Lovely Little Chicken...

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B Boozy Botanists

Fill This

Part of the fun of being able to identify plants as you walk by them in the forest is knowing which ones might poison you and which ones are mighty tasty prepared in a mixed drink over ice or fermented and bottled.

Last year the ladies got really interested in squishing fruit. They combed the neighborhood and delivered letters to our especially fruity neighbors inviting them to some free labor. In exchange for cleaning up around their fruit trees, we'd bring home a few large buckets of apples, pears, persimmons and muscadines. Over the course of several weeks during harvest season we accumulated many "carboys" (large glass containers) full of squeezings. They're naturally doing their thing and now we have lots of bottles to fill. Pretty tasty pear wine, honey wine, cyser, mead, and more, I'm sure. I'm trying to stay at arm's length. (Yes, with a glass in hand, though.)

Identifying the plants while you're walking next to them is pretty impressive, but what really wowed me was driving around, even on the highway, hearing, "Pear! Apple! Persimmon!" Red2 identified a pear tree hiding in front of a grocery store. She's 9, kiddos.

Their mom and I did share. It wasn't all booze. We had persimmon cake, apple and pear butter, and pear preserves using as recipe from the tree owner who feels like she's all done making preserves herself. She was very happy to have some help.

The last thought here is about where this all leads. The natural ingredients that used to be found in things like Maraschino cherries and grenadine. Amy Stewart's book, The Drunken Botanist, is good read full of stories about what's really supposed to be in the bottles. Read the labels, folks. Red1 wants a field trip to a liquor store to find real grenadine made with pomegranates, not colored up corn syrups. I think she'll have to wait a bit for that. Do you think the shop keepers will let us in to read the labels?

A - Atlatl Girls. Primitive skills for kids.

The atlatl (AT-ul-AT-ul) is just a sliver of wood with a spike or a hook at the end of it used by folks to hunt a bazillion years ago. You put a little wooden dart in the hole and sling it forward from behind you and over your head. Red1 has made a few and is getting quite good at making them and slinging the darts. Watch out, it doesn't take much effort or power in the throw to shoot the dart deep into it's target.

Sling Me
atlatl by Red1

But why is she making these things? Red1 and Red2 are my daughters and they homeschooled. They get to travel with their mom who goes to primitive skill share events around the southeast between quilting and sewing expos.

{Respond to one question with another questionable answer?} Yes! That's us. So what's a primitive skill share? It's not a survivalist, Hunger Games, end-of-the-world cult family reunion, right? Right. 

The cool-factor: She met Andy Hemmings, and just hung out. Just from this link alone, to the article about the underwater archeology expedition for NOAA, he sounds pretty cool, right?

People gather to trade skills that our culture is almost too eager to leave behind. Botanists take them on nature hikes where they identify edible plants. They're learning recipes for healthy teas and safe cleaning solutions. They made some homemade deodorant that smells better than anything I've ever bought in the store, but it also eliminated, not masked, eliminated all actual odors that were coming from me. They insist that I'm not that smelly to begin with, which is very polite of them, but I know it's working great.

The ladies are currently fascinated by these things that people have started to forget about. Making cool primitive weapons, spoons, tanning, making meads and fermented foods. For thousands of years people preserved their harvests without refrigeration and created amazing beverages from the pounds and pounds of fruit in their trees. They grew and shared their vegetables and pickled them. Wait, tanning hides? Yes. They're picking up dead things--carefully--to craft something from the hides. This summer we had a fox in our freezer for while before taking it to a friend to be de-furred. Poor little guy had a beautiful coat and will make a unique hand bag.

This June, they may be going to Firefly, http://www.fireflygathering.org, where they'll trade hand-dyed recycled yarn and homemade ciders for leather purses, flutes, spoons and perhaps another atlatl.

April is the A-to-Z Challenge, and my theme for this challenge is explore the world my family has been swooped up in since they started homeschooling. While I've been at work, instead of becoming super computer geniuses, they've been out in the woods gathering herbs to make a few tinctures. 

Fat, Sick, Juicy, and Almost Dead

Drink This.

Rescuing this post with way too many links, from the drafts folder, but after a year sitting there, the topics are coming up again. This one's for Papa Ho Ho.

The Juice:

The Juicy People at work and my extended family were interested in the movies we've been devouring about food, so it was time to dust off this post and prep it for release. Welcome back, SFDada.

