Peaches & Pits

Every night we were in Africa, our group would get together and talk about our "peaches and pits" of the day. On the last night, one of the people in our group told us to all go home and "really process" what had happened during our trip and we would realize some amazing things. I have been so busy since coming home that I haven't really thought about it until I sat down and looked at all of the pictures that one of the amazing ladies in our group, Ingrid Van Leeuwen, collected from everyone and compiled onto eight disks. As I looked back through the pictures to print off what Brayden will need to get his Eagle Scout project accepted, I have been overwhelmed with a feeling of love for the African people - especially the children. Just seeing their faces again makes me want to go back and do something to help them. When I think of their smiling faces waving and yelling, "Jambo" as we drove past in our safari vans, my heart swells and I am filled with love for them.

Jamie, the group leader, and Ingrid, asked everyone in the group to send them our favorite "peaches" from the trip. I had so many it was hard to narrow them down into just a few, but if you go to this link, Ingrid posted my thoughts along with some pictures: http://koins4kenya.blogspot.com and look under: Sherries 2010 kenya reflections.

Speaking of peaches and pits, Darren's Grandma Lucy used to make the best peach pit jam. When I first heard the name I was a little skeptical to try it, but it is now one of my favorite recipes!

Peach Pit Jam

Use the pits only from a bushel of peaches. Cover them with water in a pan and bring to a boil. Continue to boil until the water is a dark color. Drain through a cheese clothe then add 1/4C. lemon juice, 1 pkg. pectin and 5C. sugar. Bring to a full rolling boil - stirring constantly for about 4 minutes (or longer if it doesn't seem thick and slide off of the spoon in sheets.) Remove from the heat and skim off any foam. Fill hot jars immediately.

Feels Like Fall

It's still August but it feels like fall. The nights are turning much cooler and this morning when I went to feed, there was a little steam coming from the animals. I am not ready for summer to be over! It seems like it took forever to get here - how can it be time for fall and then the brutal basin winter?

We had a massive rain/thunder/lightening storm last night. The whole house was shaking and Bray said he could barely see the barn light from the house because it was raining so hard.

While I was gone to Africa, Copper, my two year old horse, cut her leg really bad and had to have a cast on. We still don't know what could have cut her leg so bad. To make things worse, a couple of days latter, Darren found an even worse cut on the same leg, but above the cast. He started calling her the horse with no brains.

The vet has been having to come up twice a week to check her and I keep having to rewrap her leg on a daily basis because she keeps chewing and pulling the wrap off. It has been a full time job because I want her to be outside in the sunshine and fresh air, but it has been raining so much, I don't want her dressings to get wet - so I have been taking her in and out of the barn several times a day!

Last Friday the vet finally took off the final wrap and said she is okay to not have anything on her leg. While the vet was here, we asked him how we would know when the cows would be ready to go to slaughter. He pointed at Ruby and said, "That one is ready now, the other one probably has a week or two." What? I thought we had until November! I'm not ready to eat them yet! They have cute personalities and Ruby lets me rub her nose. They moo at me to give them corn - but that just fattens them up faster so I have been slowing down on their feed. (My husband doesn't know and would shoot me if he knew!)I know it's just part of life and we bought them to eat.

Yesterday, our neighbors, the Dastrups, had us over for dinner. They made turkey in a bucket and it was so good! Becky learned how to make it at girls camp from Glenda Rich a couple years ago.

This is how they made it:

Put sliced apples in the neck flap of a turkey and rub with salt and pepper. Then place the turkey breast side down on top of a metal bundt pan. Then, slide the pan over a metal pole that has been welded to a square so it stands straight up. Kelly tied the wings to the breast with string so they wouldn't touch the side of the bucket and burn. Then wrap the turkey with foil and then place a metal bucket over the top of the turkey. Set the turkey stand/bucket in a fire pit over hot coals. Kelly said he uses about a pound of coals per pound of turkey. Then let it cook for about three hours.

