We are Foster Failures: Introducing the Ginger Prince

Once upon a time, there was a kid who loved cats. She already had a cat who she was obsessed with, but she also had a great memory, and she remembered that when she was very, very little, we used to foster kittens with our local Humane Society.

So she brought it up. A lot.

Whenever she brought it up, we always had a really great excuse. It was Nutcracker season, and we wouldn't be home enough. It was Girl Scout cookie season, and we wouldn't be home enough. The grandparents were coming to visit, and it would be too busy. We were planning a really big vacation, and we couldn't risk taking a litter and not having them up to their weight minimum before we had to leave.

But then we got home from that really big vacation, and the kid made some more really valid points, and she promised to be really responsible, and we didn't have anymore travel planned for a couple more months...

And so we got a litter of foster kittens. One litter. And if it worked out, we could maybe get another litter later in the year.



First pictures of Buttons, Jones, and Lionheart were difficult to obtain. They were more than half wild, and suffered quite a bit from the wiggles:

The only way that the kid could keep them still enough to weigh them on my postal scale was to pop them into a Tupperware:

The kid weighed them every day, and recorded their weights and general dispositions on a chart. When they wouldn't eat their nice kitten food and wouldn't gain weight, she convinced us to buy them chicken baby food. And then when we told her that we couldn't keep doing that (that stuff is something like a buck a jar!), the kid figured out how to take a baked chicken breast and blend it with water to make her own chicken baby food slurry for the kittens to eat.

Which they did until their little tummies were tight, and they thrived!

There is not a lot that's better than having a litter of kittens in your life--particularly if you're not the one taking care of them! The kid was impeccably diligent and responsible with their care, cleaning all the messes and stewarding their delicate health and socializing them so that they stopped being wild beasts and started being snuggly purr machines.

You might notice that in all of these photos, there's one foster kitten that seems to get the most coverage. Whereas Lionheart was the bravest, and Buttons was the sweetest, Jones is the ultimate Capital K Kitten, exactly what you think about when you think about what a puffy little ball of kitten fluff would be like.

It shouldn't have surprised us, then, that after a few weeks, the kid began negotiations to keep Jones. You can do this, of course, but then everyone knows that you're a Foster Failure. Negotiations went like this:

Three cats would be too many cats.

We used to have three cats, until Ballantine died. And we were totally going to adopt Tagalong after that, but then his owner miraculously found him.

The little kid already has her own special cat.

True, but that beloved kitty came into our lives nine whole years ago. The big kid got to pick out her very own dog just a couple of years ago, and the little kid didn't make a peep of protest.

The kid would have to do all the work to take care of a new pet. Nobody else is going to lift a finger to help.

She was already taking care of all three foster kittens all by herself, and that's even more work than taking care of just one healthy kitten.

Ultimately, the result was inevitable:

The kid finished out her run of getting three little kittens up to adoption weight (and weaning them off of eating only pureed chicken, which was the WAY harder job!), and we let the Humane Society know that we were going to be Foster Failures.

Here are her three little kittens, happy and thriving!

  

And here are their Official Portraits. This is Lionheart:

This is Buttons:

And this is our Jones!

He's close to six months old now, and he's happy and wild, alternately wreaking destruction wherever he goes and stretching out to purr contentedly somewhere in his domain:

I didn't want him AT ALL, and yet I can't stand how much I love him.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to random little towns, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

Crafty Book Review: First Christmas Trees from Beginner's Guide to Kirigami

My kids think that this is so cringe, but I have GOT to make a major fuss every year about our first Christmas-themed project of the season!

I'm a purist, so the project has to occur after Thanksgiving. And we have to listen to Christmas music, and the first song that we listen to has to be The Pogues. 

We didn't listen to very many more Christmas songs after that before Syd requested a podcast, instead, and we transitioned to my current favorite podcast, American Girls, but whatever. We started with The Pogues so it counts.

This particular Christmas project is the First Christmas Tree from this book (I'm using Amazon Affiliate links. If you click through to Amazon and end up buying something, nothing changes on your end but Amazon might toss me a penny every four years or so...):

If you think you've never done kirigami, you're wrong. Paper snowflakes are kirigami, as are these Halloween window cut-outs that the kids and I also like to do. 

