Freezer's Filling Up! & First Camping of the Season

The "Copycat Starbucks Passion Tea Lemonade" would be wonderful but for one thing - we picked up "Lite" Lemonade (diet=blecchh! and aspartame=NASTY!) at the store.I will definitely make it on a regular basis, but use the good stuff instead!

Saturday, 6/7/14 - Tuesday, 6/10/14: Camping with Dad & Erica at Deer Creek State Park. One of the best campgrounds! Many of the sites are "secluded", with vegetation growing up between them. There are several that are also built into openings in the woods, and most of the sites have wonderful shade. The showerhouse we used (#2) was just ok - no bench in the shower stall - it was outside the stall. Also, #2 is not handi-accessible, but it appeared that another one might have been. Beautiful weather Saturday, rained off-and-on Sunday afternoon (Erica said it was fine in the a.m., while we were at church), Monday was cool with a couple of sprinkles, and it rained all of Tuesday morning while we were packing up. Took a drive to the beach on Sunday afternoon, but it was too cold and windy to swim. Took a walk on a "Lake Access Path" on Monday - beautiful views.

Wednesday, 6/11/14: Raining most of the day. 

* Backed up 2 years' worth of photos to DVD and removed them from laptop to external drive.

* Hung a load of clothes out to dry for about 1-1/2 hours until the rain started again. Finished them in the dryer.

* Made Passion Tea the Sun Tea way.

* Had 2 mangoes in the fridge that needed to be used, but I forgot why I bought them, so I cut them up and froze them. 2 mangoes will fit on the broiler pan top

* Had bananas left over from camping, so I cut them up and froze them. 5 bananas will fit on the broiler pan.

* Family has not been eating apples lately, so I cut up 4-3/4 Honeycrisps (had used 1/4 in a smoothie this a.m.) and 2 Granny Smiths. The gingerbread man tray holds 3/4 Honeycrisp and 2 Granny Smiths. Then I realized that used pizza boxes would make great flash-freezing trays. Each box will hold 2 Honeycrisps (2 boxes).

* Froze the grapes (red & green) leftover from camping. Neither bag had been opened, about 2 lbs. each. Filled snack baggies (2-1/2 handfuls each), then placed 6-7 baggies inside a gallon baggie to freeze flat.

* Scooped the leftover ice out of the cooler (there was still quite a bit, since it wasn't hot) and into baggies to put in the freezer. I had used 3 of the jugs I had frozen earlier, and the ice from these was still intact (though the plastic wasn't). Put these blocks in baggies as well.

Rhubarb & Rain

Wednesday, 6/4/14: PD (Professional Development) in the a.m. (got to tour one of Piqua's new elementary schools! Yippee!). After lunch at Cracker Barrel with the Nicklin staff, I went to Charlie's to help Betsy clean. The plan was for me to work outside, but it was raining, so instead I took down (and photographed) all of the fall decorations that were still up around the house. The rest of the evening was unproductive because I was tired!

Thursday, 6/5/14:
* day #2 of yoga workout
* did a load of laundry and hung it outside to dry
* remembered the rhubarb still in the fridge, so I looked up a smoothie recipe that didn't involve cooking the rhubarb. Best. Smoothie. Ever! Strawberry-Rhubarb with a bit of banana and honey. Mmmmm.
* sliced and froze the rest of the rhubarb in individual baggies, 1 stalk per bag
* made a batch of "Copycat Starbucks Passion Tea Lemonade"

Start of the Summer

Saturday, 5/31/14: U-Pick at Fulton's. 3 buckets (12 quarts?) of strawberries took me 1.5 hours. 11:15-12:45 gave me just a bit of sunburn (nothing unbearable). Also bought 2 lbs. of rhubarb and 4 lemons.

Monday, 6/2/14: Put 1 bucket at a time of strawberries in the sink and covered them with enough cold water to be able to swish them around to wash them (Bob didn't like this method, saying I was "washing" them in a dirty sink, even though I scrubbed the sink before using it). As I washed, I cut up enough of the smallest berries to make 2 pints of strawberry syrup and 1 pint of strawberry lemonade concentrate. This took about 3 hours. Put the washed, uncut strawberries back in the buckets in the fridge. Also squeezed the lemons to get 1 c. of juice.

Tuesday, 6/3/14: Canned the syrup and lemonade concentrate using the water bath method, but in the pressure cooker pot. This involved cooking the previously-cut strawberries, then squeezing them through a colander, and saving the "mush" for later. Cut tops off of the whole strawberries and laid them on waxed paper on trays for freezing. I used the big and little cookie sheets, a casserole lid (plastic), the gingerbread cookie sheet, and the broiler pan and top (6 trays in all). It took about 20 min. per tray, so about 3 hours again. I also froze a few of the "bad" berries to get seeds.

Tuesday was a productive first-day-of-summer (had to work Monday a.m.) I also:
* started a new yoga workout, geared toward weight loss in the tummy (my old workout was an intro to yoga, and was getting too easy)
* did a load of laundry and hung it outside to dry, and later folded it and put it away (gasp!)
* planted my potato planter
* put the strawberry and lemon seeds in a plastic take-out bowl with a wet paper towel and a lid, and set it outside to see if they will germinate
* made a jug of sun tea
* used the leftover strawberry "mush" to make an awesome strawberry bread in the bread machine (that I don't think I've used since we moved here 11 years ago!)
* tried my hand at building a solar oven. It didn't work because a) I started it too late in the day, and b) it needs some design kinks to be worked out. Put the soup (which is in mason jars) in the fridge, to try again. The soup is: 1 can each of peas, corn, green beans, mixed vegetables, turnip greens, and diced potatoes, and 1 box of beef broth. It makes exactly 4 qts.