Dents de Lion

Recently, dandelions have been popping up all over! With the advent of spring, the warm air and sunshine have caused these beautiful harbingers of spring to appear. Every part of the plant can be eaten, from the roots, to the leaves, to the flowers!

Historically, the leaves and roots of the plant were used as a tonic. It was supposed that it removed toxins from the bloodstream and served as a mild diuretic to improve digestive functioning. Some today still harvest this Asteraceae for the same reason. Today, we know that the “dents de lion” is enriched with Vitamins A, E, and C, as well as iron, zinc, and calcium. The French thought that the shape of the leaves resembled a lion’s tooth, thus the name.

Samuel, in his diligence, gathered a mess of the flowers to bless the family with fried dandelion blossoms. These blossoms are the only flower to represent three celestial bodies during the phases of its life cycle – the sun, moon, and stars. The early blossom of yellow that we eat, resembles the sun. The white globe of the “puff ball” or “blow ball” resembles the moon. When the seeds mature and disperse, the dandelion resembles stars. The seeds can travel up to five miles away!

Samuel made the entire dish of fried dandelions all by himself! After washing the flowers and patting them dry, he dipped them in beaten egg, floured them, and fried them up in a cast iron skillet. Needless to say, they were delicious!

We look forward to enjoying many more mealtimes together with the special springtime delicacy of fried “dents de lion!”

~Rhonda

Crazy Crayfish!

I was having trouble finding out what to raise on Critter Corner this year, but after some thinking I decided to try to raise crawdads! My plan was to raise around three hundred crawdads this summer, and when fall came, we could eat them. I fixed up a place on Critter Corner and then went out to catch some crawdads.

The first day, I went down to the creek and looked for some crawdads there but did not find any. The second day, I went to the pond, took a garden rake, and started raking out the sunken leaves from the water. In doing this, I not only clean the pond of sticks and leaves that fall in but catch any small fish and crawdads hiding in them. I raked for a long time, only stopping to catch a crawdad, and put it in my bucket and to return a fish accidentally raked out, back into the water. When I was finished, I had caught 17 crawdads! I was so excited. By the end of the week, I had caught 42 crawdads! That’s a lot.

Once I had caught the crawdads, I put all 42 of them into the place I had prepared. Step one, catching crawdads complete. Now for step two, feeding them. Crawdads, also known as crayfish, eat almost anything including dead rotting animals and plants. Knowing this, I caught some small fish and cut up a carrot. I put them both into the crawdads’ pen. It took the critters a few days to realize that this was their food, but once they learned, they started catching the fish and eating the carrots! I think they liked it.

About a week later, I captured a full-grown crawdad and without thinking put him in with the smaller ones! The numbers of my crawdads began to grow smaller as the bigger crawdad slowly ate the others! 

By the time I found out, I had lost 17 crawdads! I removed the big animal and put it into a separate container.

In total, I now have 28 crayfish. All I need is 272 more! I think I must start catching more. Better get going!

~Samuel

I Love the Library!

One day, I just blurted out, “I love the library!” I don’t know why I said it aloud, but Mama heard me! She knew it already. Anyone who knows me well, knows how much I adore having and reading books. The library could almost be called my home away from home. I could unconsciously spend hours digesting all the information to be found between the front and back cover of a book. Most nothing excites me as much!

Needless to say, the library in our home is one of my favorite places in the house. A glorious twenty-one cabinets bursting with books, I have not yet read every volume it contains. But, that is on my bucket list.

History, science, math, biology. . . there is so much waiting to be learned and discovered!

Although our library at home is splendid, the over seven thousand volumes contained by the McCoy Memorial Library of McLeansboro beckons to my book loving family. It goes without saying, the beautiful building, with its white gingerbread and black iron trim, is a place of frequent visitation for us. 

Over a hundred years old, history surrounds and permeates the establishment. Originally, the building was the residence of the Aaron Guard Cloud family. He owned Cloud State Bank, now known as Peoples National Bank. In 1921, what is now the library was donated to the public, by his daughter Mary Ellen Cloud. The second floor serves as a museum for the Hamilton County Historical Society and contains mementos of the Cloud Family.

Recently, we have been frequenting the library on a weekly basis. I enjoy just skimming over the tomes, or really digging deep into the material. Sharing something new I discovered with family is always exciting. With a deep love for history, the story of the building itself and the records I can find inside makes the library a place that I hold dear.

~Halayah

Naming the Lambs

We recently had some sheep have their lambs. They are so cute. Each year, we name our lambs from the alphabet, starting with the letter A.

Last year, we had oodles of lambs, so we had all kinds of names for them. We made it to the letter F. One of the lambs died, so we named that one Dianne.

This year we have named them the same way again. I am excited to name the lambs once more! A long time ago, Samuel named a lamb Patchy. I liked that name. We are going to start again at A. I am ready and can’t wait to get started. Mama comes up with great names.