We're on our 3rd device for juicing and think we've found a great gadget. A little mortified by the infomercial, with David Wolfe, but the Nutribullet is just so fast and easy, it really allows for no more excuses to juice up.

David Wolfe is in a few of the movies I'm listing below, so even though the infomercial was a bit repellant I at least knew who he was and knew he has a lot of interesting things to say about nutrition and the health of your skin.


I ordered ours at Amazon, but my mom picked one up at Macy's with a big %-off coupon and got the best deal for about $70. I don't know this guy, but he does a great job talking about the thing in 8 minutes.

The old post on the movies:

A few years ago, Red1 wanted to go vegan. Over the years we've been watching a lot of documentaries on Netflix on the subject of food and health. A good friend at work also writes a vegan blog, "Healthy Living on a plant based diet", so we seem to have really good support now. I think we're now in the market for a good juicer.

Red1 has enjoyed them all. She became quite over the top after watching Food, Inc. So much so, her friend's mother asked us to try to get her to stop lecturing their family about the cows who stand in their own poop and the sad little chickens and turkeys the fast food farms in America.

Today we spent a good amount of time at the supermarket buying some good fruit and vegetables to restock the kitchen properly. Last night, after watching a double feature of Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead and Forks over Knives, I went through the kitchen and cleared out some of the worst junk on the counters and cupboards.

A good list of films to add to your Netflix queue:
Food, Inc.
Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead
Forks Over Knives
Hungry for Change

Gerson
The Beautiful Truth... which is the one about the Gerson Therapy, if you haven't really heard about it, it's worth looking into. It's pretty much the cure for everything. The film will lead you to more related films available at Netflix.

Here's a copy of Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead that's currently streaming at Hulu with no account needed. (and still is.)

Science Fiction Curriculum

Image via Wikipedia

on our big big list

Getting back to the originally promised topic. The girls. Due to some county school board issues, mostly zoning, we're going to start up the home school wagon this fall.

Having crazy-awesome kids is a blessing that I'm proud to share about. I'm looking forward to being a huge part of their education. I know it's something most parents don't get to do.

I do promise not drone on about all the details unless they pertain to my Science Fiction Daddy topics. And because I'm me; some of it will.

Red1 and I have already started planning out her reading lists for the year. We are making a plan to include a unit on all the Wizard of Oz books, play, films, etc. and another unit on Science Fiction. We're going to look for some award winning sci-fi standards but are open to suggestions. Remember we're in the fifth grade but at a very high reading level. Her favorites right now are the Rick Riordan novels about that Percy guy.

A couple of articles that we wanted to keep track of here:

• Inside Nova - family-tech-science-fiction
• NPR - mind-bending-sci-fi-books-for-a-fantastical-summer

Red2 who is going into second grade, is excited about the Paul Bunyan phenomena. I say phenomena, because after doing some research his story is pretty amazing. He's got it all. Humor and stories mostly, but look at all the geography packed in there. This is going to be fun.

R - A Pirate's Favorite Letter #atozchallenge

Image via Wikipedia

What does a pirate use for dental floss?
A rope for the few teeth he has left.

R, pronounced, AARH! It's a pirate's favorite letter.

What kind of socks does a pirate wear? AARHgile.

What's a pirate's favorite subject in school? AARH-T.

Okay, these AARH corny, but the kids, Red1 and Red2 loved them over and over.  Does anyone really need a link to more pirate jokes, really? (okay then.)

Our love of pirates and the pirate movies (or was it just Johnny Depp) spilled over into the Pirates of the Caribean Online. It's a mostly free romp through the haunted pirate world inspired by the rides at Disney and recent films.

We like pirates because they don't have manners or brush their teeth and they take what they want.  They love playing pirate, but they don't really want to be pirates.

Harry and Hermione

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I've been talking about Harry Potter for a good bit and of course, with good reason. As a parent and a lover of fantasy, HP is home run.

Our girls have been "reading" the books for years via the audiobooks. They can't get enough of them. Now they're working on the Sisters Grim series with the same veracity.

We decided to make Red1 (4th grade with a 14th grade reading level) wait to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows until it was on DVD. We screened it first and even we wished we had a pause button at some points.

Image via Wikipedia

It made me cry before the titles came on. Seeing Hermione erase herself from her parents' home and life was pretty disturbing for this dad.

