Honeysuckle jelly

2c. Honeysuckle flowers
2c. Water
4c. Sugar
1 pkt of pectin (I used sure jell liquid)

Boil the water over the flowers, let it steep overnight. The next day, strain out the flowers, and pour the infusion into a pot. Heat it and add the sugar. When it's at a boil, add pectin and boil for about two minutes, stirring continuously. Pour into jars. It'll keep in the fridge, and you can waterbath can it.

I hate going to a blog and having to read their life's story before they get to the recipe. I understand it gets the page more views, but it drives me bananas. So there's the recipe, scroll down for my life's story ;)

I spent a lot of my childhood in a neighborhood with a large honeysuckle bush, and I've always adored eating the nectar from them. I was THRILLED to discover that our new property is covered in honeysuckle bushes. Of course I passed my love of the sweet flowers onto my kids. Shane was less enthusiastic about it, but whatever. I had recently had a conversation about making jelly from edible flowers, and I was dying to try it. I googled, and found a blog with a recipe, headed by a long story. As usual, I scrolled down to the recipe and ignored the rest. The recipe called for four cups of infusion, so I made a batch. It didn't set, and I couldn't figure out why. I went back to the same blog, and read the accompanying post and found that while she made 4c of infusion, she only used 2c and recommended not trying to double it since it wouldn't set properly for some reason. I don't know why she felt it made sense to say four cups in the recipe, when she only used two. I also learned my lesson about not reading the possibly important info in the post. Now I've got 8 cups of honeysuckle syrup, which is also very yummy, but I have no idea what to do with. I tried for jelly again, and it worked this time, so the recipe above should work for you as well. Enjoy, it's delicious and fairly easy. It tastes like sunshine, which is nice because it's been raining, a lot. Bonus of this whole project was that the kids had a great time helping pick the flowers.

We had a great Easter. We spent the day catching butterflies, flying kites, and mushroom hunting. It drizzled some but nothing too bad.
We found an awesome naturally occurring clearing on our land, and there were four different mushrooms types just in that one area. One we were able to confirm as wood ears, and I added them to the veggie soup we had for dinner, and it was YUMMY. The other three we weren't able to figure out the type, and discarded them. Mushrooms can be so dangerous, and I'd never feed anyone anything I wasn't sure about. Wood ears are super mild. They taste like regular mushrooms, but just barely. They're full of nutrients and they absorb the flavor of whatever you're cooking, so they're an excellent filler.
That night and the next morning, it POURED. Like torrential downpour, standing under a waterfall, the trailer might wash away downpour. It filled up the creek though, and I was able to rescue worms from the garden to add to the compost bin.

Later that day, the kids found a crawfish wandering around by the chicken coop (shows how much rain we got). She had a ton of babies on her belly, so now we're raising them up for dinner. "Mud bugs" are Shane's favorite.

We found quite a lot of the wood ear mushrooms

look at the size of this!

crawfish babies

We've been enjoying it here so much. The other day, two huge armadillos lumbered through the yard. I've never seen a live armadillo before. I've never seen fireflies either, and there's some pretty much every night. Shane and the kids caught a coach whip snake yesterday. Winter has been loving picking wildflowers and catching snails in the creek. Thorin loves pretty much everything his sister loves, and he usually is tailing behind, copying her every move. We've also gotten serious about potty training him, which I hate but really isn't so bad considering all the open air bathroom spots available.
There's a lake not far from our house where we've spent a couple days. One was spent mushroom hunting. It's morel season, but all I found was a few inedible ones. The kids were bummed they didn't get to swim that day, so we went again a few days later to let them swim. It was too cold though, so we spent the time at the playground and meeting the Canadian geese that were there. One was particularly curious about the kids, and kept swimming closer and closer to check them out.
We've gotten two packages this week from mine and Shane's moms. The kids were SO excited to get the big boxes full of goodies. We were excited that the mail even made it. We had some trouble with mail being returned, so in an effort to solve the problem, Shane spent an entire day calling EVERYONE. He spoke to the city, the USPS, even emailed the post master general. The issue was that because the area is so large and the roads are obscure, we needed the +4 for the zipcode, but literally no one could tell us what it was (except the postmaster general, finally). Hopefully we won't have any other issues, because it was an ordeal.
I've been working, and I enjoy it. It's a strange feeling though to go from the simple off grid setup we're currently living in, to the big fancy kitchen at work.
Both kids are very excited for Easter tomorrow. The Easter Bunny has some fun goodies for them, including butterfly nets, kites, and bug catching kits.

We sometimes still watch movies, when everyone needs a break

Shane made a "kite" on a particularly windy day

We found this while mushrooming. We were confused by the horns and meat teeth, but now I'm pretty sure it's a deer.

oak apples, caused by wasps

After about a week of no rain, we hauled water up from the creek to water the garden

They got matching colorable pajamas from Tavi

I've been reading a ton

That outfit though. Goodies from Gamma

Gamma also sent a hammock!

I love it here. Everything is beautiful and green. It rains. Things just grow, like everywhere. There's wildflowers for picking. Our garden is growing and we haven't watered it because the rain takes care of it. The kids and pets can just roam the property aimlessly. No one even misses the TV.
There's so many new plants and bugs to see. We've been making a nature box to send to my sister's family for them to identify. But pretty much everything we're sending is new to us as well.
I got a library card, and Winter is dying to go get her own. She's expressed an interest in learning to read.
Even though I work, my work hours are regular and much shorter than Shane's ever were. We're together more (which in such close quarters that's not always a good thing).
I'm so glad we moved. It's so much better for us.