Mud Boots

Mud boots are expensive in Bethel, but they are really needed, as the roads are muddy and full of water about six months of the year. The kids finally get to use their mud boots because the weather is now in the 40's. Playing in the muddy roads is a fun activity in Bethel.




Moxy wants to do everything that Ruby does, but his coordination is not as good yet. Ruby tends to help him a lot. I think she likes that he is starting to play and be her pal.


This is about the 5th time that Moxy's boots got stuck and he would fall backwards into the mud. He was pretty frustrated in this picture because he did not want to get his little sock gloves muddy but that was the only way to get leverage unless mommy helped him back up.

They found a whiskey bottle to kick around. These tend to scatter the road at certain times of the year in Bethel. These bottles go for about 75.00 or more in Bethel.

Scrambled Tofu

A lot of people scramble tofu for breakfast, but it always sound gross to me. However, I finally did it, and it was very good. It tasted even better thrown on top of Barley.



The recipe I used is:
-firm tofu pressed and then crumbled into a pan of olive oil and pressed garlic.
about a teaspoon of tumeric (for color and acts as an antioxidant (fights free radicals))
about a teaspoon of cumin
some salt and pepper
I used some zucchini, garlic, and onion sauteed into the scramble mix.
It seems that you can scramble with any type of vegetable that you like even shredded carrots.
By the way the Greg and the kids did not seem to want this. I had to force Greg to take a bite. They actually like scrambled eggs better.

Moxy and Ruby Doing Their Daily Chores

Moxy and Ruby were at one point fighting over the vacuum cleaner. Ruby vacuumed for about 15 minutes, then Moxy wanted to try. I loved that cleaning was fun for them.

Food is Yummy and Pretty

Sometimes we forget to change our order for Full Circle Farms and we get stuck with Green Beans. Our greens beans have typically gone to waste. But recently we discovered that they taste really good, and make a pretty picture. I like to eat them whole dipped in hummus, Ruby likes to open them up and eat each pea individually, and Moxy likes to pull the peas off of the bean and hoard them on his eating tray.

We don't like all oranges. All that "orange" species have in common is the color and texture. What you get inside varies on the actual individual orange specie. This Mineola orange is definitly our favorite ORANGE. Sweet and always juicy.

Some Yummy Recipes

Okay, this is a new tofu recipe. You bake the tofu versus frying it up.
Take a tofu brick and cut into cubes. Then take some lime, roasted sesame seed oil, low-sodium soy sauce, pepper and marinate the tofu for 1-4 hours. Then bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. Turning the tofu over after 10 minutes. Then you take all the vegetables in your fridge that look like they are about to go bad, and these get baked as well. They get covered with a mixture of lemon, garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Baked for about 15 minutes. So good. The brown rice is needed because it neutralizes the strong flavors in the vegetables and tofu. This is my favorite tofu recipe at this point. :)


We ran out of crackers, so we ate hummus and pepper jack cheese on a slice of cucumber. This is another vegetable that I find difficult to eat. It was really yummy. We have been trying to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, because I read in my nutrition book that this basically how you ensure that you get all of your vitamins and minerals.

People are Actually Nice

It is not that I think all people are mean or bad, but sometimes it is nice to get reminders that people are actually inherently good and kind. We went to the grocery store today, and an elder came over to Moxy and said "what are you going to buy me." Now Moxy typically cries when someone talks to him or hides, but this elder made him smile and laugh and for the first time he was talking to a stranger. Then we saw someone we know (kind of) and they gave our kids peppered beef jerky. She had Ruby reach into the jerky package and Ruby pulled out this enormous piece of beef. I tried to get Ruby to pick a different piece and the lady told us to keep it, because "food always comes back around." Nice people.

Some Favorite Foods

We recently received a purple cauliflower and it was beautiful. We baked it with lemon, garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Very good. In fact, I am really not a big eater of cauliflower, asparagus, or green beans but with that above combination I am now a big eater of these vegetables. Even Greg and Ruby liked it.

This is a picture of a pizza that we really liked. We now have pizza two to three times per week, because I bought King Arthur "best pizza blend" flour and the pizza's improved by 30 percent. We have gone from thin crust to thick crust lovers.