BHS Presents Seussical the Musical

I have five grandchildren. Three of my grandchildren have performed in many dramatic plays and musicals. One has worked the sound and lights in performances and my fifth has had his own YouTube channel since he was very young. I guess you could say all of them are involved in the arts in one way or another. I have enjoyed all of them, and I am always amazed at the talent they possess. They sure didn't get that from me or their grandfather. It must be a throw back from WAY back. Singing on stage would be out of the question.

Last weekend my grandson Jack was in his last high school musical. He will most likely be in performances after high school, but this was the last for now. Their spring play is usually a dramatic effort, but this is the last musical. 

The musical this fall was Seussical.

I wasn't sure about this play. Of course I knew about Dr. Seuss, but I had no idea about the musical version. I figured I would be lost but the kids would have fun. I discovered it does have a story woven into a lot of the children's books we are all familiar with. The musical is about friendship and being loyal. It shows how important it is to believe.

My daughter was the Costume and Props Coordinator. Starting last summer she spent hours making props. In spite of having a "real" job, she made so many things. I can't even mention all of them. We made everything from kangaroo ears to monkey tails. I went with her many many times to thrift stores and craft stores looking for outfits, shoes, belts, jewelry and props for each little detail. With countless hours put in by herself, the construction coordinator and crew, the painters, advertising people, the sound and stage crew and other parents and friends, the play was a complete success. There was the excellent choreography and all the music played by the pit orchestra. It truly does take a village. 

Jack played Horton the Elephant.  He has a wonderful voice and did a great job. I can't imagine memorizing all those words. There was no photography allowed for the performance but I was allowed to use some photos taken by Catrina Burgess. Catrina did an awesome job coordinating the construction of the set. I appreciate these photos. 

They had sell out crowds. Jack's had family and friends there for him every night.

 

The kids all did great. Eight of them are seniors so there should be plenty of talent for next year. It was another successful musical performance.

Sowing Milkweed Seeds

Now that summer is over and fall is in full swing here in Wisconsin, it is time to prepare for winter. All my indoor plants that have spent the summer outdoors are back inside. The hoses are disconnected, porch furniture is put away and leaves are prepared to provide safe places for all the little critters and pollinators. I don't rake or remove old foliage until spring. The leaves in the driveway get pushed to the side and the yard stays the way it was meant to. I am fortunate to live in a rustic surrounding, and I don't have a lot of neighbors scrutinizing my property. 

Because of this natural living, I am able to let common milkweed grow wherever it chooses. There are several varieties of milkweed, but the common variety is what I have. I have raised Monarch butterflies for many years. I know the eggs are laid on the milkweed leaves and then the caterpillars need to eat milkweed plants to survive and flourish. In the past I would only raise enough milkweed to feed the caterpillars I found. Mostly I would just let it come up where it wanted, but I didn't plant any. 

As most of us know, the Monarch populations are dwindling and it will take more people to provide milkweed to increase the populations. Since the average Monarch butterfly lays hundreds of eggs and many of them turn into caterpillars, it only makes sense that planting more milkweed will nourish more caterpillars and ultimately we will have more Monarch butterflies. The butterflies then use the milkweed flower for nectar. This nectar keeps them healthy for reproduction and finally migration. These flowers also help other butterfly species as well as bees. Since milkweed plants thrive in conditions that aren't perfect, they are easy to grow. Just make sure they are in a place that doesn't interfere with other plantings because once established they will come back year after year. The plants usually thrive because rabbits and deer avoid these plants. They contain a toxin which these animals don't like. 

That brings me to my next project. Since I wanted to plant more milkweed this fall, I needed seeds. We have all seen the dried milkweed pods burst and then the wind takes them away to land wherever they please. 

Fortunately my daughter, my neighbor and myself had some dried pods. They were just about to split open so I gathered them. I let them sit outside in a screen enclosure until I was ready. Then I opened them and saved the seeds. This wasn't an easy task and there was a learning curve. At first I was chasing the white fluffy silk with a seed attached to each fiber. I found out that white fluff is called floss". They are meant to blow around and disperse, so it is a time consuming and messy project when they are let loose . Then I came upon a way to gather the seeds more efficiently. I took a bread tie and later a rubber band. I tied it very tight just below the fat part of the pod. Then I carefully peeled down the pod and removed the seeds. They come off quite easily.