We'll wait for the DVD for the family viewing, but it was very tempting when Harry showed up at our favorite dollar theater.

Speaking of Harry, we also were able to finally make our pilgrimage to the Muggle Hogwarts this spring. That's a post all to itself and maybe we'll save it for another letter in the A to Z Blog Challenge

We Interrupt this blog... Part 2. Cool Beans.

December rolled along and we bounced through the holidays. Holiday visits, chorus events, vacationing with family. What happened in January was really, what rocked the boat most. Red1 became a blogger herself and I started actually getting real web work.

Betty and mother, Julia Kiene. 1939.

Red1 was at her grandfather's house looking through the cook books her great great grandmother wrote. My daughter's GGGrandmother is Julia Wolcott Kiene.

Ms. Kiene wrote several cook books for Westinghouse in the 1950's and according to the Amazon reviews, they are very much loved but out of print. Red1 said how much she'd like to try some of the recipes and her mother suggested that she write about her experiences and "blog her way through the cook book" like the Julie did with the Julia Childs book. We've been learning a lot more about Juila Kiene and will definitely be sharing some more terrific stories. Not everyone's great great grandmother was photographed and written about in Life magazine.

We Interrupt this blog... Part 1

We interrupt(ed) this blog to have holidays and focus a bit on some big big family projects. Since this is exactly what the SF Daddy blog is about, it's a bit out of place to ignore it and not share but there you go. Sometimes, you just go with it. 

This is the first project that interrupted our flow will my blogging pals. Perhaps we're back for a while. We'll just hope so and leave it there.

What did we do? Go back to November. While I was working on my novel for NaNoWriMo, we started an a school project for Red1 on Jim Henson.

It turns out that she wanted to write a paper and make a video. I'm a fultime video editor for a cable network, so this is right in my ballpark. I coached her in how to write up her script and make notes for when she's on camera. We did this very low tech of course, but the results were very fun. We started reviewing available clips from YouTube to make the selection process simple.

It's not really a robot, sucker.

Image via Wikipedia

November was a funky month for me. I was making great strides with a novel for the NaNoWriMo, where you chunk out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days with a few thousand of your pals, but about half way through the month I became a little encumbered by some medical issues and couldn't finish.

I learned a lot though and my family loves the story. They helped me by inspiring the characters. It's a story about us in the future. It's what we'd like to see happen next year if we could just up and "Green Acres" ourselves to the country, but 60 years in the future. What would Eddie Albert or Ava Gabor do in 2076? It turns out that my story ends up reading like Forrest Gump meets Petticoat Junction. Dunno if anyone other than Red1 will think that's funny or remotely interesting.

Get ready to put your geek back on...

Image by dolmansaxlil via Flickr

... because we so often leave our geek at home, right?

Don't miss Friday, "Dean of Invention" on Green Planet, a US cable station. Have it? If not, here's a link to their site where you can catch an episode. It promises to show us the things we are so used to thinking are science fictions.



This is right up Red1's alley, and mine,  too.
Bionic humans, flying cars? I'm there. Are you?
 



Link to pop it into your Tivo  or just read more about it.

Related articles

• Dean Kamen on Planet Green (sentientdevelopments.com)
• Planet Green show aims to inspire kids with science - USATODAY.com
• Planet Green's Original Series 'Dean of Invention' Episode Guide; Premieres Friday October 22 at 10pm (tvbythenumbers.com)
• Planet Green Renews 'The Fabulous Beekman Boys' for a Second Season (tvbythenumbers.com)

Top 10 in TV shows...

It's another list. This time we're counting down the top ten TV shows according to SF Daddy!

As always, I'm gearing this list with the kiddos in mind. No it's not going to be a teletubbie list, they were way out there even for this freaky SF dad.

Torchwood - I'm not going to pretend that I've seen this whole series yet, but after the first few episodes and the praise I've been reading, as a spin off of Dr. Who which also has some smart kick-butt female action stars, this one makes it to my list.

