Miscellaneous May Happenings

A while ago, we began listening to The Chronicles of Narnia on CD in the car as we drove to various places and events.  This is our second time listening to the series.  While we were listening to The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, the second book in the series, we heard about Edmond finding his way into Narnia and about his encounter with the White Witch.  Dominic then asked, "What is Turkish Delight?" (Turkish Delight plays a role in Edmond's treachery.)  I said I wasn't sure, but I thought it was some kind of candy.  Not long after that day, we were in the library and I happened upon a book called Cook-A-Book: Reading Activities for Grades Pre-K to 6 .  It was chock full of recipes that were out of or related to all sorts of children's books.  As I leafed through, a page opened up to Turkish Delight!  So of course I had to check out the book, and this was our attempt at making it:

The cooking part done, we had to wait for it to cool and set.

The topping of powdered sugar.

Turkish Delight is suppose to be a gelled type of candy, but as you can see, ours did not get firm enough, so we used it as an apple dip.  It was delicious!

I found that there are many different ways of making Turkish Delight, and various flavorings.  We made ours with raspberry flavoring.  I do not feel compelled to perfect the making of this delicacy at this time.  Maybe I'll try it again should we listen to the Narnia books again.





A few weeks after Biscuit, our new dog, showed up at our house, Dan made her a doghouse out of leftover materials he had in the shed. 

The kids checked out the new doghouse.

Biscuit liked her new house.

We must have some pictures of the chickens.  These are from early May.

All three of these are Iowa Blues. 

The Rhode Island Reds enjoy the large chicken pen.

Anthony does some "work" on the chicken pen door.

Speaking of Anthony, here is something silly he kept doing for a while, especially when he got in trouble:

Maybe he thought it would get him out of trouble?

Speaking of Anthony some more, he loves to play with Biscuit.  She likes Anthony too, and will put up with a lot from him. 

He likes to put her leash on...

...and sit with her in the lounge chair on the deck.

Boy and dog.

They are nearly the same size.

And finally, here is the last project of the art class that Catherine, Dominic, and Anne took over the spring semester.  They made pandas out of clay and on the last day, brought them home, where we baked them in the oven.

Three very different pandas.  Also a clay stick-horse (Catherine) and a ball for the pandas to play with (Anne).