This & That

Around Here This Week

So around here this week....

"I'm gone" flowers tried to arrive last week....when neither of us were at home. My husband had set up a delivery early in the year knowing he'd be gone,  but not realizing that I'd be in Ohio. They brought them on Tuesday after we both got home, but it was interesting talking to the delivery person telling them I wasn't available until the following week.

We also spent some time up at the cabin. We'll go on another wander soon. While we were there, I got a special gift just for me.

Sent to me from the kids and grandkids.....one of the chickens died at Evan's house and Frederick was the lucky guy who got to dispose of it. Darn dead chicken pooped on him. Ah....farm life.

While the adventurers were in the Wind Rivers, Ephraim had some time at superhero soccer camp.

There was also some sleeping under sheet tents.

And after everyone got home it was Shark Week.

Eric sent this one out to the family. One of his patients gifted him with this belt buckle. 

Which prompted this reaction from the family.

From back east, Collin's family made a trip to Sam's club. John likes pickles, and he was pretty happy about the king-sized jar.

A really good picture of Sam stretching, and in this particular picture he looks a LOT like his daddy at this age....without the puff-ball red hair.

I got this one saying this was how sad he was that I left. :) In actuality, he's this close to giving interactive grins.

Marc's family was glad he was home after the trip into the mountains.

Hazel's milestone this week was laughing for the first time. Levi was the one who coaxed her into it.

And lastly, from Elise and the twins....They have these fuzzy blankets they just love to sleep with. Lately they've been wanting them out of the crib, too. She says right now they're either making each other giggle, or making each other scream.

 

Wandering in the Wilderness

With the exception of the time my husband and I were in totally different parts of the country, we've tried to spend at least a couple of days a week up at the cabin. Often during our time, there will be a wander, and that was the case on this particular trip.

We hiked up the Skunk Creek Trail, which is the prettiest one I've been on and always my choice if I'm given that option. I thought it was too late in the year for what I call mountain daisies, but I guess with the cool spring we've had, there are some late bloomers around.

I know I've said this frequently, but there's always something different blooming almost every time we go wandering. There were big bunches of lupine out this particular day.

My husband actually encouraged me to take this pictures. "Don't you want the flowers from this angle?"

I almost always find something I've never seen before.

Sometimes looks can be deceiving. See these cute little blue flowers?

When the blossoms fade, they turn into the worst thorny stickers. There's a life lesson there somewhere about being deceived by outward appearances.

We weren't the only ones wandering. We found fresh deer tracks along the way, and my husband said he saw a big bear track in the trail. Yes, he carries a gun on these excursions, but we've never had to use it. There have been times, though, as I trailed along behind everyone else, that I've imagined beady eyes watching me like I was food.

Kind of like this.....that's my husband way ahead of me on the trail. I'm taking my time through the shady spot.

I've got a new pair of boots I'm gradually breaking in. No cracks or splits in these, so I can navigate the wet spots in the trail much more easily.

Oh hello there, bear poo.

There's a lovely little stream that parallels the trail. It's sound alone just makes me feel cooler when we don't get started on our hike until later in the morning.

I thought this rock in the stream was really pretty.

At dusk on another weekend, we walked up to the river.

My husband in his element.

There was a whole different crop of flowers by the river.

And every single one of them is beautiful in its own right.

Herb Grilled Salmon

I'm just back from my stay at Collin's house, where the goal was to put as many meals in the freezer as they had room for, which worked out pretty well. It's good to go, good to be back and really good to sleep in my own bed. I'm old that way. Since my husband's once-in-a-lifetime annual Alaska fishing trip happened recently, we have fresh salmon to use. I've had this recipe pinned for a while and decided that since I had some of the fresh herbs growing on my patio, I might as well put them to good use. It's also ugly hot most days, and I'm not willing to heat up the house cooking, so my hunter-gatherer husband gets to stand outside and grill his catch. This is really fresh-tasting, and will go into the rotation for summer, especially if I've got herb pots growing. Bonus, it comes together in just a matter of minutes.

Creamy Herb Grilled Salmon

• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup minced fresh chives
• 1/4 cup snipped fresh dill (I didn't have this growing, so I threw in some dried dill.)
• 1/4 cup ranch salad dressing
• 3 tablespoons minced fresh parsley
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1 salmon fillet (1 pound)
• 1 teaspoon olive oil

In a small bowl, mix the first eight ingredients. Brush skin side of salmon with oil. Place salmon on a greased grill rack, skin side down; spread sour cream mixture over fish. Grill, covered, over medium heat 12-14 minutes or until salmon flakes easily with a fork.

 

Around Here This Week

So around here this week....

Lots of this going on. It's tough duty, but somehow I manage.

