Not much going on...

     Not much has been going on lately. The robins are grown and gone and Homestead Days are over, so we've just been doing e. coli testing and various other tasks around the park. I did want to share some pictures and a recipe with you!
     Today, Chelsi and I did e. coli testing in the mud. I had a brilliant idea! Let's use Jesse's wading pants. I called them "plastic pants" and Rob laughed pretty hard at that. We got down and dirty...

     We know how to make our dirty jobs pretty fun. Walking back up the bank to the car was the hardest part because Chelsi had me laughing so hard. It was a pretty fun day. After e. coli testing, we did butterfly monitoring. We found a new butterfly we've never seen before! That is the picture at the beginning of the post. I also got to see a little nymph from Cub Creek. It had three tails that looked like feathers and I enjoyed watching him swim around!


     I also wanted to share a recipe that I used to make dinner last night. It was weird... but it tasted really good! This recipe serves 6, but I only used 2 medium scorn squash.

3 medium acorn squash
2/3 cup melted butter
2/3 cup maple syrup

Wash squash
Cut in half
Remove stringy part and seeds
Sprinkle with salt
Place, cut side down, in greased baking dish
Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes
Meanwhile, combine butter and syrup
Turn squash over and fill with the syrup mixture
Bake 30 minutes more or until tender.

     I got the recipe out of a "three ingredient" cookbook that a friend of my grandmother gave to my mother. I was really nervous and hesitant about this odd trio, but it turned out really, really delicious! All of us ate all of our squash. I can't wait to try my next weird recipe!

Lincoln!

     Chelsi and I had today off, so we decided to go to Lincoln to try and find the Mueller Planetarium one last time. This time, we went online and got directions so we wouldn't have to rely on the crazy directions of Lincoln residents. We got to the University of Nebraska and parked our car. Where are we? "Excuse me, can you tell us how to get to the Planetarium?" "No, but I can show you where the Union building is so they can give you a map." "Thanks!"
     After acquiring a campus map and receiving some intricate directions from a very cute boy behind the desk, we ventured out to find the Planetarium. We walked, and walked... and were enjoying all the people out and about on campus. We finally found Mueller Hall! In through the doors... and into the line. Chelsi: "How much for the Planetarium?" Woman: "There are no shows today." Chelsi: "What? Why?" Woman: "The Planetarium is closed on Mondays." Chelsi: "Why is everything in Nebraska ALWAYS closed on Mondays?!?!" Woman: "I'm....not....sure..."

     Needless to say, the woman felt sorry for us so she let us get into the museum for free. We decided to go to the bookstore for a little retail therapy. They had a beautiful fountain outside. 

Inside the bookstore we decided to have some fun with the foam fingers...

     When we finally found my car, we headed downtown to the Hay Market. I wanted to show Chelsi the shop where I had gotten some Nebraska gear. We found some cool shops like Licorice International, which sells licorice from all around the world.

     We went into this extremely sketchy Russian shop... and found the Lincoln rail road mural.

    We looked at antiques and went into any store that was open. I had found a Plato's Closet in downtown Lincoln, and wanted to take Chelsi there. Plato's Closet is a clothing resale shop. We shopped and shopped, and then I had a surprise for Chelsi. Remember the "pop shop" that I got the strawberry soda from? I took Chelsi there, and we were literally like kids in a candy store. I bought strawberry cream saltwater taffy and a few sodas, and Chelsi got some pretty interesting "pop" as well!

     When Chelsi and I got home, Allison had dinner ready for us. It was delicious! Here is the recipe, it is called Romano skillet pasta:

1 lb Italian sausage crumbled
1 onion chopped
2 large cloves of garlic
2 cans diced tomatoes with herbs
8 ounces uncooked large sea shelled pasta (2 ½ cups)
1 cup water
¼ cup grated parmesan cheese

Brown sausage in large skillet
Add onion and garlic
Cook until soft
Drain
Stir in tomatoes, pasta, water
Cover and bring to a boil
Reduce heat, simmer covered for 15 minutes or until pasta is tender
Stir occasionally
4 servings
Serve with parmesan cheese.

I wanted to include a "feature" at the end of this blog. My grandfather emailed me and told me some history regarding my previous blog about Homestead Days and the steam engine and thresher. I am going to copy and paste the email he sent to me today:
"regarding the thrasher and steam tractor, my dad when he was a young boy went to midalothian to help with thrashing on all the same equipment that you photographed,,,, they would not let him work on the thrashing but his job was to take the 2 mules and the wagon down to the creek and fill the wooden barrel in the wagon with water for the steam tractor, he always had his fishing pole and when he had been gone too long and the tractor was running low on water they would blow the whistle, toot, toooot, toot, to let him know that he had better get back or the steam engine might blow up because it was low on water..... the horse drawn item cutting grass for hay was called a sickle mower and i ran one behind a gasoline tractor when i was a boy... the other piece i believe is a hay rake...the fresh cut hay has to dry some before they can do anything with it and sometimes they would go back and rake it a second time to turn it over to help it dry....later as belt driven hay balers came along, [run by the steam tractor] they would bale the hay in square bales and had to let it sit in the field to dry some more... if it was stacked in the barn before it was completely cured in the sun it could spontainously combust [ ignite ] and burn down the barn.... my dad when in high school had that happen to some hay he put up in the barn when it was too green..... before the balers they just let the thrasher blow the haw into a tall pile and then it was called a hay stack.... they would just let the livestock eat around the hay stack to be fed..... so much for a history lesson......... love nanna and poppie....."

Homestead Days!

The baby robins are ready to leave the nest. Two of them are already gone!

