Maple Sugaring

If you remember a few months back we received a kit from Tap My Trees. We reviewed the kit and now you get to see it in action, Hear in Mo tree tapping generally takes place late Jan to early Feb. We have been watching the weather and the forecast looks good for tapping trees. Night time temps need to be below freezing and day time temps need to be above freezing 40+. Our 10 day forecast is showing just that. So off we went to tap a tree, hotrod girl picked which one to tap first. Of course she picked the hardest one to get to. As you can see the orange on the tree is where we marked it this fall to identify it as a Maple. We will need to re paint it when we pull the tap so that we can find it again next year. We double checked the twigs for opposing buds the best we could and there are maple leaves on the ground around the bottom of the tree. We drilled a hole about 2 -2 1/2 in deep. We got clean light colored shavings a good sign our tree is healthy. We made sure the hole was clear of shavings then we gently used the hammer to put the tap in. We hung the bucket on the hook, put on the lid. Now all that's left to do is wait and see what we get.

The Sap is RUNNING! 








That's right she is trying it straight from the tree. 

Look at that Sap Run !

How much do we have NOW !

Wordless Wednsday

National Popcorn Day

HAPPY NATIONAL POPCORN DAY

WHAT KIND ARE YOU EATING TODAY?

Check This Out.

Check out our new Emergency/Camping light. I have been looking around for a good light that packs small for me and the girls to use camping. Enter the LuminAiD Packlight 16. I bought this on amazon  just because it sounded cool and I am impressed. Its a solar powered light. It last for 30 hours on Low and charges in 7-10 hours. It blows up which is cool. It even floats but I have no idea what I would use that feature for. Its great for my emergency kit folds up into a nice neat little pack the size of that white solar panel you see on the front. It says it stays charged for 2 years. Iv only had it a few weeks so only time will tell on how long it really stays charged. The long battery life while stored makes it great for our emergency kit. It has a handle made into the top so you can carry it easily or hang it. Camping we will hang it in our tent. It will provide enough light for us to see to get in bed and trips to go potty.

It looks like a glowing pillow the girls are calling it a pillow of light. 

Birthday Dinner!

Last night was Pops birthday. We had birthday dinner at the local hamburger joint. Burgers and Fries and ice cream cones.






Yes my girls are reading Hot Rod Magazines while they wait for dinner. They make a Momma proud.

            

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PoP

We love you !

Happy New Years!

MERRY CHRISTMAS 

from our family to yours

Visiting Santa

I took the girls to see Santa this weekend. We held off of other Santa events so that they could go with their cousin. This was the first time their little cousin got to Visit Santa. It was a special moment the look on her face when he came in and said HO HO HO was priceless. I wish I had gotten a picture of it. Along with getting to see Santa they got to make reindeer food, and Gift for a parent. I had to close my eyes while they built it.

Merry Christmas !!!!

Girls Can weld

Yesterday was the first day I've had a chance to get into the shop and do some serious work. We pulled the cab and bed off the 53 so that I could weld in some major components of the build. We used the gantry crane to make lifting the cab off easier and safer than trying to carry it with just two people. We now have it set up on blocks and jack stands so that its safe and secure. Its also blocked up so I can get in and do some finish welding and body work. The bed has been disassembled for media blasting and body work. It has one small dent on the rail that needs to be pulled out with a couple studs and the puller.  The frame is coming along, we are at the point where I can finish up some welding and we can get it sand blasted and painted.

I had two major components to get welded the motor mounts and the transmission cross member that we modified to fit the new LS1 engine. We originally bought a set of dirty dingo engine mounts for a LS1 we were told these particular ones fit the frame of a 53. Turns out that they don't fit and instead of spending more money on something different I simply used my welding abilities and a chop saw and made them work. In this hobby its all about modification. So here are the lower engine mounts and the modified transmission cross member. This is the stock transmission cross member. It needed to be doped a couple inches to work with the new transmission. The original is made of a box tubing. I used the chop saw to cut out a section that was just deep enough to lower the transmission the correct amount. Then I used some heavy plate to box in the area that I cut out. I bolted it back in the frame and welded up the modifications.  

This is the back wall of the shop we have added a few more signs and posters to the wall. Its really starting to look good. We still have room for a few more Led signs. 

This is Mary Lou the 48 she is getting a new front end and a rear end upgrade. Every girls dream right. 

