Ice

Farmer Boy chapter 6 tells about filling the Wilder Family's ice house. My dad said he remembers his mom talking about doing the same thing.  Storing ice to have it all through the summer.  My mom said she remembers having an ice box and it not quite being cold enough to set Jell-O.  Owen told her she just needed to put two blocks of ice in the ice chest instead of one.  (Makes sense right?)

One thing the Wilder's could do with ice is make ice cream!  So we made some ice cream.  (Luckily reading chapter 6 coincided with the day of our church picnic at which there was going to be a homemade ice cream contest.)

Owen's word:  Almanzo filled up the ice house.  And I wanted to make an ice house in the winter time.  (An igloo.)

Barnyard Tin Lanterns

Owen's Note:

These   are   tin   lanterns.

 Momma's Note:

In Farmer Boy Chapter 2 Almonzo helps his father and brother do their evening chores in the barn.  He says, "It was dark there; only a little light came from the pierced tin sides of the lantern hung in the alleyway below."

We made out lanterns out of tin fruit cans.  Prepare a covered work area, and supervise kids at all times. 

Step one: Clean out can and remove label.  Be careful of sharp edges

Step two: Make a pattern of dots on the can with a permanent marker.  Make sure to leave 1.4 to 1/2 inch between dots. 

Step three with a large nail and hammer punch a hole over each dot.  (We found this worked best to have momma hold the can and the nail in place, with boy also holding on to nail and hammering.)

Step four: Punch a hole on two oposite sides of the upper rim of the can.  Thread a handle string through the two holes to hang the lantern from. 

Step five: Place a tea light or battery-operated tea light in the lantern.  Turn out the other lights, and admire lanterns.  

Almonzo's Apple Turnovers

We are intent on promoting a healthy food-culture as a part of our homeschooling days.

Owen and I are reading Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  In the first chapter, Almonzo Wilder takes a lunch to school and there is a tasty description of his apple turnovers:  "their plump crusts filled with melting slices of apple and spicy brown juice."

 A Farmer Boy Unit I referenced suggested getting a hold of the Little House cookbook to cook some recipes from the book along with your reading.  I knew that it would be perfect for the all-day learning, but not all-day schooling we are trying to do here. Luckily our local library had it.

So after reading about apple turnovers we made apple turnovers.  The recipe in the book was excellent.  I used their dough recipe, and used half butter and half lard.  I always have trouble with pie dough (I think it's solely user error) so I ended up book-folding the dough and re-rolling three or four times.  That seemed to work out OK and the crust was really flaky and delicious.

The best tip the recipe gave was to let the apples and sugar sit aside for a while then lift the apples with a fork leaving the juices behind.  This helped us not have any bubbling-all-over, sticky-explosion messes.  (I saved the sugary juice in the fridge--I'm sure it will be great on something--maybe hot oatmeal?)

Owen's Notes:

I really liked making the apple turnovers, and when we ate them I wanted to eat all of them!