The First Christmas tree is a little more advanced, but it's a perfect project for teenagers--and me! It held our interest, and was challenging enough that we had to think about what we were doing, but not so challenging that we couldn't listen to stuff and talk to each other and reminisce about the time that Syd played a Star-Bellied Sneetch in a day camp play when she was just barely five and was so stinking adorable that the program STILL uses her photo from that play in their marketing.

And then I reached behind me and pulled a copy of The Sneetches off of our bookshelves (my shelves are alpha by author, because of COURSE they are) and read it out loud to the kids as they worked, and then I noticed that there was an inscription in the front from their aunt and uncle, who'd apparently given this book to the kids for Christmas 2006, so I snapped a pic and put it on the aunt's Facebook wall to show her that we're still reading it. And then I got back to my kirigami Christmas tree, too!

The cut-out stars are a little fiddly, and Syd actually skipped doing hers and her Christmas tree is still very pretty, but I think it's worth it to see the light shining through!

This kiddo is just as charming cutting out a paper Christmas tree as she was at five, standing on a stage and wearing a brown paper bag with a giant crayoned star upon thar:

We did not have the paper called for in the tutorial, which was fine. The kids are using cardstock for their trees and I used their shaving cream marbled paper for my star--

--and my tree used to be a file folder!

Everybody made their own tree, but of course, in our family you never really have to work on a project all by yourself. There's always someone to assist you!

Even with the x-acto knives out for the first time this season, Will is the only one who cut herself, and honestly, it was due--we hadn't even gotten into a single conversation about blood-borne infections at all yet that day! Gasp!

Somehow that inevitable conversation about blood-borne infections transitioned to a conversation about pinworms. If you don't know what pinworms are, don't Google it. Your peace of mind is more important.

I think these trees turned out ADORABLE!

See how Syd didn't cut out stars, but did embellish her tree with some scrap garland? SO cute!

Will used purple cardstock, which is just as pretty and makes me want to make an entire rainbow of trees.

So now we don't have our big Christmas tree up, or any of our Christmas decorations, or any of our Christmas gifts--in fact, we still have our Halloween decorations out, which I absolutely do NOT want to talk about--but still, our coffee table is now perfectly festive.

And The Pogues have called me a maggot and told me that they've built their dreams around me, so it's officially the Christmas season, indeed!

I received a copy of Beginner's Guide to Kirigami free from a publicist, because I can't write about a book if it hasn't gotten me wielding an x-acto knife while humming along happily to Irish punk!

Teach Your Kids to Make Applesauce (And Then You Never Have to Do it Again Yourself!)

Homemade applesauce is one of the official Things That We Do with Apples in the Fall.

It's tradition! I mean, you know, as far as tradition states that we buy waaaaaay too many apples at the apple orchard in the fall, and then have to find useful things to do with the ones that even we couldn't stuff ourselves with (in this family, we are VERY into apples).

I know that store-bought no-sugar-added applesauce is inexpensive, but our applesauce also has no sugar added, and it's fresh, and local, and we know where all the apples came from, and it's incredibly delicious, and it's good for the kids to learn how to make their own food.

Especially when it's this easy to make!

1. Peel and core the apples. 

You can prepare as few or as many apples as you want! I think it's a good way to use up any apples that are unsightly enough that the kids won't eat them as-is, mwa-ha-ha.

This bushel of apples did not keep as well as I'd hoped it would (I think it's because I let them all sit at room temperature, when I should have kept most of them stored somewhere cooler), so I had the kids pick through the entire bushel, taking out every apple that had a bad spot or was looking pretty bruised.

The kids peeled and cored each apple, and cut away any remaining bad spots. Then they tossed them directly into that big pot there in the middle of the table.

2. Cook the apples on low in a lidded pot until sufficiently done. 

The kids put the lid on the pot, then put it on the stove on low heat. This cooks down very gradually for most of the afternoon, and the kids just have to remember to check on it every hour or so:

 
Each time they check on it, they stir it with a wooden spoon and start to mash it down when it's soft enough, and when it reaches a consistency that they both like (chunky is yummy!), they take it off the heat and spoon it directly into large Mason jars.

I had them leave plenty of head space at the top of each Mason jar--we leave one jar in the refrigerator to eat right away, and store the rest of the jars in the freezer.