I have still been at Collin's house with Sam and 2 of his older brothers. In explanation, I always come to help for about a week when new babies are born, and that usually happens after my daughter-in-law's mothers go home. In this particular instance, Collin wanted to come west to take James on the annual horse pack trip to the Wind River mountains, but didn't want to leave his wife with a very active David and John, plus a newborn. I could see that, so I waited a bit longer than my usual and essentially he and I traded places. He's got James fishing with Grandpa, most of my boys, and a slew of cousins. I'm here doing what I can to fill the freezer and help with kids, during the 12 days Collin's gone.

You can see that sometimes David and John are just a little overly attentive with the baby.

Believe it or not, one of the boy's favorite places to go are to museums....most specifically airplane-related ones. Collin and Alison have taken them to various types of museums from the time they were very little, and since they live now where the National Air Force History Museum is, they go visit it often.

It's an enormous place that you can't even get close to seeing in the course of a day. It houses such historic planes as the Memphis Belle and the Bockscar, several Air Force One planes, a plane built by the Wright brothers, and so many others. I found it fascinating and know my husband could spend a whole day in the WWII section alone. John here is sitting in the cockpit of a T-38 they ave available there. John is a huge plan fanatic and literally knows the names and types of many different kinds of jets.

We also been to Carillon Historical Park, which is a large area that has a carillon bell tower, some of the original buildings in Dayton, as well as the Wright Brothers Museum. This is a picture of an actual Wright Brothers plane. Really interesting stuff, but the weather? Holy COW! The humidity was incredible. I'm not sure how people who live here full time can stand it. I've never, ever been so grateful for air conditioning. 

There really is a thing to the "dry heat" of Idaho, and I'm going to try really hard not to complain about the heat at home for the rest of the summer. I can't guarantee I'll be successful, but I'll try. One thing I will miss about this area of the country is the nightly firefly show. I tried to get a video of them, but it didn't work. There's something about those little whimsical flashes of light at dusk that's almost magical. There was also a carousel the boys rode while at the Park. John wasn't quite sure it was his thing, but he held on until the end.

My daughter-in-law had a birthday while I was there, so a birthday cake was in order. I'm not a fancy cake baker. My kids almost always had 9x13 sheet cakes, but Alison likes a chocolate-mint combo and I found one to try. It's not perfect, but it worked out ok. I'm not going to  do a post with the recipe, but I'll link you up.

Sent to me from the kids and grandkids this week, I got a few from Elisa and Ephraim. Ephraim was the only one at home with his mama while everyone else was in the hills, so he got to help in the kitchen. He decided he wanted to decorate the chocolate cherry ganache tart with flowers.

LOTS of flowers,

which Elisa said they would remove before eating. :)

And from Miss Hazel, there was this. :)

I'll be making my way back home on Monday. It will take all day to get from one regional airport to another, and my husband will beat me home by a couple of days. 

 

 

 

A Six Year Old

Summer birthday today. Quincy-boy is six years old!

It doesn't seem like that long ago that Quincy was this size and we were coaxing him for grins.

He has beautiful chocolate-brown eyes, which are unusual in our family. 

We generally tend to skew blue/grey/hazel, but he and his big brother, Edward both have them in that family.

Right now Quincy wishes he was just a little older so he could be on the fishing adventure with all his brothers.

We just love this boy as we love all our grandchildren. Happy birthday to Quincy!!

Summer Days, Drifting Away to, Oh, Oh Those Summer Nights

And now you have that song stuck in your head....you're welcome. I got a passel of pictures from Eric's wife, Elisa a few days ago. If I put them all in the usual Saturday post it would be huge, so I split them up to scatter here and there.

Lots of summer fun going on at Eric and Elisa's house. They had a grand water fight.

Where it was apparent that Gwen learned the value of holding the high ground.

They tried a water balloon sling shot, and I'm sure Eric could explain the physics of trajectory to us all. It probably involves conic sections.

Ephraim looks like he's got the attack stance down.

Wonder where he learned it.

High ground.....control the high ground.

Water war at its finest.

And as for summer nights, they spent one out on the deck under the stars.

Ephraim was still sleeping strong after all the other siblings got up. One thing about summer days. They can be exhausting.

Onion Top Pesto

Onion top pesto. I KNOW this sounds kind of weird, honestly I do, but hear me out. I've been following a young gal on YouTube (acrehomestead) who is into scratch cooking and preserving garden produce, and she does some interesting things I've never attempted. I really try to never be too old to learn something, so she was the one who prompted the whole garlic powder-making episode, who made me purchase some hard-neck garlic to plant this fall so I can have garlic scapes to turn into powder or freeze, and she was the one who had me out in the garden cutting part of the tops off all my onions so I could make this. My husband and a couple of my sons gave me really weird looks when I told them what I was going to do, but they literally ate their words in the end.

To harvest the onion tops, I cut about halfway down on the stalk. You can't take the whole stalk or the onion bulb won't grow, but even with half the stalk on our small crop, I was able to get enough for a full recipe. (She grows enough onions to quadruple the recipe.) I washed the tops and chopped them up to make them easier for my food processor to manage. 