Tap My Trees

Back at the beginning of fall I talked about me and the girls marking maple trees. Our hole jungle adventure was for this review.  We discovered a company called Tap My Trees if you have maple trees on your property you are going to want to check them out. Tap My Trees is a company that offers maple sugaring supplies. They have books on how to get started. They have kits with everything you need to tap your first maple tree. They even offer pictures and directions on how to identify different types of maple trees. This is our winter science project so you will see a few post on it between now and the time the sap stops flowing.  Maple Sugaring is a science experiment that taste yummy.

The basic idea of sugaring is turning sap into a yummy syrup you can eat.  You must do this during a specific time of year. The night time temperatures must be below 32 degrees and the day time temperatures must be above 32 degrees. Sap generally flows for around 4-6 weeks. You drill a hole in a Maple tree (you can tap several varieties of trees) In this hole you insert a spile and hang a bucket from it to collect the sap. The sap will run out of the tree into the bucket once you collect a large amount of sap it must be boiled down. Sap has a lot of water in it and you must remove this extra water from the sugary part of the sap.

For this review we received a tap my trees starter kit with aluminum buckets it sells for about $109.95 you can go directly to it by clicking this link http://www.tapmytrees.com/products/starter-kit-aluminum-buckets. This kit it includes the Following:

3 Aluminum 2 gallon buckets to collect the sap as it drips from the spile.
3 metal lids to prevent leaves and bugs from falling into your sap once it has left the tree.
3 spiles or taps that you put into the tree so that the sap may exit the tree into your bucket.
3 hooks so that you can hang the bucket from the spile.
1 drill bit that is 7/16 so that you can drill the perfect size hole for your spile
Cheesecloth: for filtering any solids you use this when you transfer your sap to the storage container.
1 Maple Sugaring at Home book: this little gem tells you everything you need to know including identifying maple trees and how to boil down the sap to turn it into maple sugar.

It has almost everything you need to get started. It has enough buckets and spiles to tap three trees. In addition to the kit you will need a cordless drill and some clean empty food safe jugs to put the sap in when your buckets need to be emptied. You will also need a large pan to boil your sap down in. You will want to boil the sap down out side. Boiling the sap produces a large amount of moisture and it can peel the wall paper off your walls. So its best to do it out side.

The weather is not quite right for tapping trees yet but I want everyone to say tuned because me and the girls will be documenting our sugaring experiment as soon as the weather is right to begin tapping our trees.

I am very pleased with the kit from Tap My Trees. The buckets are nice and heavy, and they came with lids to help keep leaves etc out. I also love that it includes the correct size drill bit for the spiles. I never can find the bit I need and I spend 20 minute digging in my giant bucket of bits looking for the right one. The Maple Sugaring at Home book is great! It helped us to identify the correct trees easily. It also has great directions for tapping the trees and it leaves nothing to be confused about. It is really a great book to have around if you are going to try maple sugaring. Just about everything in the kits is reusable for years and years as long you take care of it. The only thing you might need to replace is  the cheese cloth and after a while the drill bit as those do get dull after a while. Both things are affordable and easily replaced when needed.

The only thing I think is missing from the kit is bottles, to bottle you syrup after you have boiled it. We are planning on processing it in mason jars.

Now we wait for sugar snow. For us that's typically mid January to late February. Stay Tuned to Updates!

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Paintings from Heaven

For some reason after my my grandma passed away my girls begun to see sun sets in a new way. They would look out the window and declare "Grandma is painting something beautiful for us tonight"  I think in a way it helped them cope with the loss of someone they loved so dearly. 

She must be thinking of us again tonight. Hear is the start of another beautiful painting.

The 2016 Annual Big Book!!!!

Our Elf Has Arrived

Our Elf on a Shelf has officially appeared at out house this morning, and look what she did!!

What do you do when Thanksgiving Dinner is over!

What do you do when Thanksgiving Dinner is over ? Make apple butter of course. I know we are a crazy bunch.  A sweet friend of ours donated 40lbs of apples in exchange for a couple jars of our apple butter. After we cleaned up form Thanksgiving dinner and everyone went home. Me and the girls decided we might as well get started. It took us about 30 minutes to peel core and slice all the apples. This is how we did it.

40 lbs of peeled sliced and cored apples takes up two big stock pots. We put them on the stove with some various spices and what not. Then we let it begin to cook down. Takes around an hour give or take a little.