I'm not very good at explaining this whole process, but it was soooo... good and easy once I have the stand and bucket. Alex is taking welding this year at school, so now he has a new project to make for me!

For dessert, Becky made this yummy chocolate dessert.

Make a crust of crushed graham crackers and butter in the bottom of a cake pan. In a bowl, combine cream cheese and cool whip and layer this over the graham crust. Then place a layer of chocolate pudding and top with whipped cream. Refrigerate before serving.

First Day Of School

I'm torn today because I'm excited the boys are going back to school. But I'm sad because summer just flew by too fast. The saddest part about today is it is Alex's last "First Day Of School" since he is going to be a senior this year.

It's hard to believe this day is here! It seems like a year ago I was taking him to kindergarten and we were both crying and he was saying, "Why do I have to leave you and go to school?" I told him he had twelve more years of the first day of school, so he just had to be brave.

Last week, Brayden got his learners permit. Help us all - he is legal! That night we took him out for a little drive and we had a line of cars with someone honking behind us because he was driving so slow. He has driven around the farm and cabin for years so I was really surprised, but glad to see he was cautious. He drove us up to the bus stop this morning and proudly showed his friends his learners permit. That is a great first day of school thing to talk about!

Alex and his friends were driving an old Pontiac Vibe his Grandpa Bud had given him this weekend during a bad rain storm and some how ended up in the canal. Thank goodness no one got hurt and they spent an hour in the rain pulling it out with the backhoe. They had a great bonding experience and now a great story to tell their other friends on the first day of school.

I forgot how much I can get done when no one is home. By 9:00 AM, I had the final four dead pine trees (out of thirty) pulled, the holes filled and the drip system to them plugged.
Then I ventured out into the garden and found lots of tomatoes (which was no surprise considering how many plants we put in this year!) and zucchini. I want to make my sister, Pam's zucchini casserole. This recipe has won several blue ribbons at the state fair. She makes it for her family all the time - to the point where they are sick of it! Her middle daughter was admitted into graduate school because of an essay she wrote about not wanting to eat her mom's zucchini casserole anymore.
I love it though!

Pam's Zucchini Casserole

Open one package of Pillsbury crescent rolls and spread in the bottom of a greased casserole dish. Sprinkle with 1/4C. Parmesan cheese and bake for 10 minutes at 350*.
Cook one package of sausage (or you can leave it out if you prefer).
In a bowl, combine 1C. sour cream, 2tsp. flour, salt and pepper. Then mix this with the meat.
In a separate bowl, combine 1/2C. chopped onions, 1C. sliced mushrooms and one can of marinated artichoke hearts. Cook in the microwave for about 2 minutes to soften them up. Add one medium zucchini that has been shredded or sliced to this mixture.
Then add to the meat combination.
Spread all of this over the baked crust and sprinkle with shredded Monterrey jack cheese.
Cover this with another package of crescent rolls and then sprinkle with 1/4C. Parmesan cheese.
Bake for 30 minutes at 350* or until the crust is light brown.

Squash Soup

Right before I went to Africa, my husband had to have his very first cavity filled. After forty three years, it's about time! He kept complaining about it and I didn't have much sympathy for him. But I do now! I spent the morning at the dentists office having a cavity filled. This isn't the first time I have had to sit in the hot seat. I have a mouth full of fillings, but I will never get used to the shot the dentist uses to numb my mouth or the sound of the drill grinding away on my tooth!

My jaw is so sore tonight because of the dang shot! All I want to eat is something really soft, like soup.

One night while we were in Africa, the cooks made this yummy squash soup. The expedition leader, Jamie Quesenberry, made this soup for the Kenyan Koins leader, Anthony Yama, when he visited the U.S. last October and he requested they make it while we were there because he liked it so much.

Jamie's Squash Soup

Boil a butternut squash and one onion, diced with a little bit of chicken stock and some garlic salt or powder until soft. Put this into a blender and mix with a little milk then add some nutmeg. Remove from the blender and add some mozzarella cheese. Jamie said this tastes great with some sour dough bread dipped in it.