We have lots of baby lambs this year. Some are Jacob sheep and this year we have Katahdin sheep too. They are completely white. Those lambs are my favorite. Our lambs’ names are, Arnold, Benedict, Cedric, Dianne, Edward, Gordon, Fawn, and Horatio.

We have only one more Jacob sheep to have her lamb. She is going to have it soon. I wonder if she will have one or two and whether it will be a girl or boy. Naming the lambs is very fun to do. I look forward to naming the new lambs next year!

~Unique

Food From Afar

The recent addition of German Sweet Cherries to our orchard gives me pause to recall another German heritage fruit found in our orchard, blackberries. A sweet older couple, Otto and Velma Schlegel, whom we attended worship with at Dale Christian church nearly twenty years ago, gave us our start of German blackberries. Being a splendid horticulturist, they claimed the line of berries immigrated to the United States with their family, and had kept the thorned, large, sweet berry line going. The prolific disease resistant berry has been a staple in our orchard ever since.

Blackberries are generally a black or dark purple juicy fruit of various brambles (genus Rubus) of the rose family. In the botanical sense, the fruit is not really a berry, but an aggregate fruit composed of small drupelets. They are found throughout most of the world and are sometimes considered a nuisance plant, being hard to control. They form brambles, a word referring to any impenetrable thicket, but traditionally applied to blackberries. The sharp prickles, often called thorns, make the berries difficult to work with, but the sweet flavor makes it worth the effort. The first year’s growth of the stems called the primocane does not flower or produce fruit. The second-year canes, called floricanes, do not grow longer, but produce flowering laterals that yield the delicious fruit mid-summer.

Our orchard now consists of two thirty-foot rows of the prickly fruit that we manage. Annually, we cut the past year’s fruiting canes and leave only new vines which came up from the ground over the past summer. As these new fruiting canes begin to bloom, anticipation increases for the appetizing treat. Some tasty morsels ripen in late June with the bulk of the harvest around July 4th. It is not unusual to see our children’s fingers stained with blackberry juice as the berries are an irresistible indulgence. Once harvested and stored, the berries are used for cobblers, pies, and jellies throughout the remaining year.

We are grateful for the gift of the German berries several years ago. Thornless blackberries have been developed over the years that are quite tasty and much easier to cultivate. However, we continue to see the value in the old-fashioned, hardy, disease resistant, very tasty, prickly berry from the past. A few character training pokes from the thorns are a small price to pay for the delicious treats found just beyond the prickles.

~Mark

Little Hands

Little hands working along side us in the kitchen are such a precious thing. Young nieces and nephews helping by stirring the herbs and seasonings into the tomato sauce, kneading the pizza dough, rolling the bread dough into a loaf, peeling boiled eggs, unfolding and flouring the homemade egg noodles, and helping wash and dry the dishes, is so special. Although little and not usually knowing what they are doing, the experience is amusing and very endearing.

We often pull over a chair for them to stand on or sit them on the counter. Once, I even put my one-year-old niece, Milania, in a short-sided crate on the countertop for extra safety. She was delighted playing with the measuring spoons.

Adorned in my apron, my little sidekicks want to wear one, too. We make it work by folding the “huge” apron waist up and wrapping the strings multiple times around their little belly. They love it and they look so adorable!

There are comical times when my nieces and nephews eat something they wished they hadn’t! I gave Titus fair warning that a slice of the raw onion would not taste very good, but he insisted upon eating one. The onion went out almost as fast as it had gone in! Another time, while making brownies, Galilee wanted to know what baking powder tasted like. I told her it was yucky, and the next moment her face had the wryest expression! She had licked the spoon I used to measure the baking powder!

My little helpers know that when we make a mess, we clean it up. Mama says, “laundry’s not done till it’s dried, folded, and put away.” The same goes for cooking, since the dishes need to be washed, dried, and put away. When I am in the kitchen with little ones, we make the dishes an enjoyable job. They are fun! 

We pull over a chair, roll up our sleeves, put a towel on, and get started. Often, I grab a few fun dishes like a funnel, tongs, a small colander, or some measuring spoons and turn the water on so it drips. Little guys will play for a surprisingly long time! I love to watch them play.

Sometimes, it is easier for me to do the job by myself, but the pride, joy, laughter and smiles the little hands have over their pile of clean dishes, or a delicious batch of chocolate chip cookies is worth the extra time spent. They are learning so much, and we are making such good memories. 

Oh, an eager finger might make its way to the bowl, the bread possibly has a few little holes, and someone might have a soaking wet shirt from washing dishes, but it was well worth it! They had fun and have worked for something to be proud of, gained some experience. . . and that tastes good, too!

~Jayla

The Shiny Silver Pot

Something sits on top of the stove,

Who lets some steam come out his nose.

We fill him up with water fast.

We think that we’ve filled him up the last!

We fill him up a quarter till noon.