Then you combine them into one pot. Blend it with the immersion blender thingie. Then you have to let it cook some more. I know its thick enough when my spoon stands in the pot.

Look at all those clean jars just waiting to be filled. Ok they had to be heated in the oven before they could be filled but you get the point.  

Ta Da 40 lbs of apples turned into 24 beautiful jars of homemade apple butter. Its all sealed and waiting for us to eat this winter. We will share this bounty with my sisters and the sweet friend of ours that donated the apples. I think its a good trade off for a few jars of apple butter. 

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!!!

May your Day be blessed with Good Food Good Family and Good Friends. 

Times Tales Review

Like me, my oldest struggles with multiplication tables. She has been working on them for months now and cant seem to get past her 3's. I discovered Times Tales on accident I was surfing the internet looking for something that might help her. I came across it in a google search and though that's a new idea and started checking it out. I emailed and ask about doing a review and they said sure. I received the digital download version of Times Tales you can go here to the exact product http://www.timestales.com/TTDOWNLoadPage.html.  It is currently $19.95 and you can download it right away. I love downloads because well I'm just not good at waiting for things.


Times Tales uses simple fun stories to give your child a "memory peg" that allows them to quickly recall abstract facts. It comes in 5 parts. There are 2 Video files, and 3 PDF files that you download. The PDF files have test, crossword puzzles, flash cards and cube game. The video files are the lessons that your kids watch to help them learn their times tables. We see them more as stories than lessons. In this program times tables are taught in story format instead of the standard hear they are memorize them. They have given the numbers fun names and characters. Then they teach a little story to help you remember each times table. The program covers 3x6, 3x7, 3x8, 3x9, 4x6, 4x7, 4x8, 4x9, 6x6 6x7, 6x8, 6x9, 7x7, 7x8, 7x9, 8x8, 9x9. Basically all the really hard ones that I never got memorized when I was in school.

I had hotrod girl start with video 1 she really enjoyed the video I didn't hear one single complaint about having to watch it. When she was done she came in telling me all these silly stories. I ask her show me and explain each story. I have found that having her explain things back to me really helps her. She took me in and showed me the number characters and explained the story that went with each one. I gave her the practice test that came in the PDF file. I had her do each problem and tell me the story as she was doing it. She was able to point to the problems on the practice test and tell me the story that went with the problems. I was blown away after watching it just one time she was already starting to remember some of them. She got hung up on a couple but I am sure a another time or two watching the lesson and a little more practice with the games and flash cards and she will have them down.

I love the combination of visual and audio learning. The stories make them easy to remember. I couldn't believe that she is already remembering the stories after watching it one time. I keep thinking why didn't anyone think of this when I was a kid. It covers all the upper multiplication tables which are the hardest ones to learn. It has some flash cards to practice with and a practice test and then a Test. It also has a dice game that you get to put together your self and a set of instructions on how to play. Its fun and it really does help with remembering them. They recommend you take a week between part 1 and 2 of the video lessons. During this time you should use the flash cards and games to practice. The dice game was her favorite by far. I would like you to check out the sample video below that gives you a great idea of what the lesson are like.

Over all we love the program its fun and it really does help. We are still watching the lessons and practicing but its helped Hotrod girl a bunch she is now doing way better with those upper times tables.  I think its well worth the reasonable price tag and I hope you will give it a try too. 

Movie Night !

MOVIE NIGHT!

That is all. 

The 2015 Schoolhouse Review Crew Blue Ribbon Awards !

This is it the official end of the 2015 Review Crew. We have all voted for our favorites and if you click the banner above you can view all the amazing winners and you can read post from fellow crew members about how they voted. Me and the girls really struggled with who to vote for this year we loved so many of the products we reviewed. I think all of our favorites were winners this year. Though I don't think we really had anything that wasn't a favorite we even drew names out of a hat for two categories because we just couldn't decided.  Hear are the Winners, click the links to read my reviews and other crew members reviews!   Congratulation's to all of this years Blue Ribbon Award winners!  