African Potato Balls

While we were in Africa, the Koins for Kenya organization turned over four schools to the villagers which they helped fund. It was fun to drive into the villages because hundreds of smiling children would meet us and run along side the vans singing, "We would like to say welcome to you. Welcome, welcome here." We felt like rock stars with hundreds of adoring fans!

Once we got out of the vans they would grab our hands and lead us to see their new schools that their parents helped build. In one of the villages called, Dzavani, a school was donated called the Austin Frampton school. This was a very special school because a twenty year old man named Dallin Frampton who couldn't decided what to do with his life heard about Koins for Kenya and decided to raise the money to go to Africa and build a school in honor of his ten year old brother, Austin, who has Down's Syndrome.

Dallin went to Kenya in March and has lived there in the village in a mud hut he built with his pet monkey, Matow, and worked along side the villagers to build the new school. One of the things Dallin did to raise the $10,000.00 it cost to build the school, was to have a concert where he played his guitar and sang. One of his good friends named Sophie Rose Barton had the voice of an angel and helped him with the concert. She died this June up at Heber Valley Girls Camp, so the family helped Brayden brand a rose onto each one of the desks he made to go to that school.

It was a very emotional, special day for the Frampton family. Dallin especially had a hard time because the school children kept singing songs, saying, "Please don't leave," because they love him so much.

When we got back to the Koins Center that night, the cooks made us these yummy potato balls. I made them for my family and they loved them. We decided next time we are going to put eggs, sausage and cheese in them and make breakfast balls.

African Potato Balls

Grate some potatoes and make them into balls. You may need to add a tiny bit of water to make them stick together. Then poke a hole into the ball and add some cooked hamburger. Then seal up the hole and roll the ball in a bowl with a beaten egg. Add a little salt and some pepper then fry them in hot oil until they are golden brown.

My Inventor

Today is Brayden's fifteenth birthday. I didn't get to spend it with him because the boys are all floating down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River this week. I'm glad he is out having fun, but I sure miss him!

On Saturday, all of the boys were trying their hardest to talk me into going on the river trip with them. It is a fun trip for the boys....but I have had enough "camping" this summer to last me a year! Plus being wet and cold all day while fishing just doesn't appeal to me.

Darren's Grandpa and Uncle Burt were some of the first people to float that river so this has become a very special tradition for his family. They haven't drawn out to go the last three years, and they only got to go this year because they kept calling to see if there were any cancellations so I had to let them go.

It will be good camping experience for Kennedy. Although once they got up to Stanley he asked his Dad where the airport was so he could take him there and, "get him out of this place." I can't wait to hear the adventures they had on the river!

Brayden has always been my little inventor. Ever since he was little he has taken things apart and put them back together again to make something new. At the time it wasn't funny, but I laugh hysterically now when I think about all the times he put something into an outlet plug and zapped himself!

Bray likes to make new things with food too. One of my favorite "inventions" he came up with is his banana pomegranate lemonade smoothie.

Put one banana, 2C. pomegranate lemonade juice, 1C. milk, 1/4C. sugar, 1C. ice cubes and 2 scoops of vanilla ice cream into a blender and puree for two to three minutes until it is smooth.

Safari

Towards the end of our trip to Kenya, we went on a safari. It was a nice break to have a real shower, bed and bathroom!

We saw all kinds of animals. Our favorites were the lions, a mother cheetah and her cubs, giraffes, hippos, zebras, elephants, water buffalo, wild hogs, ostrich and gazelles.

At the hotel where we stayed, a couple of baboons were running all over the place causing havoc. One even jumped up on to a balcony where we were eating lunch and stole a roll off of a plate. It was hilarious!

We could see a watering hole from our room and it was so fun to watch the elephants come to drink. There was a viewing area right next to the watering hole so we got some amazing pictures.

