I put together this little video of our camping trip that you might enjoy watching.

I wanted to share with you a little more about the deep pit cooking we do one night.

Before we left home, we took chuck roast and seasoned it with salt, pepper and garlic powder, placed some sliced onion along with rosemary from our garden on top, wrapped it in parchment paper and then in 3 layers of foil. I like the parchment paper because I don’t want my meat to be in contact with the foil for all those hours of cooking.

Normally, I would have frozen it ahead of time, but I forgot to do it this time around.

The day before we were to have roast for supper, I had the boys dig me a pit.

I have an enamel roaster pan that I use just for this purpose. It’s been hit a few times with a shovel when we’re taking the roast from the ground but it still works for our purposes.

I started a fire in the pit and kept it burning all afternoon. I don’t know how necessary it is to start the day before but my thinking is it’s heating the earth and then when I put the roast in, the energy of the heat goes just to the roast. But that’s all an unproved and untested theory since I’ve never done it any other way.

I even threw some rocks into the pit so we could have some hot stones.

On Day 2 we set the roaster insert on top of the coals and then set our roasts on top of that. Keep in mind that we are using pine wood. It’ really hard to get a pile of coals because it burns to nothing. I don’t know how it would work if you were using a hard wood.

You can see the roaster insert in this picture.

Set the roaster over the top of the roasts.

Heap coals around the roast.

Russell wanted to put some foil on top of the roaster to help retain heat. It’s probably not a  necessary step but it was something we did.

Then you just completely cover your hole with the dirt you took out. If you see a lot of steam escaping from the ground, put more dirt on it and you can even step on it to compress the earth. Small wisps of smoke is fine but the more smoke coming out of the hole means the more heat you are losing.

We put the roast in around noon and left it all day until 6 that night. Then we dug it out of the ground and let it set for 30 minutes as we waited on the hunters to return from the evening hunt. It was still piping hot (because of the 3 layers of foil we had wrapped it in) and falling apart tender. In short, it was fabulous! The flavor was superb, too with the rosemary. Mmmm, yummy!

And with some other delicious sides including our Dutch Oven baked potatoes…

…we had a fantastic meal in the woods.

Has anyone ever tried deep pit cooking? I’d love to hear about it.

At our last Castle Keepers meeting, we made personalized journal covers.

Since we have a few long distance members that are a part of Castle Keepers we thought we would make this video for them, plus it’s a great way for us to not forget what we learned!

If you should decide to make one, you will need the following supplies.

• Journal (hard cover preferable)

• Gesso Primer

• Spray Adhesive

• Polycrylic Spray

• Foam Chisel Brush

• Small Paint Brush

• Hair Dryer

• 3 Complementary Colors of Acrylic Paint

Here are two journals Serenity has completed so far.

Have you ever made a personalized journal before?

stepping stone

tile (you can use flat stones as well)

hammer

chalk

Thinset

notched trowel (to apply Thinset)

grout

rubber float (to apply grout)

sponge

We had the Thinset, grout and other tools already so this helped on the expense.  Maybe you could borrow some of the tools from a neighbor or other acquaintance.

Okay, here we go.

Step 1:  Using the chalk draw your picture on the stepping stone.  TIP – Use simple uncomplicated designs.

Careful there, Cowboy.  You don’t want to mess with the artist.

Step 2:  Break the tile up with the flat side of the hammer, placing the tile pretty side down.

Step 3:  Apply Thinset to the area you plan to work and then start to place your broken tile pieces.  Leave about 1/8" space between pieces for grout.

Step 4: Keep applying Thinset and your tile pieces till the design is finished.

Step 5:  Leave to dry overnight.

Step 6:  After the Thinset has dried, mix your grout and apply it to stone with the rubber float (it looks like a trowel with rubber on its flat surface).  Move the trowel back and forth across the tile to work the grout in.

Step 7:  After grouting go over the top of your design with a wet sponge until it is clean.

This project cost me a total of $15.58 or $3.90 per stepping stone.  This does not include the grout, Thinset and tools since we already had them on hand.

Justus’s was the most imaginative stone.  This is an antelope.  I think.  Or maybe it’s an elk.  I’ll have to check with him.  Correction – My daughter tells me it’s a deer.

Appreciating his artwork.  

Serenity did a lamb on her stone since she’s raising one for 4-H.

Wesley made a horse design.

Zachary settled on a sun. 

This was a fun project.  I think the children were surprised at how nice they turned out.

Copyright 2008 Treasuring the Moments

I would have preferred smaller flowers; these are a little large.

If you want to try your hand at this simple project go to thinkwedding.com.

Copyright 2008 Treasuring the Moments

I’m intrigued by the post.  I want to see the neat birthday cake little Missy made or the art project Jr. put together.  But when I look at the picture all I see is a wall, a top of a head (yes, even though it’s precious little jr.’s head I still want to see his face ) or the sky. 

So, recently I wrote our Blog Hoster and asked why??  Here is what he said.

"My only guess with the pictures not showing up all the way is that it’s because there are so many.  I was able to see everything just fine, but the number of images on that particular blog is rather large.  Some browsers will time out after awhile, so I’m guessing that yours is timing out before everything can load, so only parts of the pictures load.  It’s probably sometimes yes, sometimes no, depending on the server load at the time you try – everything will load slower when the server is busy.  I’m not sure what to do about the problem other than to check your browser settings to see if you can lengthen the time it will work before timing out.  That blogger should probably have less posts per page.   We are upgrading to a better server and it should make things load faster in general once that’s done."

I personally don’t know how to change my browser settings.  If you do, and would like to share with the rest of us how, please leave a comment.

Since I do like to post quite a few pictuers, I’m going to shorten how many entries I have on each page, and hope that it will solve any problems others might have seeing pictures here.

Count me in as one of those who doesn’t have a clue about computers.  If you’re in the same boat as me maybe you’ll find this information useful. 

Thanks to the Rugby Home School for the help!