dandelion goddess- outdoor challenge day 5

Dandelion Goddess and dandelion links.......READ MORE.

Box Turtles for "Pets"

I am not an advocate of turtles for pets, but we have two. We adopted our box turtles (Lady Lous and Mister) from a school the girls attended last year; the school felt my family could care for them better. With a potential lifespan of 100 years (only 50-60 years captive), people really need to think about the commitment involved before buying a turtle. We try to raise our turtles in their most natural environment possible. We provide a place for them to hibernate in the winter and feed them only foods from a natural turtle diet. Right now, they are are just waking up from hibernation, so they are very hungry.

This is Lady Lous and the typical look she gives us humans.

Here is Araina getting Lady Lous' lunch ready. (Araina is responsible for Lady Lous, Fauna is responsible for Mister).

Many times a week we go outside and dig up worms and grubs for them. This is an easy job in the spring, but once the weather turns dry it is much harder to find worms. I don't like feeding them worms from a pet store, we know our worms are organic! Yum, yum, what did you have for lunch today??

"The Lady" (actually, I think Lady Lous is a male) dug right in!

I kind of don't mind feeding her the japanese beetle grubs, they really did a number on the roses last year!

Tomorrow will be an easier day of dandelion greens and clover (and Mister's favorite....raspberries).

We love our turtles! I am fascinated with their cute little expressions and have grown very attached to them, but I DO NOT recommend them as pets unless you are up for the commitment! Here's to another 50-60 years Lady Lous and Mister!

How to Make Violet Jelly (Periodic Table)

The violets and dandelions are starting to dwindle down in our yard. This makes me sad, but we will continue to gather them until the very last one blooms! I'm going to share our violet jelly making with you instead of the dandelion because we knew what we were doing with the violet jelly and it turned out so pretty. If you want to make the dandelion jelly just substitute the violets with dandelion florets.

Learn from my Mistakes

Our first round of jelly making was a little troublesome. The dandelion jelly took hours to set because I added the pectin before the plant/sugar solution was boiling. DO NOT put the pectin into the plant/sugar solution until the directions say so. Also, make the jelly in a large 2-quart pan. The solution foams a lot, it will run over a regular sauce pan.

Jelly Making is a Great Science Experiment

Now lets talk a little bit about pectin and the PTOE. First, an important note to the vegans out there, pectin is an all natural product made from apples or citrus. No animal byproducts. I found a great article all about the chemistry of pectin . It's a 24 page article with all the information you would ever want to know about pectin. The girls and I read the whole thing and learned a lot from it. If you are studying the PTOE I encourage you to read and learn from it as well. I also took the opportunity to review what we have learned about polymers when making the jelly.

Now for the Recipe....You need:

2 heaping cups of fresh violet petals or dandelion florets
2 C boiling water

1/4 C well-strained, clear lemon juice

4 C sugar
3 oz liquid pectin (Certo)

A 2 quart nonreactive or stainless steel pan

5 half pint jelly jars

Follow These Steps:

1. Pinch the stems off the violets (if you use dandelions make sure you pinch off the bitter green).

2. Pour 2 cups boiling water over the violets and cover. Let the violets steep for at least 2 hours (or overnight).

The coolest blue-green color is made from this violet infusion.

3. In a two-quart pan add the violet infusion and sugar, simmer for a couple minutes then add the lemon juice. Adding the lemon juice made a very cool color change! Just like the red cabbage ph experiment , the bluish violet color turns a vivid pinkish purple.

4. Bring to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. Add the liquid pectin and continue to boil for three minutes, skimming any foam that may rise to the surface. The pectin doesn't really thicken the liquid in this short time, I expected it to thicken like syrup. This is not what happened, I could see it thicken on the wooden spoon, but the jelly doesn't really set until it cools (our dandelion jelly took hours to set, but our violet jelly set within an hour).

5. While the jelly was cooking I sterilized 5 half pint preserve jars in boiling water. I left the jars in the boiling water until I was ready to fill them with the jelly. I took them out of the bath, filled them with the jelly, capped them and placed them upside down for 10 minutes to seal them.

If canned properly the jelly will last for months, otherwise it will keep for about 2 weeks in the refrigerator.

Make some Surprise Corn Muffins or biscuits to put the jelly on. The dandelion jelly has a sweet honey taste, the violet has a delicate floral taste. They are both very tasty and jelly making with wild edibles is a great way to get your children to appreciate nature. We are going to try peppermint, rose petal and lavender jelly too. The jellies would make great gifts or try selling them at your local farmer's market.

Enjoy the jelly making and if you use a different herb, let me know. I would think you could decrease the sugar content with the sweeter herbs or try infusing the stevia herb with your plant choice. Good luck and have fun!

Dandelion Seed Activity

We did a very simple art activity yesterday. We used oil pastels, watered down glue, dandelions and black construction paper.

We drew dandelions on the black paper, put a big spot of glue on the top of the stem, got an "old man" dandelion and blew the seeds onto the glue. Blowing the seeds onto the glue was the favorite part of this art project!

Araina lined her dandelions up in a row.

Fauna wanted puffs of seeds floating in the air and a real dandelion stem in her picture.

The possibilities are endless. We had a lot of fun observing and drawing the dandelions, seeing where the leaves grow and playing with the soft seeds. For more dandelion fun visit dandelion prints, dandelion cookies, dandelion syrup, and beautiful pollinators. And our dandelion jelly will be posted soon.

O' Dandelion Song

O' DANDELION

O' Dandelion, yellow as gold, what do you do all day?
"I just wait here in the tall, green grass, 'till the children come to play."

