Squash Surprise!

A friend of mine has extra squash and tomatoes, so I wanted to post my favorite reciepe to make with those extras!

What you need: 

~ carton of Del Fuerte tomato sauce (I find it in the mexican section at Walmart, real cheap)~

~ zucchini and yellow squash diced up~

~diced up tomato~

~onion~

~fresh garlic~

~bag of frozen corn~

~chicken bullion cube (if you want for extra flavor)~

 I first dice up the squash and tomato and put it into a pot, get the sauce poured in. (the veggies will make more liquid as they cook) and add it in along with the bag of frozen corn. Turn it on to a low boil and then turn it down to simmer. As this is cooking I saute the diced up onions and fresh garlic together, when its nice and browed I then add it to the mix. along with the bullion cube, chopped up.

The best thing about this is you can add whatever you want. I once added some diced cabbage I had as well. very simple and very quick.

Raising SwallowTail Butterflys

For the past few weeks I have been raising some Black Sallowtail butterflys in my home.

 I had heard that fennel attracted butterflys and I was planting a butterfly gardren, so I decided to get some!

Little did I know how much it would attract the Black Swallowtail butterfly!

First you get a egg (or in my case, tons of eggs)

They are usually yellow in color and are very tiny

Here they are pretty soon after hatching, maybe right before the 2nd instar. they are only about 1 cm long. Before this they are so small its hard to get a picture without a  macro

The caterpillars have 5 different instars (or stages)

This is at a 2rd or 3rd instar, still not the green/orange color but not as tiny anymore.

Here you can see that the color has changed! This can really happen over night! So far all these pictures happened outside. This was the stage when Mr. Cardinal in my backyard would start stealing my caterpillars! I added a ceramic cardinal out to the garden and that helped a bit.
4th Instar (still has spikes on  head)

In this photo you can see the shedded skin, he has entered the 5th instar and will keep eating until he is ready to from a chrysalis. This was taken in the house.

Green Chrysalis (in the home)

Can you see the small piece of silk he used to attach (this one is attached to a piece of fennel, hence his color)

Brown Chrysalis (in the home)

Please check back soon to see our beautiful butterfly!

The Cucumber wall

For our cucumbers, we use section of seven foot tall cattle fencing. I plant 3 pickling cucumbers, usually grown inside from seed. I grow  pickling ones just to slice and eat because I just enjoy them more like that~

They love to up upright and I even have to clip some of the ends off because they grow up and past the fence. They then flop over and try to attach to a new spot, getting all tangled up!

Here are some photos! I love to bring them in fresh off, slice them, and eat with ranch!

Third Thursday, July 2010

I was able to show some of my photography in the public for the first time at Hutchinson's Third Thursday.

It's a down town invite aimed at Artists and Musicians

Here is some of the work I shared:

In love with the Sunset...

I have been having fun with sunsets the last few weeks.

56th and Hendricks area in Hutchinson. The reflection is from the flood water's out there!

My Brave Daughter

On memorial day we spent the afternoon at JaKo Farm

www.jakoinc.com

They had lots of fun stuff to do but the best part was watching my daughter climb the rock climbing course that they built into their 50 ft. silo.

She was so brave, she walked right up there and was second in line!

She was so much braver than her mom!

I love her

I Love Logan

Last week I was out rinsing the patio off from my son's bubbles.

I had turned the water off but there was still pressure from the hose and the nozzle was set on "stream" which is just a strong jet of water!

Logan aimed it right at the a pile of dirt and here is what happened!

He loves being outside and would stay forever if I let him!