Later in May

One Saturday, I gave everyone a haircut.  While using the razor on the boys for their short summer haircuts, I decided to have some fun.

Too funny!

Almost got the monk look.

This one really cracks me up!

Anne checked out her big pile of hair.

Catherine with her shorter hair.

Anne modeled her haircut.

A cool tree on the west side of our house:

The twin tree.

A harvest of radishes:

Oops, someone is trying to swipe one.

Joseph with the haul.

Dan made a ramp for the kids to use with their bicycles.  No ER trips were made as a result.

Go, Dominic!

I took some pictures of our grotto with the roses and irises in bloom.

Beautiful flowers to enhance the beauty of the grotto.

Joseph at the grotto.

At the very end of school, Catherine made a representation of the State of Kansas out of rice crispy treats and all kinds of candy and toys.  All the kids really enjoyed this project!

Catherine put on the finishing touches.

Catherine showed off her final project.

She practiced her state presentation, which she later gave to Daddy.  After that, we ate Kansas!

Spring Harvest

Rhubarb
So far I've frozen some of it.  Since rhubarb freezes so well, I wanted to stash some away for strawberry rhubarb jam.  I've also made rhubarb crisp, yum. 

Asparagus
We've been eating steamed asparagus once or twice a week.  The kids all like it (except Anthony) and will ask for more the whole time we are eating our meal.

The other day the boys and I went out and picked a bunch of radishes.  Then the girls sat in the yard and pulled all of the tops off.

Look, Mom!

The bucket, half full of radishes.

Then the girls washed some of them for lunch.  So far, we've mostly just eaten them raw, both whole and then sliced up into salads.  I did slice some up and put them into a stir-fry.  Delicious!  Anytime you cook radishes, they lose their heat.  I think I am going to try putting them into a pasta sauce next.  Last year I steamed them as a side dish, and I also made pickled radishes, which were good, but stinky in the fridge, so I haven't decided if I'll do those again. 

Spinach!

The kids hard at work in their garden.  They had a lot of weeds to tackle.

Dominic working on his gardening skills.

Radish Delight

This picture is from a while ago, but it shows a big chunk of our radish harvest. Not all of it, though! So you can see, we had a lot of radishes. We ate a lot raw and I steamed a bunch of them.



Here are the five kinds that Dan planted, with a pencil thrown in for perspective. From left to right: Champion, Snow Stix, French Breakfast, Sparkler, and Cherry Belle. My favorite for eating raw were the French Breakfast. They were more mild than the others. The Sparklers were the hottest of the bunch. The Champions, the Sparklers, and the Cherry Belles were great for steaming.



It still felt like we had more radishes than we could eat or give away, so I found something else new to try. Pickled Radishes! I saw this recipe in a magazine called Living The Country Life.


Pickled Radishes

2 cups sliced radishes (8 ounces)
1 small onion, cut into thin wedges and separated
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
1 and 1/2 tsp. salt

Put radish slices and onions in bowl. Stir together vinegar, sugar, and salt until sugar dissolves. Pour over radishes. Cover and refrigerate at least 8 hours or overnight. These will be very pungent.

I made them twice. Once with onion, once without. Curiously, those without onion were even more pungent than those with onion! In fact those even rated the term "stinky" by the kids. They tasted good though!

Here is a picture of the sliced radishes before pickling:


And here is a picture of the pickled radishes:
Yummy!