My lack of patience allowed me to only do about 5 at a time, but I eventually got the job done. As a result I got a little more than one and a half cups of seeds. I calculated how many seeds that was. I filled one teaspoon with seeds and counted them. There are 175 seeds per teaspoon so one tablespoon has 525 seeds. It's hard to believe there were that many. Three tablespoons is 1/16th of a cup times 1.5 cups equals 12,600 seeds. Since I had a little more I figure there are almost 16,000 seeds. That should produce a few plants if only a small percentage of them grow. 

Milkweed seeds need cold stratification. You either have to plant them in the fall and all winter let the cold temps do their thing to prepare the seeds for germination or put them in the refrigerator and plant in the early spring. I decided to sow the seeds this fall and this week I played Johnny Appleseed. I walked to several special sunny places on my property and tossed milkweed seeds. We won't know if this process will work until next spring. I really hope it does and if it does, I will do it again next year. Some of these seeds will go to my daughter. She has a nice patch of milkweed plants already, but she also has a large sunny area for more. I will update all of you in the spring. 

I Finally Found My Organic, Compostable Coffee

I received a Keurig coffee maker many years ago. Throwing away the used K-cups always bothered me for many reasons. First putting all those plastic cups into the landfill seemed so wrong. Then I read many articles confirming my gut was correct. Millions are going into the landfills and will remain there for hundreds of years. I also didn't like my food or drink heated in plastic. We all have microplastics floating through our blood and much of it can't be helped. Even bottled water leaches plastic into our systems. Wherever I can avoid it, I do. I would cut them open and empty the used coffee into the compost, but that was all I could do with the K-cups so I quit using that machine. Instead I bought ground coffee and made a small pot. Often I didn't drink it all, but I like my coffee. Just one 12 ounce cup in the morning is all I need, but I look forward to it everyday. 

Fast forward to a year or two ago. I bought a new Ninja coffee maker. It was awesome. I could make a whole pot of coffee or one cup. I could make 6 ounces or 65 ounces. It worked great, but it also had a K-cup attachment which I didn't use much. I had a few K-cups left over and made a few cups to use them up but I felt like a criminal doing it. I know, I have a warped sense of right and wrong, but I did feel guilty.

Since it was so convenient, I eventually found a brand of K-cup that was compostable. It was organic coffee which was what I wanted. Organic coffee is mostly free from pesticides and chemicals. I read it also supports fair trade practices which gives those producers fair compensation and its grown in the shade which helps the carbon footprint because trees don't need to be cut down. 

Supposedly the pods were made with renewable plant based materials, it was responsibly resourced and crafted in Minnesota whatever that means. I guess they get the beans delivered to Minnesota and roast them or at least package the product there. It was good enough for me to try. There was a bit of a learning curve for taste but the coffee was good enough for me. I saved my ground coffee for those times when I made coffee for more people. All was well except for one thing. Every so often I wanted a cup of decaffeinated coffee. I am of the age where any thing with caffeine after noon affects my sleep. 

I found this Cameron's brand of decaf. It did come in the compostable pods but it was not organic and it was probably processed the usual way with chemical solvents. It is the cheapest way and is the most common way to decaffeinate coffee. I didn't really want that but for a long time it is all I could find. Then I found a company called Simple Truth organic. It covered all my criteria. It was organic, single sourced in Peru, it was made decaf by the Swiss water process which uses no chemicals and only water and the K-cup pods are compostable. It also tastes very good. I found this from a website called Vitacost but it was shipped from Kroger. That is my next problem. I would like to find it without the high shipping costs, so I will continue to look for it in stores. We don't have any Kroger stores but some stores sell Kroger products. If not, at least I found it. *Update: I found this coffee at a Pick N Save grocery store. If you live in Wisconsin, you may be able to find it too and it was On Sale.

I am sure a few of you reading this will just roll your eyes. First of all, why does someone of my age worry about some of these chemicals and pesticides or how decaf is made, but I want to stay as healthy as I can and this is my way. If I am going to have a coffee vice, it might as be as healthy as possible. If any of this information is not correct, feel free to tell me. Contrary to some, the internet doesn't know everything. Do what is right for you, but for now I am very happy with my choice.