O' Dandelion, yellow as gold, what do you do all night?
"I wait and wait, while the cool dew falls, and my hair grows long and white."

And what do you do when your hair grows white, and the children come to play?
"They take me in their dimpled hands, and blow my hair away!"

- by Marlys Swinger

Thank you D at Magic Onions for sharing this poem with me. For more dandelion fun vist dandelion cookies, dandelion syrup, dandelion prints and beautiful pollinators.

Easy Dandelion Cookies

Dandelion flowers, as well as the greens, are extremely nutritious and have none of the bitterness of dandelion leaves if you pinch off the green bracts at the base of the flower cluster. Visit Wildman Steve Brill to learn all about the nutritional facts of dandelions (and other wild edibles).


Tips for Removing Florets:

For this recipe you need to remove the florets from their base. Hold the florets with one hand and pinch the green flower base very hard with the other, give a little twist and that should do it.

Dandelion Flower Cookies

1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup unbleached flour
1 cup dry oatmeal
1/2 cup dandelion florets

Preheat oven to 375°F. Blend oil and honey and beat in the two eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour, oatmeal and dandelion florets. Drop the batter by teaspoonfuls onto a lightly oiled cookie sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes. Let cool and eat. Yum and so easy to make!


For more dandelion goodness visit dandelion syrup, dandelion prints and beautiful pollinators.

Dandelion Syrup

We made dandelion syrup this week for a pick me up to a very rainy day. It is very easy to make, but a little time consuming. You need to put at least 12 hours aside to let the dandelion tops steep and then need 2 hours to simmer the syrup. Perfect activity for a chilly and rainy spring day.


For dandelion syrup you need about 250 dandelion tops (give or take a few),1 lemon, 4 C water, and 2 pounds of sugar (I love organic cane sugar for this).

Put the dandelion tops in 4 C water, bring the water to a boil then cover and simmer for an hour. Let cool and place in the refrigerator overnight for the dandelions to continue to steep in the water.

The next day strain the tops from the water. Mix the water with 2 lbs of sugar and the freshly squeezed juice of 1 lemon. Simmer for about 2 hours, until the water evaporates. This is how the water looks when the lemon and sugar have been added.

After 2 hours, a froth should form on the surface of the syrup (see photo below). Take the syrup off of the heat and let cool. It should thicken as it cools.

After cooling, your syrup should look like this. Cane sugar tends to create a pretty amber color when made into a syrup, I've never tried it with processed sugar, the color may be different.

The Little Ladies could eat it by the spoonfuls! It has a very earthy sweet taste.


Araina licked her spoon clean. Tomorrow we will put the dandelion syrup on homemade waffles for breakfast.

You could follow this same recipe but replace the dandelions with violets or mint or any other herb you have handy. Ohhhh, rose petal syrup would be tasty too. For more dandelion fun visit dandelion octopus, beautiful pollinators, and dandelion prints.

Virtues of Dandelions... Beautiful Pollinators

Please note that NO bees or people were harmed in this study!

Yesterday we surveyed the different pollinators that visited our lovely dandelion yard. Dandelions are a great source of nectar to many different kinds of pollinators. The girls made big bumblebees out of construction paper to write down their discoveries on.

The ladies wrote down the different pollinators as we spotted them; then kept a running tally of them.

We found all kinds of different little critters. Hello ladybug............

We were surprised to see this little leaf jumper.

Then the bees, many different types of bees. I soooooo love bees, it breaks my heart that so many people don't appreciate these beautiful insects because they think they will be stung. I don't know what these people are doing to get stung....going barefoot in a yard full of dandelions will get you stung and of course swatting at a yellow jacket will get you stung. Yellow jacket wasps are the aggressive yellow and black critters that visit your picnics and buzz you when you are eating an ice cream cone, these are NOT bees. They give bees a bad rep, so not fair!! Bees are not aggressive and don't want to sting you, they will die themselves if they sting you! Sorry about the dramatic passion here, but I feel compelled to speak for the bees! This is a yellow jacket wasp, looks like a bee but most definitely is not a bee.

On with the gorgeous and wonderful bees that we found busily collecting nectar. This honeybee was the cutest, she had pollen all over her little bee body! She was working so hard and never realized I was right there taking her picture. No aggression here!

This little gal stood on her rear and looked right at me!! Isn't she cute?

This was a little tiny bee gal.

She had to take a nose dive deep into the petals to get a sip of nectar!

This carpenter bee was also a busy girl.....

Visit the Honeybee pollination crisis site to learn about the devastating crisis of bees today. Visit the Urban Bee Garden to learn more about different types of bees and the good they bring to the world. Visit Dandelion Octopus and Save the Dandelions for more dandelion activities.

Dandelion Octopus- Dandelion Virtues

We love dandelions in the perfect little vase on the windowsill; so sunny and happy yellow, a little sign of spring. However, we also love dandelion stems in a little vase on the windowsill, so curly and spirally!

This is so fun to do. Pick a dandelion, the long thick stemmed ones are the best, then pop its top. You will now have a hollow stem which you can see through. Start gently pulling down the "octopus legs." Try different widths, some thick and some thin.

Place the stems in water. Some will curl right before your eyes, some need more time (the longer they are in the water the curlier they will become). Watch them coil and spiral.....

Make ringlets...........

And go this way and that..........

Put them together to make a little spirally bouquet.

The girls also like to curl the bottoms of the popped tops, they call this little creature a dandelion octopus.

Visit Save the Dandelion for some more dandelion activities.