Favorite Reading Curriculum: Reading Kingdom
Favorite Writing Curriculum: Institute for Excellence in Writing
Favorite Vocabulary Program: Dynamic Literacy
Favorite Spelling Program: Institute for Excellence in Writing: Phonetic Zoo
Favorite Grammar Program: Institute for Excellence in Writing: Fix-It! Grammar
Favorite Penmanship Program: CursiveLogic
Favorite Literature Curriculum: Progeny Press

Favorite History Curriculum: Home School in the Woods
Favorite History Supplement: Heirloom Audio Productions: In Freedom's Cause
Favorite Science Curriculum: Visual Learning Systems
Favorite Science Supplement: Ann McCallum Books: Eat Your Science Homework
Favorite Math Curriculum: CTC Math
Favorite Math Supplement: SimplyFun

Favorite Christian Education Curriculum: Grapevine Studies
Favorite Christian Education Supplement: Brinkman Adventures
Favorite Foreign Language Curriculum: Middlebury Interactive Language
Favorite Fine Arts Product: Maestro Classics
Favorite Elective Curriculum: Apologia Educational Ministries: Field Trip Journal
Favorite Audio Drama: Brinkman Adventures
Favorite Video: FishFlix.com

Favorite Preschool Product: La La Logic
Favorite Elementary Product: Star Toaster
Favorite Middle School Product: The Critical Thinking Co
Favorite High School Product: Writing with Sharon Watson
Favorite College or College-Prep Product: Freedom Project Education
Favorite Parent Product: Koru Naturals
Favorite Planning Product: Apologia Educational Ministries: The Ultimate Homeschool Planner

Best Resource I Didn't Know I Needed: Homeschool Planet
Best Online Resource: Super Teacher Worksheets
Best e-Product: Home School in the Woods
Just for Fun: USAopoly Kids' Choice: La La Logic
Teens' Choice: YWAM Publishing
All Around Crew Favorite: Institute for Excellence in Writing

Be sure to Follow my blog so you don't miss out on next years Crew Reviews we are going to review some great products and you wont want to miss them!

What do you do with two kids that hate shoes. I guess I might have been a little lax this summer about making them put on shoes when they went out side. The yard where they play is grassy and I really wasn't all that concerned about it. But now its and its now a bit to cold to be running a muck bare foot. I have now started requiring them to wear boots and socks before heading out doors. They were disgruntled by this but accepted that they must. But then we got some rain and I informed them they could not go out to play in it because it was too cold to be all wet.  I got called a meanie ! a meanie can you believe it my near to prefect little girls said I was a meanie.  What's a mom to do in this type of situation....... then I had the brilliant idea buy them Rain gear so they can play in the rain and not get wet that's what.  I am now Super Mom fixer of all problems! Gotta love it when it works out that way.

Winter Preparations

Its officially getting cold in our neck of the woods. We fired up the outdoor wood furnace this week. With winter comes the clearing of brush and the trimming of trees and bushes. The girls are getting excited about tapping the maple trees. This winter we will be building a bigger garden bed out of rock collected from the local landscape (aka the hill behind the house). Our current raised beds are made from recycled boards and there just is not enough room to grow everything that me and the girls want to grow. So this winter we will start expanding. Me and the girls will collect rock and build a stacked rock garden bed. It will most likely take all winter to get enough rock to make the bed. But once its done I think It will work quite well. This will be our first experience building a rock structure with out mortar. If you have any tips we would love to hear them.

GrapeVine Studies Old Testament 1 Level 1 Review

I am sad to say this is my final Crew Review for 2015. I am how ever proud to announce that its a great product from GrapeVine Studies  ~ https://GrapeVineStudies.com. Me and the girls have been working with the Old Testament 1: Level 1 Creation to Jacob. We received the digital download for this book. It comes with a teachers edition and a student work book. The student workbook is around 73 pages and it contains 12 lessons.  Its basically a chronological study of the characters and events of the Old Testament  from Creation to Jacob and get this you use stick figures to do it. Cool Right! Stick Figures are right up my alley. I cant draw a lick. By the end of the level your kids should be able to recite around 10 memory verses and draw the beginning of the Old Testament timeline. 