Everyone was a little disappointed when we got to the hotel and there was more peilou and ugali, (that's what they eat in Africa, why did we expect anything else?)
I made both of these for a cultural night last Wednesday with a bunch of the young women in my ward. Some liked the peilou, but no one like the ugali so I won't give you the recipe for it.

Peilou

Heat about 2T. oil over medium high heat. Add one medium onion, finely chopped, 2 small cloves garlic (crushed), 1/2t. ground cinnamon, 1/4t. ginger, and a pinch of salt. Add some chicken broth and bring to a boil. Then add 2C. cooked white rice. Stir and add 4 1/2C. water. Bring to a boil then cover and reduce heat to simmer for thirty minutes.

The villagers in Dzvani added cooked goat to our peilou (bones and all), but I added some baked chicken breasts that had been shredded to my batch.

Out Of Africa

Africa was truly amazing but I am so glad to be home. It was one of the hardest, yet rewarding things I have ever done. It was so fun to spend time with Brayden. Being the middle child, he kind of gets lost in the mix sometimes. He took great care of me while we were gone and I adore him! I missed my other three boys tremendously.

The traveling was brutal! Delta canceled our flight from Salt Lake to Boston and so twenty of us were scrambling to find a way to get to Amsterdam to catch our connecting flight to Nairobi. Brayden and I ended up going to Portland and then had a ten hour flight to Amsterdam. It all ended up working out okay, but I was seriously contemplating what in the world I had done signing us up to go so far away, for so long with so many people we didn't even know. WHAT WAS I THINKING?

After two days and four flights, we were grateful to be able to stay in a hotel in Mombasa for a night. We woke up to the beautiful Indian ocean and a camel walking along the beach. We went into town with everyone to get supplies. I have been to third world countries before, but I was still in shock by all of the garbage just thrown everywhere and the goats and cows wandering down the middle of the busy streets.

We went to church in Mombasa. It was wonderful to be with such great people and share the same beliefs clear on the other side of the world! Then we loaded up and drove to where we would be staying for the next week, a little village called, Mynzeni. It took over an hour to drive there because the dirt roads are so horrible.
We stopped at the Mwache River along the way and took pictures. An old woman was washing clothes in the muddy water. A goat herder was guiding his goats to get a drink near her and down stream some boys were washing and a woman was filling her water bucket so she could take it home to her family. All this in the same dirty river. Dysentery is obviously a huge problem there.

As we drove along the road to the village we started to pass little mud huts with roofs covered with palm fronds. Children would run out and yell, "Jambo!" and smile and wave to us as we passed by. Once we reached the Koins center where we were staying, a ton of children ran to our vans and met us singing and welcoming us there.

Brayden worked hard building desks except on the days when they ran out of wood or the electricity went out so they couldn't use the power tools.

The Kenyan people had tried to make our accommodations so nice for us.
We slept in dorm rooms filled with bunk beds covered by mosquito nets. To shower, we went inside an open air wood frame draped with black plastic and used a measuring cup to scoop hot water that the cooks had boiled for us out of a big bucket. We had four Kenyan ladies who slept on mattresses in a small kitchen who cooked for us continually. We ate like kings compared to the villagers around us. They mostly eat corn cooked one way or another. It took some getting used to eating Ugali (corn flour with water)and peilou (rice with cinnamon and nutmeg), but the scones and chappati (like tortillas) with Nutella were our favorite! A cute girl named Kendy from our group stayed in Kenya to teach English to the school children until December. She is truly an amazing young woman because she isn't getting paid to be there. She emailed me this recipe for chappati and I can't wait to make it for my family. It is a real African recipe - no measurements, no temperatures, just wing it. Hakuna Matata (they really do say that a lot over there) - NO WORRIES!

Chappati

Take some wheat flour and add a little hot oil and just enough water to make a dough. Mix until with your hands until it is smooth. Then make little balls and roll them out thin to make tortillas. Cook on a hot, ungreased griddle until both sides are lightly cooked.

We just ate these plain some mornings or put the good European Nutella on top.