different cheese. When we expect new births, we peruse the gourmet cheese sections of the upscale supermarkets because we've used up all the common cheese names.  At the opposite end of the spectrum, when a goat gets sick, we all help take care of it, and we are praying for it as a family at the end of the day. So, for reasons that are more emotional than sensible, I think I'll suggest to my husband that we do some goat shopping this weekend.

Attempts at Making Fall Crafts with the Kiddos

Craft #1: Glycerin Soaps

A few days ago, I was in the mood to make some apple-scented fall soaps, which the children shared with their teachers at school.  This led to a weekend of trying my hand at some fall crafts with our children.  Unfortunately, I discovered that crafting is not one of my strong points.

Glycerin soapmaking, however, is simple enough for me to handle.  I like to buy seasonal buttons and scrapbooking items to place inside the soaps.  These can be found at any of your fabric or hobby stores.

All you have to do is take a block of glycerin soap base (I got mine at Michael's,) cut it into cubes, and microwave it for a few minutes until melted.  Then add about half a dozen drops of fragrance oil or essential oil.  I used to buy mine from a company called Lorann Oil's, but fragrance oils can be found in hobby stores.  Pure essential oils tend to be more expensive, but they are of better quality and can be bought at your local natural foods store.

To prevent the soap from sticking, line the molds with vegetable oil or coconut oil.  Then pour enough melted soap to cover the bottom, and place the decorative items in.

Then you just fill the molds with more soap and let cool.  Several hours later, they should be ready to pop right out.  To get rid of the bubbles on the bottom, you can spritz them while hot with some rubbing alcohol.

I had some melted soap left, so I added a little yellow liquid coloring and poured it in these leaf and sunflower molds.  Candy molds will work too.

image from sparkandchemistry.com

Craft #2: Fall Leaf Mason Jar Candle Holders

I found these cute DIY fall leaf candle holders on Pinterest and all over the Internet.  I thought this would be a fun, sticky, and inexpensive craft for the children and me to do this weekend.  We have Mason jars galore in our basement, and we picked up leaves on one of our evening hikes last week, so all I had to do was buy some Mod Podge and raffia ribbon.  I couldn't wait to see how these would turn out and had visions of lighting them up all over the house and front porch.

This was SO much harder than it appeared.  My boys gave up after the first ten minutes, but my girls and I stuck it out a little longer.  We could not get those leaves to stick.  I googled our problem, and the suggestion was to wrap elastic bands around the leaves to keep them in place on the jars.  This didn't work very well either.

The Mod Podge stuck to our fingers, to the table, to the jar, but not to the leaves on the jar.  We couldn't figure out what we did wrong.

We eventually gave up and abandoned this project too, but with much reluctance and disappointment.  With so many pictures and sites featuring these on the Internet, it must be a popular craft.  I would appreciate any reader tips on how to make this work.  If you want to try making these yourself, you can visit this website: http://www.sparkandchemistry.com/craft-it-blog/leaf-mason-jar-candle-holder.

Craft #3: Jack-o-Lantern Candies

After the failed attempt at the previous craft project, I figured we'd do something simple and less messy.  My teen daughter has experience in candy making, and I found these pumpkin spice candy melts at Michael's and wanted to try them.

She and I melted the candy wafers in the microwave and used a wooden skewer to "paint" in the black lines with the black chocolate.  This was more challenging than I expected too because it was such a time-consuming, tedious task.  Or maybe I am just that impatient.

After we finished with the black chocolate, we filled in the rest of the jack-o-lanterns with the melted orange pumpkin spice candy.

Then we put them in the freezer to cool.

And this is what we ended up with.  Not quite what I had hoped for, but they tasted good.  I don't know how those kids at the 4-H fair create those fantastic winning candy exhibits.

My Tried-and-True Oatmeal Cookies

The only way I redeemed myself and saved my self-esteem was by helping my teenage son bake some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for a party he was attending that evening.  Maybe I just have to accept that I'm a much better baker than a DIY crafter.  Unfortunately, that doesn't help my expanding midriff.  I guess instead of spending the weekends trying out the great projects I find on Pinterest, I'll just have to go on more hikes with the kids.