Monday, September 25, 2017

GRAVEL DAY

The weather forecast called for no rain on Monday and Tuesday. Perfect for another pre-winter project on Michael's list. I went grocery shopping and came home to this....
They insisted this is what we needed for the driveway.....personally, I would like less sand and more gravel, but I do appreciate they didn't try to sell us the most expensive thing they carried. They delivered 2 loads within an hour and a half. If we get another load I'm going to ask for all gravel to balance out the sand. ::snort::

Michael and Izaak created and built a device to try to level and spread the gravel. It had limited success at spreading. It will be more useful when we get to leveling.

The kids and Arielle jumped in with shovels when they were all done with school. 

To be clear, Arielle had a rake and did no lifting. I kept an eye on her - and reminded myself women have been able to tell what was, "too much," for centuries. She is a careful mom.  Of course, I balanced these thoughts with reminding her Cory would NOT like it if I let her shovel gravel and she went into labor.


Michael put the snow blade together and used it to move a bit of the gravel. 

At 7:00 p.m we called it a day. I figured everyone was getting tired of beans and rice and rice and beans. I picked up some chuck steaks....and all were appreciative at the end of a long day of work.

Yogurt in the Instant Pot

*Note I would normally not post a recipe until I had it all figured out and lots of photos...but this tie I want to remember which recipes I used as I play with the whole thing. 

My new Instant Pot has several features the 6 qt doesn't.  One is the yogurt button. It is time to learn how to use this.  I combined tips from this recipe  and this recipe and it worked.  I'm noting it here so I can find them again. When I am totally happy with the results, I will write up what I do. LOL
A moment of panic came after the milk had boiled, cooled, and the starter was added. When I pushed my yogurt button and the + it did NOT give me 8 hours as both authors above said it would. It appears mine counts up on the YOGURT FEATURE - every other feature counts down.  I pushed yogurt, it BRIEFLY said 8 hours, and then 0:00....but it counted up to 8 hours of time.

I used 1/2 a gal of milk and made a big thing of blueberry for Michael (he eats every day), plain (for stroganoff) and a bit vanilla. Michael said this is good.  I am not a yogurt eater and I didn't puke when I tasted it. ::wink::