     Let me begin this blog with a few pictures of the sky that are from Friday night. There is a funny story behind these pictures. So, we leave Arby's and are heading home when we spot the most beautiful clouds we've ever seen. We try to drive to the edge of town where the land is cleared to get some pictures. Once we have some, we're still not satisfied because the sky just keeps becoming more and more beautiful. On the way home, we decide to drive down a gravel road that is right by the Heritage Center. We snap some pictures, and drive by the dry ice plant. We find a road that we think will take us back to the Heritage Center... and we were wrong about that. Chelsi takes out her cell phone after about 30 minutes to call Blake, but right when she was about to dial, Highway 4! Thank goodness. We had found our way back. Needless to say, we're not going storm chasing again without a GPS!

     Homestead Days began on Friday, but Chelsi and I got to be in the parade on Saturday. Guess what we were in charge of? We got to ride in the Beatrice Volunteer Fire Department truck behind the horse drawn wagon. When those two beautiful horses would poop... it was mine and Chelsi's "dooty" to clean it up with shovels. So, the horses would poop, and Chelsi and I had to get out in front of all of Beatrice and scoop it into a bucket. People cheered for us and whistled, and at one point I raised my shovel over my head and pumped it up and down to please the crowd. It was humiliating! We got jokes for the rest of the day about it. At the Homestead, they say that having this task is the "SCA rite of passage". Chelsi and I are officially SCAs now! I didn't get any pictures of the parade, unfortunately.

     After we scooped the poop, we got the chance to set off the air horn and the siren in the fire truck. It was so much fun! The small boys highly enjoyed the siren and would cheer when we set it off. I had a lot of fun at the parade because the sky was cloudy and it was cool. Even if we did have the most embarrassing job of all, they said we did a really good job (we worked together and used both shovels to scoop it onto one) and were really efficient. Hah! Here are the horses we cleaned up after:

      Homestead Days was really fun. I tried to look past the crazy stuff they make us do and try to focus on the awesome things that happened. Chelsi and I had to lift these pieces of a stage and they weighed about 200 pounds each... and after I hurt my shoulder from lifting three pieces (and later carrying 2 speakers the same size as me) I tried to work on things that didn't require lifting. After we completed moving the stage, we got to watch horses use machines to cut grass and I apologize for not really knowing what anything is called.

     The Blacksmith made me a cool thing out of part of a horseshoe:

     There was a wheat thresher there made in 1928 that I was just fascinated with. I took pictures on Saturday since they couldn't get it to run. The steam engine had blown a head gasket on Saturday (the steam engine runs the thresher) and so I could only take pictures. Sunday, however, everything was up and running! I was captivated by how awesome the whistle on the steam engine was! That alone made my weekend! I have a ton of pictures of the steam engine, Chelsi and I feeding the wheat thresher, and just lots of cool things like that.

     First the horses were attached to a machine that would cut the grass to make it into hay. Then the guy attached a new machine to the horses that would toss the cut grass into the air. It almost looked like a spider's legs!

     There were lots of neat exhibits. There was a man who played all kinds of instruments, and he even could play a saw! I have some pictures of him playing "I've been working on the railroad" on the saw, but they aren't very good. There was a lady who spoke about the orphan train, "tatting", spinning, weaving, 1800s clothing, a rifle collection, a broom weaver, a rope maker, blacksmiths, a guy doing something with deer skins, you name it! There also was a sweet little goat named Micheal, who thought he was a dog. I went and loved on him, and he gave me a kiss! He nibbled on me a little bit also, but he was adorable.

The man who played all kinds of instruments (here is is playing a saw with a bow):

The lady who presented about the Orphan Train had a booth:

Tatting:

Spinning (we actually learned how to do this):

Weaving: 

1800s clothing:

Rifle collection:

Broom weaving:

Rope making:

Blacksmith:

deer hide:

musical instruments:

Micheal the kissing goat:

     After work, my crazy roommates decided they wanted to bike down to the Freeman School and back to look at the clouds and see if our baby ground squirrels were still there. I took my car and followed them for safety reasons. My roomies are crazy! It was fun though. After they biked to the Heritage Center, they decided to bike back home through the prairie so we could go visit Blake, who was on duty to protect the prairie that night until a policeman came since the bell on the steam engine alone was worth $2,000!

     On Sunday, we got to watch sheep herding demonstrations and what is that smell? The guy cooked sausages in the steam engine's actual engine! How funny! After befriending the guy who ran the steam engine, he asked if we wanted to help feed wheat into the thresher. Of course we would! That was hard work, but I am proud of myself for doing it even though I was purely exhausted from the morning alone.

     Hearing the steam engine and all the belts and random parts moving was something I will never forget. Hearing the sound the whistle made was so awesome, it made me wish I had my camcorder with me. The coolest thing with the steam engine, however, was yet to happen.

     Suddenly, I hear Susan on the radio "Send Katherine out here with her camera to the front of the education center! She's not gonna want to miss this!!!" I grab my camera and literally run out the door to Highway 4, to see the steam engine driving down the road! HOW COOL IS THAT? Susan yells to me to get in the road and stop the oncoming traffic. Camera in one hand, I put my palm up and hope they don't hit me. They were a good sport and waited for the awesome steam engine to pull into the education center. Seeing that steam engine drive down the highway was quite possibly the most awesome thing I've seen in a long time. Everyone was teasing me for how excited I was!

     The steam engine is currently parked in our driveway. How many other people can say they have a priceless piece of history parked in their driveway? I'll end this blog with some pictures of animals and butterflies I took this week. We're going to Mount Rushmore next week! 

Can you see the moth in the second-to-last picture? The baby bird was sitting in our backyard when we got home. He was way too adorable so I had to get a picture.