Archive for October 13, 2008

Holiday Preparations-Halloween

{ October 13, 2008 @ 7:43 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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We really enjoy Halloween at The School Down the Lane! Costume planning usually begins sometime in August and decorating starts as soon as K’s birthday is over at the end of September.  This year we really had some fun spookifying our house!

Here is the giant spider guarding the door:
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and the graveyard in the side yard:
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Some horrible stuff has been going on the front yard!
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Darn grave robbers!

This guy is pretty cute.
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Here is the front garden, complete with dog mummies and a ghost:
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The inside is almost as elaborate. We have our deadly bar set:
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and our specimen jars:
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Even the dogs get in on the act!
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The kids are done with their costumes too; K is dressing punk, M is going to be Sally from A Nightmare Before Christmas and B is going as a knight. We are going to be attending a Halloween walk to benefit local soup kitchens this weekend as well as going to Ghosts on the Banke on Halloween. The kids are trying to convince me to have a Halloween party again this year and they may just have me. As long as I don’t actually plan on having anyone come I won’t be disappointed again, right? They always enjoy it anyway. Hmmm…we could have finger sandwiches LOL!

Field Trip-Raven Hill Orchard

{ October 13, 2008 @ 7:15 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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With the arrival of fall came time for our annual trip to the apple orchard.  For year we went to the same orchard every year but in the past few years I’ve been trying to branch out a bit.  This year we decided to take a trip to a local, organic, apple orchard that I’ve been wanting to visit. 

It was lovely! The orchard itself was quite small, but it was packed with trees and had no less then 27 different kinds of apple trees.  Among them were several different types of heirloom apples.  Unfortunately I’ve lost my list :( but I remember a few such as Black Oxford and Arkansas Black.  I even caught a picture of some Black Oxfords on the tree

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The trees were packed with fruit. which made for easy picking and the apples themselves were delicious! There were even some animals to pet (or at least watch in the case of the pigs!).

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There was also a nice little coffee shop where we got cider donuts and coffee after the picking. They had all kinds of goodies in there; fancy coffee, giant muffins and cupcakes, rustic breads, cookies and of course, donuts. They gave us a punch card, which means we’ll have to go back now LOL!

M waited outside dscf1419.jpg and then went to meet the orchard’s dog Allie. I wish I’d got a picture of her (Allie), she was the highlight of the trip as far as M was concerned. Then again, she didn’t have any of those donuts!

We had a fun time and came home with a bunch of apples. I always want to bake after we go apple picking so I made a couple loaves of pumpkin apple bread.  I even made applesauce in the crockpot this week, which is really domestic for me! Here’s the recipe in case you feel the urge.

Crockpot Applesauce

from A Year of Crockpotting

The Ingredients.

This makes enough for 4 people. If you would like to freeze or can, use more apples.

–4 large apples, skinned ,cored, and cut in quarters
–juice from 1 lemon
–1/2 tsp cinnamon
–1 tsp vanilla
–1 T brown sugar
–1/4 cup H20

The Directions.

I used a 4 quart crockpot for the applesauce.

Skin, core, and cut your apples into quarters. Plop the pieces into your crockpot. Add the juice from the lemon, and the water. Pour in the vanilla (I used imitation–we were out of the good stuff), and add the cinnamon and brown sugar.

Cover and cook on low for 4-6 hours. When the apples are super tender, mash with a potato masher or large fork. My apples were very tender after 6 hours, and I used a fork.