Happy Birthday Brianna-
Today my daughter hits the two digit numbers- 10!!!
Look at her face! She sure was happy to get her gift.
Yes, I know I don't take the best pictures sometimes. Her gift was an electric guitar.
Trip to Ohio-
We also made a trip back to Ohio! Boy, I didn't really realize it until we got there but all of us miss it. Don't get me wrong we like Alabama but we had so many good times, and our friends and family are still there.

We didn't have much time and we didn't get to see some of our friends (Rich and Nancy.) I was bummed about that. I wanted to just stop in and surprise them. On our next trip back there we are going to make sure we get to see them.

The kid's both got to see their friends. It was also Marion County Fair time so of course we hit that too (we ran into so many of our old pals there. I really miss them all.)
Here is a picture of my mom and dad. Aren't they cute! Some of you already know my parents. For those of you who don't they really are some neat people (I am not just saying that because they are my parents either...lol..) I have never know any other people like them. They are always on the go, they work circles around people my age and even younger. I am proud to say they are my parents.
Brianna and Jon sitting by the fire pit back in Marion, Ohio.
This picture is of my father in his garden. I couldn't get the whole garden in this picture because it is too big. I am so impressed with his gardening skills. I don't think there isn't anything he couldn't grow.
I love my mom of course. She is a wonderful person (there is no one else in this world like her. She has the biggest heart of ANY person I have ever known. She cooks better then anyone else I know and some how also keeps the cleanest house) but there is no secret I am a daddy's girl.

We decided to pull some of the T-post up back in Ohio and bring them here to Alabama so we could put in more pasture. Dad of course helped. Here he is telling me how to pull the post right (I guess I was making more work for myself then need be. Doesn't sound like me doesn't it?...hee..hee..)
The bunnies are growing!-
They are growing like crazy. I was going to give this one away but it seems to have fallen in love with Brianna. It'll run around for a while and then comes right back to her. I don't think Bri's going to let it go now.

New Microscope- I am really excited about this. It has a LCD screen which is great because you don't have to put your eye on an eye piece and pass the scope around. Not only that but this microscope takes pictures and video of what you see. So, I can share my findings via computer now!! How cool is that..

I don't have time this week to do fecals on the livestock but next week I'll try to share how I do them and what we find.

**If, your wondering what the picture is of on the scope now it is the small intestine of a dog. Don't worry I didn't make this slide myself. :)

Look, I even have Jon COOKING in the solar oven. How cool is that?

He was pulling out hotdogs that was in the cooker (we had them in there for about 35-40 min.) They tasted...well like hot dogs. :)

Dinner time- I wanted to try Macaroni & Cheese

So, in goes the noodles from two boxes of Mac & Cheese and two 1/2 tablespoons of oil.

I made some Alfredo sauce up (I got the idea of adding the Alfredo to my Mac & Cheese from my solar cooking book.)

Here is how I made the Alfredo-

6 tbs. butter

1 cup heavy cream

1 small bag of grated Parmesan cheese (I think it's 5 or 6 oz.)

Dash of Oregano, a little basil, and white pepper.

Put it in a pan and cook it up (I added my Parmesan a little at a time.) I'd bet you could do this in your solar oven too but I didn't this time.

Then I added 3 cups of water to my Alfredo sauce and put it in the pan (mixing it all up.)

Next step was to put another pan on top of the pan holding our Mac & Cheese (yes, I should have used black or dark pans but I didn't have any ready to go. These worked just fine anyway. Oh, I used cloths line clips on the pans too.)

Cooked it for 3 1/3 hours.

After that I took it out and put in a small bag of Cheddar Cheese and the powder junk that comes with the box mac and cheese (I also crumbled up 3 pieces of bread. Then mixed everything all up.) Put it back in the Cooker for another 1/2 hour.

This is what it looked like out of the solar cooker. Yummy!!

You can tell we liked it!

**I know this might not be the time to share this (after talking about food) with you but in a couple weeks I should have my new microscope in and I'll be able to share how I do fecals with you (the new microscope lets me take pictures and video.) I am no vet of course but I'll share what I do know and what I learn along the way with you.

Cooking with Bri- Solar Cooking (Manicotti)

First I put the solar cooker outside. It got up to 250 but as soon as I took that lid off it dropped to around 225 in no time..lol..
We used everything in this picture (but the apples in the back ground and the Great Value bags. We decided not to use them this time.)

We mixed One 15 oz. of ricotta cheese, 2 cups of mozzarella cheese, 1 free ranged egg, and some basil off our plant (oh, we also added just and a dash of Oregano.)

Then we put the mix into a zip lock bag and cut the corners and squeezed that into the noodles (I loved doing that with the eggs so thought why not do it with this. Works great!)

Then Bri put 3 cups of Ragu and one cup water in our pan.

Then she placed all the manicotti in the pan. We Covered it with a lid.

In the solar cooker it goes.

We just let it cook from there. I found that we need to work on the lid some. My cooker liked to stay around 225 most of the day.

We didn't want to sit around on such a nice day so we hit the beach. That's Corey below waving at you!

When we came back it was time to see what we had made.

Then time to test it.

I have found that my kids will tell me if something taste good or not more then an adult will.

We did find that two of them were a tad dry on the top. Next time we will spoon the sauce over them (I think that should fix that problem.)

** Here is some information that I learned from "Cooking with Sunshine."

Danger Zone is 50 to 125

Water pasteurizes at 150

Food pasteurizes at 160

Food cooks at 180

Water Boils at 212

Box and panel cooker typical Maximum heat range is from 180-275

**The recipe we used is based off one in the book (Cooking with Sunshine.) We made a few modification but not many.

**Another side note. When we came home from the beach we noticed that the sun had moved of course. So, we moved the oven and tilted it on it's side so the sun could get in it better.