The teachers book is great it covers both level 1 and 2.  Its very easy to teach from and its well laid out.  It gives you some teachers goals and student goals to strive for. It even has little pictures so you can see what your kids should be drawing.  The teachers book does have some color what you read to the kids is in green. The stick people are also colored so that you can tell the kids which color to use when they are drawing. I don't have a colored printer so I emailed GrapeVine Studies and ask if it was OK for me to just save the file to my Ipad and use it from there. They said that was fine, and it has worked out really well for me. I printed out the girls work books and put them in a three ring binder. Its simple and works well for us and I can file it away when they are done. 
The Student work book starts out with a Timeline. We had so much fun doing the drawings. Although I think the girls figures were much better than mine. The girls were already a little familiar with this portion of the bible as they had covered it in Sunday school a few weeks ago.  How ever they said GVS (that's what the girls call it) was way way better, they actually ask if the Sunday school teacher could get it for class.  Each lesson has drawing pages for the student to do. Then it has lesson review questions, a student drawing page where they can draw their favorite part of the lesson and an area to write a verse. At the end of the lessons there is a timeline review and a memory verse review. 
The lessons have been taking us around 20 minutes or so. We do them about three days a week. The girls like to take their time drawing the pictures. You can see a sample of one of the girls timeline drawings on the left. As you can see they are fairly simple drawings to make. Which is perfect so that the younger kids can work in the same lessons as ones that are a few years older. This is a big time saver for me since I only need to teach bible study once that day and I don't have to plan a separate lesson for the other child.  Although we did not use it GrapeVine also offers a traceable version of this student book. Which would be perfect for kinder and pre-k kids.
I have really enjoyed the simplicity of teaching this Bible study. The teachers book makes teaching the lessons flow smoothly.  For the age range of this level 1 book I feel that it covers this part of the Old Testament nicely. Its not over their heads and yet it give a fair amount of information.  The girls are so excited to hear the lesson and do the drawings that it has been a real pleasure to use. If you take a look at the image below you can get an idea of the different levels and age groups they are designed for. I am looking forward to trying out the next level.

Social Media Check it out:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GrapevineStudies
Twitter: https://twitter.com/grapevinestudy
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/grapevinestudy/ 
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+Grapevinestudies/posts
Periscope: @Grapevine Studies

 I want to encourage everyone to click the Schoolhouse Review Crew Banner below. Other members reviewed different levels and I would love for you to see what they have to say about it. 

 

Eat Your Science Homework Review

We have been eating our science homework. Really we have! If you don't believe me check out Ann McCallum Books  at http://AnnMcCallumBooks.com/. Me and the girls have been having so much fun with the Eat Your Science Homework book. The book sells for about $16.95. Its basically a book packed with edible science projects that help you kids under stand science in a hole new way. With this book me and the girls turned out kitchen into a laboratory and our food became our science experiments. Cool Right! Well we though so. 





The girls have enjoyed all the experiments in the book and we have done most of them. The Sedimentary Pizza Lasagna was just there favorite so I decided to show it off for the review. The girls also happened to be learning about the earth when this book came in. We had just started a unit on rocks and how they are formed. To be honest the girls were a little board with my explanations and pictures. So I brought out the Eat your Science Homework book. The first thing that grabbed my attention was the Sedimentary Pizza Lasagna. I though what could be more perfect! I of course handed the book off to the girls. They did some reading discovered the recipe and we got to work. I set out the ingredients for them and let them go at it. While they were working I took the chance to go over the lesson that was in the book adding to it and explaining further where I thought I might need to. It was a huge hit and the girls made this wonderful pizza Lasagna to demonstrate how sediment is made. It was a blast and they made a huge mess but the lesson stuck. Its been well over a month since we made Sedimentary Pizza Lasagna and the girls still remember the lesson.


We have actually made it for dinner a few times since it was so yummy. Each time they make it they tell me how everything starts out as separate layers and then as heat and pressure are applied they begin to melt and mix together. We recently did some digging in the back yard and the girls found some sedimentary rock and came to PoP to explain how it was made. 

The book its self gives a lesson then an experiment made of food. Everything you make is edible. We had most of the ingredients already in the house. You can also download a teachers guide from the website. I found it to be a great bonus to the Eat your Science Homework book. Its got some great tips and bonus lessons the go with the Eat Your Science Homework book. The pictures in the Eat Your Science Homework book are great. I wish I could draw that good. The lessons in the book are wonderful. They had just the right amount of details for the girls age levels and they were fun at the same time. The girls understood exactly what it was telling them the first time. I probably could have done with out all the extra explaining because the lesson did such a good job. The book also has a great glossary in the back. The girls have been learning to use one so this was a great find. The book also includes a safety in the Lab section that has kitchen safety rules. A science review area and an index. The girls have had so much fun with Eat Your Science Homework they want all the other  Eat Your Homework books. Be sure to click the banner below and check out all the other Ann McCallum Books.