My First Experience Raising Black Swallowtail Butterflies

Another season of raising Monarch butterflies has come and gone. This will be my final summer of raising them inside. New studies have shown that it is doing them more harm than good. I don't know if it is true, but future statistics will prove whether it is or not. I was under the assumption that only 10% of the wild raised Monarch butterflies survived. Weather, pesticides and predators would eliminate a huge number of eggs and caterpillars. I thought that if I raised them inside with fresh food and a clean environment, most would survive. My death rate was nearly zero percent compared to 90% in the wild. I guess there is more to it than that. Anyone can look up the many articles about this. Instead, I will plant a lot more milkweed next summer and provide an outside environment for them. I am a very small operation compared to some who raise hundreds. If in the future new studies prove this is wrong, I will happily raise them inside once again. 

I did something new this year. I planted parsley because I read that Black Swallowtail butterflies like dill, parsley and anything from the carrot family. Sure enough, after noticing some Swallowtail butterflies in the area, I kept checking to see if they laid eggs on my parsley plant. I would check them everyday until I noticed them on the plant. I took three swallowtail caterpillars inside to a different habitat from the Monarch's. I fed them parsley everyday. Two of them thrived. The third never grew and eventually died. The two that thrived grew into beautiful large caterpillars. I had read that they pupate into their chrysalis on a stick or that type of thing so I put some sticks into the habitat. 

These caterpillars look very similar to Monarch caterpillars. They are yellow, black and white but in a different configuration. This first picture below is a Monarch caterpillar for comparison purposes.

I found these caterpillars on August 6 and 7. They ate parsley pretty much non-stop until August 15. They would stop for a bit to molt into a larger caterpillar until they molted their final time into its chrysalis. The chrysalis looks green or brown. It is usually brown late in the summer and looks like the stick. You can see the silk string connecting it to the stick but otherwise looks like the stick.

When it is about to emerge or eclose the chrysalis turns very dark. They are almost black at the end. As with the Monarch which also turns black, the chrysalis becomes translucent and when the butterfly is showing through, they emerge.

Black Swallowtails are different from Monarchs. The process is somewhat similar, but Black Swallowtail butterflies don't migrate. There are three broods a year. Each one only lives from two to four weeks. This was the August-September brood. The final brood will form their chrysalis and it will sit over winter and emerge in the spring. 

Although Black Swallowtail butterflies are not rare, it was a thrill to see this whole process. This first one is a female. Males have more yellow dots and females have more blue. 

After I put her outside, she stayed perfectly still for quite sometime. When the day warmed up and she was sufficiently rested, she flew off to enjoy her short life.

A Visit to Ikea and Mama Rosa

Today was an unexpected good day. My daughter finished work at noon. She wanted to go to IKEA in the worst way. She was on again and off again several times. My days are very boring and sometimes lonely so I'm up for most anything these days. As long as I am able, I will leave at a moments notice. The closest IKEA is about 1 3/4 hours away in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. She finally decided she would go and so we were on our way. 

The traffic going into Milwaukee was very busy, and I was very happy not to be driving. I don't like to drive mainly because I can't look around. I like to enjoy the scenery. What I miss a lot about my former life is having a chauffeur. Remember the movie Driving Miss Daisy? I wish I could afford to hire a driver to take me for rides in the countryside and to take me where ever I want to go.

IKEA was fine. I don't need any home furnishings or household devices, but I loved the cafeteria. We had the Swedish meatball dinner which included meatballs, mashed potatoes, peas, lingonberry sauce and of course dessert. We had Lemon Blueberry Mascarpone cake. It was delicious. I am not a Scandinavian for nothing. That's the kind of food I was raised on. 

 

We shopped for quite a while and then headed back home. Following the Scandinavian theme of the day, we stopped at Wauwatosa's Firefly Grove Park to see Mama Rosa. Mama Rosa is one of the newest Thomas Dambo trolls and the only Dambo creation in Wisconsin. Thomas Dambo is a Danish artist from Copenhagen, Denmark who creates large one of a kind trolls throughout the world. This one is a 24 foot troll made from all recycled material. It was made from trees recycled from Wauwatosa's forests and other items from the city. The bouquet of flowers is made from old Wauwatosa streetlight posts. The plaque in front has a poem written by Thomas Dambo.