He’s always thirsty every day.

I look inside, what do I see?

The same old pot, empty as can be!

Shiny silver, handle on top.

He keeps static shock from the air.

It’s hard keeping him filled up, though.

But he’s my friend and I love him so!

~Isaac

The Eagles Are Coming!

Yesterday while we were in town, we saw an eagle flying over us. A couple days before, we saw an eagle soaring over our field. Every time I see an eagle, I get very excited, because it’s not every day you see one.

There are sixty different species, or types of eagles. Only two kinds of eagles live in the United States, the bald eagle and the golden eagle. The ones we see here on Providence Prairie are bald eagles. Eagles are split into four groups: snake eagles, booted eagles, fish eagles, and giant forest eagles. I think it’s amazing that there are different kinds of eagles, because we only see one type around here. Did you know the word eagle comes from a Latin word aquila; the name given to the golden eagles by the Romans?

Eagles are the largest and the most powerful birds of prey. They eat snakes, rabbits, fish, mice, and can even eat other birds! Certain eagles can even catch monkeys! They have huge talons, to help them catch their food. Eagles are my favorite bird of prey.

An eagle makes its nest at the top of trees, and sometimes on the edges of cliffs. They build them out of sticks.  About three weeks ago, while we were taking a drive, we saw an eagle nest! It was up at the very top of a tree and was enormous.

Dad and Mom said that when they first moved here to Providence Prairie, they saw hardly any eagles. It reminded me of the Lord of the Rings. Every time the eagles came, it meant something good was going to happen. I wonder what favorable thing will happen here next.

~Jonah

McDaniel Pizzeria

 

Our family loves pizza. From the youngest to the oldest, this dish is one that is never refused. 

That is why on every single Friday night, you can be sure that you will find Jayla and me in the kitchen preparing, at a minimum, four delicious pizza pies.

Whenever extended family is in to visit, pizza, at least once, is always on the menu. Our regular number of four pies though, is not enough for the twenty-some in our family.

Six to eight pizzas, plus something else to snack on are what it now takes to feed our growing clan on Friday night.

The little ones adore working with us.

Rolling out the dough, eating pinches of flour, taste testing the sauce multiple times, snitching bits of cheese, begging for a pepperoni!

What an eye has to be kept on them the whole time, but we have no lack of merriment while we are at it!

There have been a few times that special events fall on Pizza Night. One year, it was Dad and Mama’s anniversary. I remember creating with Jayla, a heart shaped pizza with the pepperonis cut into teeny heart shapes. It was beautiful! Another year for family Christmas we had a huge pizza buffet!

For as long as I can remember our family has made and loved pizza! Don’t get me wrong, we’re not Italian! It is a night of talking and laughing while we crowd into the kitchen, or of sharing a movie together in the living room while we munch away on the deliciousness. It is a night that has, and always will be one of family closeness, love, and good food!

~Halayah

The Second Brigade of Birthdays!

As we turned the calendar to February, it was time for “reinforcements.” The bastions were armed, the battle begun long before in the Garden, and it was now time for the second brigade of birthdays!

February and March bring another influx of birthdays in the McDaniel Family.  It started with our youngest grandchild Merrick completing his first circuit around the sun on January 29^th, just six days after Jonah’s birthday. Then February begins with Justus, our first grandson turning eleven on February first.  It is hard to believe it was a few short years ago that he was born!  He is growing into a fine young man. Eleanor, our granddaughter celebrated her birthday on Valentine's Day, followed by Samuel, exactly one week later.

 

Samuel had grown exponentially in the past year.  He has passed Jonah up and is hot on the tail of Dad!  He is a gentle giant with a heart of gold.  He is continually finding another animal for Critter Corner or conjuring up a story to thrill one of his nieces or nephews.

  

Next in February is my birthday, followed two days later by our daughter-in-love Clair on March first. 

Not four days more pass before it is Jayla’s birthday.  She turned twenty this year.  You can find her usually tending to the family’s meals or entertaining herself and others at the piano.  

She is becoming quite a fine cook and manager as well as a splendid musician.

  

Every month thereafter boasts a birthday of one of our children, their spouse, or a grandchild except for November.  Birthday celebrations are a good time to remember where you’re going and what your mission on earth is. It is a time of reflection and encouragement, as we traditionally gather around the birthday person and express why we believe that they are special.  Because. they. are.  It is a delightful time for each of us to give them the small gift of knowing why we think they are distinctive, what they signify to us, and remind them of whatsoever they enrich to this expedition we call life. 

We continue to count ourselves blessed to be encircled with so many spirited young lives in our household and extended family! Each person is a year older, continuing to bolster the fortifications, the values, the bearings, and the endeavors that Mark and I, through the mercy of God, are striving to continue forging into the fabric of our family.  Might God continue to provide the increase! Happy Birthday once again, to the second brigade of birthdays!

~Rhonda