Fun in Minnesota 2022

While visiting family in Minnesota for Christmas, my daughter taught Grandpa the most valuable skill ever--making chocolate chip cookies!

Magic in the kitchen

The grandparents have some chickens who are living in the garage while the bleak midwinter had sub-zero temperatures. The kids enjoyed helping feed them, though it is unclear who is more scared of whom.

Chickens in a creepy light

Come here, little (or not so little) chicken

Getting closer (or is it the camera angle?)

Almost there

Jail birds?

The snow was bad but not too bad. My son was trained in plowing the driveway.

Learning to use heavy machinery

The snow was fun, too. The kids tried sledding but with the extra cold air, the snow wouldn't pack well enough for satisfying sledding.

Going out for a ride

Getting help from Granny

Working on a slope

The lake was frozen, so they cleared off a patch and smoothed it to make an ice rink.

Lake ice doesn't look pretty but is slippery

A lot of the cousins were new to ice skating. Tools were available to make it easier.

Working on balance

A hockey game broke out. Many tumbles happened on the ice. Hockey didn't last too long.

The biggest problem was knowing who was on which team

I might have scored on my own goal at one point. Whoops!

The forest had many trails in the snow--deer trails!

Hoof prints in the snow

The visit was good.

Shrine of St. Anthony (Outside)

We visited the Shrine of St. Anthony and explored the grounds quite a bit. As her first challenge, L climbed a tree!

One of the signs

L on high

Behind the monastery building is an extensive woodland area with trails. We tried out the Alverna Trail, despite warnings.

Trail sign

Jesus, warning us not to go on the trail?!?

Not too far along the trail is a small shrine to Our Lady of Ghisallo, who is patron of cyclists. The legend goes that Count Ghisallo was traveling when bandits came after him. He saw an apparition of Mary at a shrine, ran there, and was saved from the thieves. She became "Madonna della Ghisallo" and is patron of local travelers. The hill where the apparition happened later became part of a bicycle race route. A local priest wanted her to be patron of cyclists and Pope Pius XII approved it.

Our Lady of Ghisallo grotto

By the bench

The madonna

The trail had lots of leaves falling down, a very picturesque time. The kids tried to catch leaves out of the air since they came down like snowflakes.

Foliage falling

Trail marker

Also behind the monastery is a small garden maintained by the monks. They keep chickens!

Garden

Chickens hanging out

Chickens eating

Chicken strutting his stuff

Standing on one leg for as long as he can

Pepper bush

J took a lot of notes at this point, borrowing my pen and a piece of paper from the car. Future blog alert!

J blogs the old-fashioned way

Big tree nearby

A small pond is situated downhill from the garden, named Sister Water, a name taken from St. Francis's Canticle of the Sun.

Sister Water

The pond

The lilies of the pond

Next to the pond is Brother Fire, a fire pit built recently.

Brother Fire sign

Bonfire pit

Ready for some cooking

View of the monastery from the pond

The Shrine of St. Anthony is worth visiting for a quiet, restful experience.

One Ingredient Challenge: Chicken Stock

Part of an ongoing series of cooking from scratch. That is, we cook something from basic items that don't have multiple ingredients (e.g. store-bought spaghetti sauce includes all sorts of spices and maybe other stuff too; we'd start with tomatoes and individual spices and add them together to make our own sauce). See other challenges here.

Back in England, L helped Mommy make some chicken stock from scratch. They took a dutch oven and filled it with the following ingredients:

• Water
• Bone-in chicken parts (we used drum sticks)
• Garlic
• Onion
• Bay leaves
• Rosemary
• Thyme
• Carrot
• Salt
• Pepper

L adding ingredients

The pot simmered for a few hours.

Soon to be yummy

Then they took all the stuff out and had a nice broth that we could use in other recipes. Sometimes we substitute some chicken broth for water when making rice to give it a little more flavor.  We also have a few stove-top pasta recipes that call for chicken stock. It also makes a nice base for soups or when making ramen noodles (or Kung Fu Panda noodles, as L likes to call them).

Bunratty Animals and Playground, Ireland

Bunratty Folk Park features some things that are fun for the children visiting. What's most fun is debatable.

For us parents, the presence of many different animals, both caged and free range, made for a wonderful experience. Many pens are kept throughout the estate. Some of the animals have managed to sneak through the fences.

Trapped chickens

Free-range bird

Hogs!

Deer!

For J and L, the highlight was the playground. A swing set is off camera, but the wooden fort fired their imaginations in a way that not much else in the Park did.

Wooden fort seen from the swings

Inside the fort

One of the fort's guard towers became J and L's shop and bakery, where Mommy could order snacks. Somehow I wound up being a worker there. When I would just stand around, L told me to get to work. So I'd pretend to stir some ingredients. They went off into the maze to buy extra ingredients, which I took advantage of to take a break. Once they returned it was back to work. It wasn't too bad since I was shaded from the sun.

For crazy people, the highlight might be the drying haystacks. Since Ireland is so wet, hay stacks need to be put up from the ground in order to dry more quickly. But who really wants to watch hay drying?

Drying hay

Harlow Carr Chickens and More

We made another visit to RHS Harlow Carr Gardens. This time they had some chickens in the kitchen garden section and were asking visitors to suggest names. We went to look but couldn't come up with anything original. They were pretty cute, though more full grown than we expected.

Chicken yard

Classic white hen

Eating out

The nearby signs explained a lot about the life, diet, and value of chickens. And how to grow an egg head, as seen in yesterday's post. All that I am reproducing from that treasure trove of information is the jokes they had as sidebars:

Q: How did the egg get up the mountain?
A: It scrambled up!

Q: What do chickens serve at birthday parties?
A: Coop-cakes!

Q: What do you get when you cross a chicken with a cement mixer?
A: A brick layer!

Q: What did the egg do when the other egg told it a joke?
A: It cracked up!

The kitchen garden also had a few useful plants.

Pear tree

Roughage

Portable greenhouse!

We saw a smattering of spring flowers too. First is the tulip sylvestris or mountain tulips as they are commonly known, lording it over some pansies.

Tulips and pansies in the greenhouse

Outside more interesting flowers were found, like fritillaria imperialis or aurea.

Aurea

L enjoyed some of the larger beds of flowers.

Colorful patch

L wanted to take some home!

Relaxing by the bench

We did go to the tree house and the playground, but the logness monster was the most popular kid attraction by far.

Bridge to logness

J and the logness monster arch

Green man tree decoration

We also saw a giant shovel which we thought belonged to a giant.

That metal bird is weird too.

We were glad to see Spring finally showing up after a long, cold, snowy winter.