Something funny with these flowers

Some have special needs and powers

There’s no roots beneath these flowers

Rain don’t ruin upon these flowers

 

Something funny with these flowers

Comes from nothing in an hour

There’s not honeybees, these flowers

Have no honey in these flowers

 

Something funny with these flowers

Stands all summer, won’t go sour

When the sun’s asleep, these flowers glow

I wonder how these flowers grow

       - Thomas Dambo

This certain troll has only been in Wauwatosa since May of 2025 so it is very new. Already bees have taken up residency in his ear. It looks like he has a hearing aid. The hair is also unique, it is made from oak branches. 

 My daughter and her husband had visited one of the Dambo troll sculptures in Breckenridge, Colorado so she knew about them. This one is called Isak Heartstone. They are all unique and maybe someday I can see more. 

Pelicans Take Refuge From The Storm

Every year I look forward to summer. Here in Wisconsin the winters can be long although they aren't as cold and snowy as they used to be. The climate is definitely changing. That being said, it's still Wisconsin and it's still colder than the southern climates. There are pros and cons. The cons of summer are mosquitos or other insects and the humidity. The pros are the abundance of wildlife and birds. From this blog, you know how I much I enjoy all of that.

Yesterday we had a tornado watch. A watch means that conditions are in place for a tornado to form. Fortunately we didn't have a tornado. Other parts of the state had high water and tornado sightings but I was lucky. My heart goes out to other parts of the country who have suffered so much. 

 

The reason for this blog is to talk about the Pelicans that landed in my protected marsh to wait out the storm. I get Pelicans a couple times a year, but nothing like this. There were hundreds of them all crowded on the northeast shoreline. I wish I could read their mind. My assumption was that huddling together gave them protection from impending weather. They must have chosen that shoreline for some reason. Maybe it was the best protection from the winds and storm coming from the southwest. I could be totally wrong on this, but I do a lot of speculation as far as the birds and wildlife are concerned. If only they could talk. 

I could only get part of them in the photo frame but there was another large group. I tried to count but it was impossible. I don't know where they came from or where they went, but two hours before the tornado watch was cancelled, they left. I felt they knew instinctively that the risk was over. They left in groups. The first group swam and flew to the other shoreline. Whether this was a test to make sure the coast was clear, I really don't know.

 

 

Then they started flying to the far southern part of the marsh. Group by group they took off. It was very orderly.

Sorry for all the photos, but they were extremely interesting. Little by little they all met at the southern shoreline. 

 

Eventually they all left to parts unknown. Maybe they will be back some day. A group usually comes for a day or two to eat, but I have never seen them take protection from a storm. I'm glad my marsh could help.

 

Ninja Creami Sorbet

I can't take credit for these recipes, but I thought I would try them and report on my thoughts. These are the creation of "The Hungry Girl".  The Hungry Girl, if you haven't heard of her, is an author and creator of the Hungry Girl brand. It's all about food and making it taste good for lower calories. Go to her website if you are interested, hungry-girl.com.

I have a Ninja Creami machine. It is an ice cream making machine that can make ice cream, sorbets, milkshakes and other frozen goodies. You mix the ingredients for whatever frozen treat you want. Then you freeze the container and put it in the Creami for the final product. I bought it to make frozen treats from non-dairy milk. I have used cashew milk, almond milk and oat milk. I think cashew milk has the most fat, so it works the best for me. I just use the milk and add fruit or coffee or any add-in's you like and a sweetener. It certainly isn't the same as full fat Culver's ice cream, but it satisfies my sweet tooth.

After reading a Facebook post from The Hungry Girl, I thought I would try three of her easy sorbet recipes. The first one takes one 15 ounce can of pineapple tidbits or chunks in it's own juice. You put the contents of the whole can with the juice into the freezer container. Freeze until hard and mix on the sorbet setting. It's really is good and creamy. I only spun it once, but if necessary these recipes can be spun more than once to get the desired consistency. 

The next one I tried was sliced peaches in juice. Peaches in heavy syrup would probably be sweeter as this was a little tart. If you want it sweeter, just add a sweetener of your choice. It was refreshing and turned out great. The color was nice and bright.

The last one I tried was with watermelon. I had a couple cups of cubed watermelon leftover so I thought I could try. This one you fill the container with watermelon and then top it off with either diet or regular lemon-lime soda. It was good. It tastes like frozen watermelon and perfect for these hot days.

All of these were good, and I am glad I tried them. I get about three servings from a container so it may not be the best idea for a family or you would need more ingredients and containers. For me it was perfect. I will make them again.