 Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you,
 Happy Birthday Dear Great Grandma Bea
Happy Birthday to you!
This is part of Great Grandma’s family. Aunt Gerry, Grandpa, Grandma, Esther, Momma in the back.
Great Grandma, Andrea, Me, Adrian and Georgie are on the swing. Audrey is on the ground.
Please write Great Grandma a note!
Yesterday Audrey wanted Funnel Cakes at the 4HFair but Mama said, “we can make them at home.”
So here is the
Recipe for Funnel Cakes
Combine eggs, milk and brown sugar in large bowl. Add flour and baking powder and mix until smooth.
Heat oil in large cast iron skillet to 375 degrees. Cover the bottom of a funnel spout with your finger and pour in about 1/2 cup batter. Hold funnel several inches above hot oil remove finger and carefully pour batter in a criss cross pattern.
Fry for 2 minutes per side or until golden brown.
Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar. Let cool just a bit and eat warm.
Wash dishes 😕
WARNING! Do not make these and elephant ears at the same time.
You might get sick.
Today for lunch we made pancakes. Here is Momma’s home made recipe for pancake mix. It is from the More with Less Cookbook Oma gave her when she married Daddy. She says it is her favorite cookbook.
Pancake Mix 
6 cups white flour
3 cups whole wheat flour (or buckwheat, cornmeal or rye flour)
3 cups quick oats
2 cups wheat germ
1 Tablespoon salt
3/4 cup baking powder
3/4 cup sugar (you can use a little less if you want)
4 cups powdered milk
Mix all these ingredients well and store in an airtight container. When you want to make pancakes, combine 1 1/2 cups pancake mix with one beaten egg, 1 cup water and 2 tablespoons oil. It makes enough for 3 or 4 people. We double the recipe and sometimes need more!
Remember when we made maple syrup?  When we opened it, we discovered it was not quite boiled down enough. So we reboiled it the other day. We went down from 4 pints to 2 and Daddy said it could have been boiled more. Momma stopped so it would not go down to sugar. The syrup tasted good!
I want to boil syrup again next year. We already have the tubing. Hint for boiling it inside–Use a dehumidifier!
On Friday we went to First Friday in Goshen. This month they had face painting and balloons! There were lots of old and new cars cruising!
Here’s a close up picture of my rattlesnake that Grandma will LOVE!
On the fourth of July we went Oma’s. We had a picnic. We played outside. We also did some fake snakes. You lit a match under them and they caught on fire. Instead of being pellets they turned into snakes. Adrian called them scat.
On Sunday, we went to watch fireworks at Black Squirrel Golf Course. They had a Civil War encampment were we got to talk to some re-enactors. They told me a lot.
The Civil War uniforms were H O T. Hot! They were made of wool. The men always had to wear a vest or a jacket along with a shirt and pants. Or they were considered naked. They could not say body parts in “mixed company” so they made words for chicken like “white meat” instead of breast or “drumstick” instead of leg.
Most of the soldiers were around 18.
One half of the soldiers died because of dehydration and sickness. When you were marching you would sweat about a quart a day. They had water canteens that held a quart of water. Sometimes they could only get yucky water to drink.
Momma thought it was interesting that more Union soldiers died after surgery then Southern soldiers. The Union used silk stitches because they were supposed to be the best. But the Southern doctors could not get silk so they used horse tail hair. It was to coarse to stitch with until they boiled it. That 
sterilized it and kept the wounds cleaner!
On their uniforms the stripes meant the rank. Three blue stripes with a triangle on the top was an artillery corporal. Three blue stripes with flags on top was a flag corporal. I don’t remember what the white and red stripes meant.
It was a fun weekend!
McKinley is turning darker. He is about to get out of his chrysalis. I think either tomorrow or the 11th he will hatch.
Redoubt has moved in with McKinley. He is eating and eating and eating and eating…
We have a new one that Audrey named America. We found him yesterday and he is half a centimeter.
(We just learned there are two baby fish! They like to hide under the the that looks like a tree. )
We have a baby fish in our fish tank! He is not even half the size of the feeder guppy. It was a neat surprise!
It is surprising that there is only one, not more. He likes to hid in the plants. Hopefully he will survive!
We Adopted Redoubt from Oma!
He is 9 mm.
We also spritzed McKinley. We can see his lines.
McKinley has pupatated !!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!
Yesterday, he started spinning a “web”. Adrian says “a spider web”. The web lets him hang up high. Then he hung upside down and turned into a “J” shape. 
Momma noticed McKinley was in a “J” at 10:00 last night.
This morning, he looked like he was “nodding off to 
sleep”. Then it looked like he was biting one of his legs and puulllinggg. Soon he stopped doing that and was just puullinggg.
Then it looked like his head slit open and his brain was green. Then it looked like he was getting out of a stripped sleeping bag. It looked like he was pushing the sleeping bag off toward his feet. Then he was all green.
So in about 11 days –around the 10th–(Miss Ginger’s Birthday)– he should hatch into a butterfly! 
We will know when he will hatch because his chrysalis will turn clear and then he starts shaking!
Can you guess why we named him McKinley?
  
