Passing the Time

February is almost over!  Spring Break is coming!  There is light at the end of the tunnel!

In the meantime, here are a couple of things we've done to pass the time...

Today's snow day means a little indoor beach ball baseball.  It also means I dug out the tub of Cabbage Patch Kids from my childhood for the girls to play with.  Yes, I had several.  Yes, I still love them.

A couple of days ago we made hard tack.  Bennett had learned about it at school and had been begging to make some at home, so we did.  Hard tack, in case you didn't know (I didn't) was a hard cracker/biscuit thing that pioneers and Civil War soldiers ate.  If you make it a certain way and store it properly, it can last for fifty years!  It is made of lots of flour, a little water and salt.  Ainsley is poking holes in her cut dough, above.

Bennett is also poking holes.  Notice all the flour on her face?  She put that on there, you know, for effect.

We baked it FOREVER, and here you have it...hard tack.  Hard tack is H.A.R.D.  The girls think it is delicious.  "Delicious" might be too strong and positive of a word, in my opinion.

The best part of making the hard tack was the kneading of the dough...definitely the highlight.  We might make more to put in a pouch and take outside with us to eat while we play in the snow.  It's always fun to pretend you are crossing the plains in the winter,  eating hard tack, praying you don't fall victim to hypothermia or tuberculosis...toughing it.  Maybe we'll even get a nice fat buck with our bows and arrows.  A little venison to go with our crackers.  Who knows?!  Sometimes one must use a little imagination to embrace what's left of winter.  We can do that...for a few more weeks, anyway.