MIA

 I know I have been missing in action this week.  Sorry. I would argue that I have a pretty good reason for taking a little break.  My summer officially started on Sunday, so I wanted to take a little break to relax.  Unfortunately the blog suffered a bit, but it felt so good to rest. I should have planned ahead to do my Mennonite Monday post before everything got crazy, but I hardly cooked last week, except for the bake beans for 600 people, but I will post more about that later.

Here are a few pictures from Community Days.   

I'm always good about taking pictures at the parade and then after that my picture taking drops off.

 This year we had the Minute to Win it Game, which went over pretty well even though very few adults were willing to step out of their comfort zone and participate. 

 Everyone was concentrating to hard. 

 Even the young kids tried the games, but we didn't time them. 

 No one was able to balance three golf balls on top of each other, but most people were able to balance two. 

 The Home Run Derby went over very well on Friday night.  My dad even won his division, which I don't have a picture of and didn't see because I went home to rest up for the next day. 

We had a record number of people participating in the 5K and 10K races.  Someday I want to participate in the run, but not when I'm running the entire weekend.  

 My niece Ave even came to join in the fun. 

On Saturday evening No Better Cause performed an acapella concert. 

All in all it was a good weekend, but I'm glad it is over.  Bring on summer.

Hauling Hay

 It has been a few years since I have helped my parents haul hay, but with my brother in crutches, I thought it would be good to help.  

Apparently one person on crutches means a large number of people are needed to help. 

 The whole pivot corner started out as rows of cut hay. 

 Then the tractor drives up and down the rows to make bales. 

 This part of the machine picks up the cut hay. 

 Then it comes out of the other end as a square bail. 

 You are left with a field full of square bails.  I think there were around 400 of these bails that were hauled in 3 hours that day

 Grandpa backed the truck up. 

 Mom helped to throw bails in the truck, along with myself and 4 high school/college boys. 

 Mike and Dad stacked the bails in the truck. 

 After the truck was full, we started filling the trailer behind the tractor. 

 This was easier because you don't have to throw the bails as high onto the trailer. 

 After all that stacking, Mike decided to take a ride. 

 Then you have to unload all of the bails and stack them in the barn.  Notice several people are wearing jeans and long sleeve shirts, which may seem weird on a hot summer day, but this is normal hay hauling attire. So you don't scratch your arms and legs while lifting the bails. 

 Kellen was on tractor driving duty due to his cast.

 It was so great to have these guys helping us, it made it so much easier and quicker to load and unload. 

 As you stack the bails, you have to sprinkle salt over the bails to keep them from catching on fire or molding if they are still a little wet. 

 We had so much extra help that a few people got to sit and relax while the others were working. 

 Then it was snack time.

 Everyone was hungry. Unfortunately we still had 100 bails left at the field that we had to load and unload after lunch.

All in all it was a good little walk down memory lane.

Mulberries

 I am really really behind on this post, but when Mike and I recently (okay, not so recently) took a trip to Newton to visit our friends, Brian and Jodi, I learned how to harvest mulberries. 

You can shake the tree limbs by hand,

 or use a really long stick to shake the top branches,

 or hit the branches to make the mulberries fall on your sheet below. 

 We collected 42 cups of red and white mulberries. 

Then we had to rinse all of the mulberries before bagging them for the freezer. 

It was really fun to learn how to do something new and mark on thing off of my bucket list. Hopefully I will be able to harvest mulberries when they are ripe in Nebraska this summer. 

Mennonite Monday - Snickers Cake

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.

~

This week the vote winner was Snickers Cake (pg 48W). Who doesn't like, chocolate cake with caramel. 

Snicker Cake

1 pkg German Chocolate Cake mix

1 pkg Kraft caramels

1 stick butter

1/3 cup milk

3/4 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup chopped nuts

Mix cake mix according to directions.  Pour half of batter into greased 9x13 pan.  Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.  Melt caramels, milk and butter.  Pour mixture over baked layer.  Sprinkle with the chopped nuts and chocolate chips.  Spoon rest of batter on top of the caramel layer.  Bake at 250 degrees for 10 minutes, and 350 degrees for 10 minutes more.  

 Cake Mix. 

 Next time I will pour a little more than half of the batter for the bottom layer. 

 It was a little harder to melt and mix the butter, milk and caramels and the consistency was very runny.  I'm not sure if it was suppose to be like this or not. 

 Pouring on the caramel mixture. 

 Chocolate chips and chopped nuts on one half. 

 The other half of the batter on top. 

  The final product. 

Crazy Week

For some reason I work well under pressure.  For example, I haven't had any pressing work events for the past few weeks and some how I can't find time to blog. But this week, is my busiest week of the year for work due to this and I have several blog posts scheduled to post during the week. 

I don't think I'm ready to fill my life with stressful events just so I can be more productive, but it is interesting how well I am able to prioritize when I am busy and a little stressed. 

If you live in the Henderson area be sure to check out Community Days this weekend.  These are the events that are planned.

Check back next week for pictures from the weekend.
 
Wish me luck its going to be a long week.

June Favs

1. Cake Doctor Cookbook

After visiting a friend who had the cake doctor cookbook I thought I had to have it. My mom had this cookbook, and I always like to make the red velvet cake from it.  This is such a great cookbook because you use a regular cake mix as a base of the recipe and then you jazz it up to make a great cake, cookies or dessert.

2. Garage Sales

I am horrible at Garage Saling.  I always buy things on an impulse that I don't really need, but I had to participate in the community wide garage sale (where there were 45+ garage sales) and this year I hit several home runs.  Some of the items included a box full of bathroom fixtures (light fixture, towel rod, robe hook, towel ring, toilet paper holder) for $3. I also bought a small pampered chef microwave cooker for 25 cents, a set of 4 patio chairs with cushions for $5, and a great pair of wedge heels for $1.  I was able to fill my car with all of these great finds  and a few more things for only $20.

3. Big Marshmallows

 When I saw these marshmallows at our local grocery store I had to buy two bags. These are the largest marshmallows I have ever seen.

 On the left is a normal size marshmallow. On the right is one of the jumbo marshmallows. Aren't they huge.

4. Aqua Jogging

 Three years ago, I bought an Aquajogger, so I could do some short summer workouts in the summer over my lunch hour at the pool. It was so great to pull it out again this month.

The belt holds you up in the water while you make a running motion.  In 30 minutes you can get a pretty good workout.  

5. LG Ally

 Since my phone completely died on me in May, I got a new phone on the first day I could.  So far I love the LG Ally. It has really fast Internet and I can do so many things with it.