Image by Lunchbox Photography via Flickr

Star Wars The Clone Wars - Star Wars is known for its leading ladies with attitude. The storyline in this animated venture is not short on them either. Joining Padme is Ahsoka, a Jedi sidekick for Anakin who is almost more hotheaded than he is. Season two introduced Arra Sing an awesome bounty hunter with a taste for collecting Jedi. We fanboys have been talking about Ms. Sing since her 2-second cameo in Episode I. Next season we're treated with more from her and another Jedi favorite who was spared at the last minute from death in Episode III in the edit room floor. Shak Ti joins the show this fall. Great thing about this series is that it's available online. http://starwars.com/theclonewars/guide/episode001.html





Pushing Daisies -

Image via Wikipedia

We're starting a theme here... much like Moonlighting and Cheers, where the two leads are cursed in some way from ever being together. In most cases the show's demise is the only thing that ever comes out of the leads finally getting together. Pushing Daisies was a great confection. Literally. The Pie Man made magical pies from rotten fruit he brought back to life with his magically touch. He can do that trick on animals and people too, but a second touch sends them back to their death. Too bad he brought his secret love back to life one day. Now if he ever touches her again she's dead for good. So instead they bake pies and solve murder mysteries together in a beautiful technicolor dream like comic book land created by Bryan Fuller and EP'd by Barry Sonnenfield- another personal hero.

Image by darkchacal via Flickr

Legend of the Seeker - The ladies in this house love this show mostly because of Kahlan Amnell – the Mother Confessor.

As a Confessor, she has the power to magnify the love a person has within them for her, allowing her to control the person. This power allows her to serve the people of the Midlands, who respect and fear her.  In Kahlan's quest to defeat Rahl, her role is to protect the Seeker with her life. She develops a deep love for Richard, which is torment for them both since her Confessor's powers would be inadvertently unleashed in a moment of intimacy, making it impossible for Richard and Kahlan to act on their feelings for each other. Executive producer Robert Tapert describes Kahlan as "a female action hero for 2009.

Firefly - That's right! Yee Ha! This is one of those shows you're going to hear a lot about until you actually sit down and rent it. You just have to give it a try. We attempted to watch during it's run but the networks messed us all up. So we eventually discovered this gem on DVD. Go ahead and put it in your Netflix cue now...



Georgia Outdoors - Our Georgia PBS station presents topics about our state from gardening to paleontology. Take that Pokemon! Check out your PBS station to see what you can learn about your own backyard.



Let's continue to bend the parameters of this TV list. As TV is evolving, let's add some space to for a couple of internet shows and series.


The Guild - Sweet little nuggets of pure fun. Just geeky enough to try out a few online games and even more dairing to actually go out and meet some of the guild in real life when invited to a Pirate meet, I know this series a little too well. The DVDs are available from Netflix and they stream as one long 'movie' but if the short nuggets are more you speed, check them out on their native site: http://www.watchtheguild.com/

Sad, but here's a Flash video of the first episode. Sad because it won't show up on your iPad (yet?).



TED Talks. If you haven't discovered TED yet, go now.  It's more Science and Fantasy than fiction. Real people with fantasies of how we can change the world one person at a time. Here's one on the Happiness Index. Love these things... they even show up in your Tivo if you let them! We've blogged about several of these in the past.

Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world

When the girls are older....

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel - The monsters in these shows are a bit much for our smaller audience, but the kick-butt girls are certainly a good frolic when we're older. Our most-est favorite episode "Hush" just made it onto the SyFy / Blastr list of best episodes ever. What qualifies as a best episode? You know the episode by name is a good indication! Buffy is so well written and smart. We were just married and growing up a few years ahead of Buffy, but Ms. SF Daddy used the show as a topic of conversation with her high school kids. She often found common ground with the kids through the shows they both enjoyed. She liked using this show in particular to talk about teen issues and the portrayal of women in media. Good Stuff.






And okay, this one's for the very little ones: Have you seen Dinosaur Train? Really? Another PBS offering. We don't graze through the channels like a lot of kids do, but one morning we had a flat tire and found ourselves at the local Firestone. While waiting for the tire to get fixed, we sat through an episode of Dinosaur Train. My 6 year old (Red2) fell in love. Sure it didn't hurt that there's a little Henson magic behind the scenes. Figures. They aren't just cute dinos, but they actually get the real names out in a catchy way.


Very much a different list for you. Can't wait so see your list!

Help! Annie

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Red1, enters fourth grade and gets word that they're putting on the musical "Annie Jr." in the spring. She's been in the school chorus for a year and is excited to try out. But she's not interested in Annie's part. She's all about the character actors! (Ye-haw! Me, too.)

