Early Spring Picnic at the Park

one of the large frogs in the center of the photo

Although my daughters' birthday was two weeks ago, we finally celebrated with our whole family this past weekend. The two of them had wanted to go to the park for a picnic. The day we originally chose was slammed with rain from sun up to sun down. So, we rescheduled.

While we normally get a lot of rainy days, here, this March has seemed unusually rainy, cold, and dreary. But this past Saturday we had a sort of break in the rain. It was cloudy and cool, with sprinkles here and there. We bundled up and took a picnic lunch to the park anyway. My son and daughter-in-law were able to join us, making us a party of six.

For our picnic, I took the easy way out and picked up sandwich meat, cheese, buns, chips, deli salads, and fresh strawberries. We brought coffee and punch from home. You friends all know me by now, and know that I usually do things myself and rarely buy pre-made foods. Buying the picnic meal meant that I could mostly relax and not fuss over anything that day, which is not only a gift to myself but makes me a more pleasant person to be around. The lunch was delicious, easy, and less expensive than eating in a restaurant.

After our lunch we toured the large park. There are trails, native growth areas, and a large pond at the bottom of one of the hilly areas. The highlight was watching these huge frogs sitting on logs, hiding in the tall grasses, or poking just their noses up above the water's surface. I'm guessing the frogs were about 5 inches in diameter when all bunched up. One frog swam away from our peering eyes, and I estimate he was over a foot long with his legs stretched behind him. The frogs we see in our own backyard are tiny in comparison. So this was exciting to see large ones so close to home.

After enjoying ourselves at the park for a couple of hours we returned to our house for some cake and ice cream. When you're a twin, you wind up sharing so much in childhood. For their birthday cakes I always tried to incorporate both of their favorites. Sometimes I let one daughter choose the inside of the cake while the other daughter chose the outside. One year I even made two separate mini cakes so they could each have their own. This year, like a few other previous years, my daughters wanted to combine two types of cake and frosting, specifically a brownie bottom layer, topped with chocolate frosting, then a funfetti top layer of cake. The sides of the cake were frosted in chocolate icing, while the top was frosted in neon green and purple icing. The cake really did reflect both of their favorites.

For such a low-key birthday celebration, the day was really quite fun. We have spent so much time at home in the last two years that a day at the park seemed like a real treat. 

Little Things Really Do Add Up

If you put aside $5 a week, at the end of a year you have $260 saved. If you save all of your scraps of bread products (those ends, stale muffins, lone squares of cornbread, etc) in the freezer, before you know it you'll have enough for a strata or bread pudding. If you drink a half cup of water every hour, at the end of a 14-hour day you've consumed 56 ounces of water.

You may remember that last fall I harvested a total of 12 winter squash and small pumpkins. These weren't jumbo piece of produce, just small garden ones. Of the 12, 10 matured enough to contain mature seeds (the kind that you'd want to eat). When I'd cut into a squash or pumpkin, I'd clean out the seeds, wash them,  set aside a few for planting, then freeze the rest in a small ziplock bag (stored in the freezer). Well, by the end of the fall (after using all of the squash/pumpkins), I had 2 baggies full of edible seeds! This was enough to roast pumpkin seeds on two occasions last week, yielding enough delicious seeds for our family's snacking over a couple of days each time.

I'm used to the small size of the pumpkins that I can grow in my not-always-sunny garden. And when I open one up, I'm happy to find some seeds inside, but I never have more than a handful or two in any one pumpkin or squash. If I were to consider washing and roasting just a handful of seeds, I might not bother and compost them instead. By saving seeds over the course of using all of the pumpkins/squashes, there really was enough to "bother" with.

It was really satisfying to use all of the edible portions of each pumpkin or squash. And as a bonus, my family was super happy with the healthy and tasty snack.