Well, except for two giant bowls full of applesauce that the kids eat piping hot, of course!

The kids made another, smaller batch of this applesauce a few weeks later, with the very last apples remaining from that bushel, at least the ones that the big kid didn't juice, and that was it for our orchard apples!

We like this applesauce recipe enough that I've never experimented, but sometime I plan to get enough time on my hands that I go a little stir-crazy and decide to try out something like these spiced or fruit-blended applesauce recipes. I'm also interested in the fact that the author doesn't peel the apples first; instead, the applesauce is blended afterwards, which apparently breaks up the peels enough to hide them? I'd love the nutrition and fiber boost of including the apple peels, but the one time I did try to make applesauce with the peels on, I was definitely left with woody bits of peel all through the applesauce, so I dunno.

P.S. For those of you playing the homeschool game, here are the boxes that we checked off with this activity!

• Both kids used this as a step for the Girl Scout Senior Locavore badge (the younger kid is only a Cadette, but I let her earn Senior badges. Feel free to call the Badge Police on me!).
• The big kid used this as an enrichment activity for the Girl Scout Senior Sow What Journey.
• I'm also looping the Sow What Journey into the big kid's AP Environmental Science class, since food issues are intrinsically tied into land use.

P.P.S. Want to see what we're going to do with a bushel of apples, a gallon of cider, and two Jack-o-lantern pumpkins, one very large and one very weird? Follow along on my Craft Knife Facebook page, where cider cocktails and caramel apples are made, and teenagers are in charge of the applesauce!

Autumn at the Indianapolis Zoo: I am in Love with a Sea Slug

In every year and every season, we love our closest zoo. I've taken the kids to the Indianapolis Zoo in the winter, for Christmas lights and infinite hot chocolate:

I've taken them in the spring, to watch butterflies hatch--

--and in the summer, to pet sharks:

At every animal's habitat, it seems, I can find the children superimposed at every age, over every season.

Add to that recollection, now, the children at ages thirteen and fifteen, over the course of one beautiful, unseasonably warm late October day:

Will at fifteen, loving on the snakes

Syd at nine, also loving on the snakes

admiring the sea lions from above in 2019

admiring the sea lions from below in 2008

the beautiful fish habitats in 2019

the beautiful fish habitats in 2009

This is (oops) I believe the same species of shark that we dissected in 2016...

Y'all know how much I love my chondrichthyans!



This girl, in particular, remains enchanted by chondrichthyans, too:

She and I share shark memes back and forth, and I'm lucky to be her parent.

One of the most enchanting things about October at the Indianapolis Zoo is the presence of pumpkins enriching the animal habitats. Some are of the fake Jack-o-lantern variety--

But others have treats inside:

And for some animals, the pumpkin itself IS the treat!

Speaking of treats... here's my life-partner, co-parent, beloved, and the pickiest eater in the family, who saw the nut butter sandwiches that I was in the process of packing that morning, got sulky, and was encouraged to pack his own damn lunch, then:

Why, yes, he IS eating lunch meat directly from the container it came in.

Here are the dolphins, being enchanting:

And here's a chance to snag yet more Halloween candy!

Here's Will at fifteen, admiring a lion.

Here are Will at eight and Syd at six, also admiring a lion

Here's a baby orangutan:

 Here's a sleepy meerkat:

 Here's Will, feeding the birds with nectar given to her by another guest:

And here's when I made her share the nectar with Syd:

Arrow, may she rest in peace, spent a long summer one year attacking Syd every time her back was turned, and ever since then Syd does NOT feel a kinship with fowl:

This is called exposure therapy/"Mom wants a nice picture so you stand there, Young Lady, and let that bird eat out of your hand!"

Here are the trained dogs:

Here's the wild tiger!

Here's the red panda that for over a decade we figured was probably stuffed, since I swear on my life we never once saw it move. But on this October afternoon, we stood and watched it climb around for nearly three minutes before it fell back asleep!

One last family portrait--

--and then it was off to browse the gift shop, where indeed, I did meet my own true love:

It's a sea slug, which I did not buy. Our love was true but brief:

I mean, really. Who needs a sea slug when they've already got their own life partner, co-parent, and picky eater? I'm sure that sea slugs are fussy about peanut butter, too.