So we're putting Annie DVDs in our Netflix cue and looking at the YouTube clips to see which parts she wants to think about. She knows all about Carol Burnett and loved the few scenes we've seen already. Bernadette Peters may be a new inspiration for her too.

She rolls her eyes and says that all the girls are going to being singing, "Tomorrow, tomorrow..." and just then, Red2 starts singing, "Yesterday..." And that was it. We began pulling up the list of songs and matching them all together.

An Annie/Beatles mashup. Listening to all of the songs from the musical and the Beatles album, "Help!" is going to be great fun. How do they come together? :) We'll see. It's a great project for Google Wave too.

Image via Wikipedia

This week we had the displeasure of hearing that Google is planning to dump Google Wave, but we'll keep using it until they close their doors. Perhaps, by sharing our projects like this more people will start using this amazing stuff Google pops out. (What if email was invented today?)


Our Wave for working on the project. - If you are interested in participating, comment on this post, but don't pass up seeing how awesome group work with Google Wave can be.

Testing out embedding this wave below.  This may totally slow your viewing experience down but let's try it out.

{Waves aren't that happy on iPads, either.}

It's sad that the comic strip Little Orphan Annie is closing down, but all good things...

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• 'Little Orphan Annie' comic canceled (nydailynews.com)

D23 Expo: Imagineering the Future of Disney Parks Part 6 of 6 (Star Tours 2 portion!!!!)

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SO! Part 6. This is the last of the series. Whew. But did they save the best for last? Well, I don't know. It is Star Wars so at least they think they did. I have always been a little underwhelmed by Star Tours, but as one of the first cram you a little room that rocks you around ride, it wasn't bad. And no matter how many times you rode, it was always Pee Wee Herman's droid's first time out. Red1 loved it but Red2 was horrified at the thought of speeding into outerspace. We couldn't even tempt her with the promise of going all the way to Endor to meet the Ewoks.


The Star Wars weekends video clips are also something riotous to look up at YouTube if you dare. They had a very successfull kareoke competition that must be experienced.

One more surprise awaits.

I lied when I said this series was over. The last post will explain how we got here in the first place and show the results of that journey. Not in search of a mouse, princess or even Spock. (Lame.) We were in search of Harry if you remember...

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Fantasy and Scifi Award

"Oh, wow. An award."
Mrs. SF Daddy said, "I've never gotten any awards."
I want to thank Alex J. Cavanaugh for spreading this little bit of viral fun onto my blog. I'm a third generation recipient so tracing back the history of this award was quick and fun. I have quite a few new blogs to investigate! Good networking, ladies and gentlemen!

Award Creator: Flutey Words

This Award should be given to any blogs that promote the genres of Fantasy and Science Fiction, whether it be through author interviews, reviews, your own writing, etc. The rules are: you must state 5 of your favorite fantasy/sci fi books and or movies that inspired you.

5 books (or series) that have inspired me and/or the girls (Red1 and Red2)

1. Star Wars Expanded Universe - I've read almost all of the expanded universe. I'm no wookiepedia, but I'm up a bit on Vader's grandkids.  Kevin J. Anderson and Michael Stackpole seem to be the authors that really stand out. Stackpole is quite busy with other series including the Secret Atlas that I'm starting to enjoy as well.
2. Voyager series. We started picking up the Star Trek novels from the trift store for 50 cents. Janeway's first book was incredible. I wrote about it earlier.
3. Harry Potter series - We don't have a lot new to say about these books that hasn't been exhausted elsewhere. Red1 is up to actually reading the 4th book. She's been listening to the audio books for a long time and had us believing that she was also reading the paper versions. (The tests at school can't tell the difference, but I explained how it really really DOES matter.)
4. The Last Dragon - by Silvana De Mar - Red1 has read this one over and over. It's an all time favorite.
5. The Fablehaven Series - by Brandon Mull. Red1 was thrilled to be holding the latest installment in hardcover! You could hear the shriek of delight from the next block over.

Fantasy and Sci Fi Blogs:

I'm not following a lot of Science Fiction blogs right now, so went on a hunt. I found StarTrekSpace right away and was instantly impressed enough to share it with you.

• http://startrekspace.blogspot.com/
  A really verbose Star Trekian blog. The look and feel of the blog is true to ST and that's a plus already, but the author also offers a wide array content relating to all the ST series and details of the ST future history.  Awesome Post: Starfleet Demotion. ~ Star Trek - Sci Fi Blog