Onion Top Pesto

• 6 cups onion tops greens (or any green leafy herb)

• 3/4 cup parmesan cheese 

• 1/2 cups toasted walnuts (I used pine nuts, and suffered sticker shock)

• 3/4 cup olive oil 

• 3 cloves of garlic 

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt 

• 1/2 teaspoon pepper 

• 1 tablespoon of lemon juice  

• zest of one lemon (I only had bottled lemon juice, so this didn't make it in to mine. It still tasted good.)

Add all ingredients into a food processor except olive oil. Turn on the food processor and slowly add oil until desired texture. Taste and adjust salt and pepper as needed. At this point, my food processor broke, and I had to do the whole process in my blender,

which it look more like a smoothie than true pesto. Sort of like a hulk milkshake. You can't can this stuff because of the dairy in it, but it works great in the freezer. I got 4 little half pints and let me tell you, this stuff is delicious. It's quite sharply onion-y tasting at first, but mellows some with time. While I'm not sure you'd want to serve just this on top of cooked pasta, we've spread it on both sandwiches and burgers to rave reviews. It's just so good, and the added bonus is that it's made from something you'd otherwise throw away or compost. If you're looking to try something new and broaden your food preservation horizons, you might give this a try. I know I'll be making it again.

Around Here This Week

So around here this week...

It looks like I might actually see blooms on my hydrangea this year. That doesn't always happen since sometimes they get pruned back a little too much.

The fuzzy-headed Monarda have started blooming as well. This is how I know it's high summer. That, and I'm melting almost any time I step out of the house.

I mentioned an adventure for me. I'm back east with Baby Sam and his family. 

David asked to have his picture taken on the neighbor's climbing apparatus. 

The salute is required for all pictures, I think. :) His family is Air Force, after all.

Sent to me from the kids and grandkids this week, I got this picture of Eric & Elisa's zucchini/summer squash harvest. We unfortunately, have a massive squash bug infestation that has already started attacking plants. We've only gotten a very few small zucchinis so far. Since both my husband and I will be absent, it's up to Bryce to do battle for the next week.

We dropped James and Collin off at the airport for an adventure of their own, and James got to sit in the co-pilot's chair for a bit.

Miss Hazel has discovered her feet and has spent some time just chillin' with them.

Jack's stitches came out and he's none the worse for wear.

The boys have been a little under the weather this week and I got this picture from Elise of Leo all bundled up after a bath.

Celebrating, Idaho Style

It's taken me a while to compile all the pictures from the holiday. Quite a few of these came from other people's cameras.

In actuality, the celebration started the day before, when there were patriotic outfits that needed to be worn to church.

Marc made the comment that he just wasn't aware how cute little girls could be in their pretty dresses. This from the boy who asked me what in the world he was going to do with a girl, when they had the ultrasound.

Elisa and Ephraim were also ready for a patriotic Sunday.

At Eric's house, the 4th rang in with red, white and blue crepes for breakfast.

And then a round of cherry picking at a local orchard.

There were plenty of cherries to pick and to eat.

Those do look good enough to eat.

They picked quite a few.

And ate quite a few as well. Notice Eric's stuffed mouth. He did make the comment later in the week that their eyes may have been slightly bigger than their stomachs.

Dinner was at my house and Caroline picked an outfit and arrived ready to celebrate.

Gwen was also decked out in red, white and blue.

We had so much food contributed by all families.

You can see the Lincoln look has disappeared here.

Evan's wife, Jan, also festively attired. There were a variety of smoked meats and sides,

...followed by an array of delicious desserts.

Then what everyone was waiting for....

....amazing driveway fireworks. 

We had quite an array this year, and some of them even left the ground which made me just a little nervous. We'd rather not set the neighbor's pasture on fire.

You and old alike were fascinated. However one of the youngest ones, namely Jude, fell asleep during the extravaganza.

Marc did his best old man impression, which was pretty darn good.

It was a fun day for everyone, and a fitting celebration of this country we live in.

In the Kitchen

There was time in the kitchen this week, but things have been on the crazy side at my house as my husband and I prepare to go on adventures....separate adventures. More about that to follow.

There is news, though. After several days of coddling and feeding, I managed to revive my sourdough starter. I had my doubts, but there it is, in all its bubbly gloriousness.

And now for the really big news. I managed to make bagels that weren't hockey pucks. I actually did it, and it looks like sourdough is the key. 

I followed the recipe Elise used for hers and I topped some with everything bagel seasoning, and on her advice also did some cinnamon-sugar ones. They're very tasty and not too "sour." I put them in the freezer and have been rationing them out over time.

I know when you see this, you expect them to be breakfast burritos. They are not. These are beef and bean, and they're really tasty. I used this recipe and followed it pretty exactly, using my homemade refried beans instead of canned. I think this made the meat mixture slightly more liquid than what's pictured on her blog, but it worked just fine.

I did a big batch session for the freezer, and while I was trotting them out to the freezer, I heard in the echo of my mind Marc declaring that he was going to live forever in my basement, and draw comic books, and eat frozen burritos. Since my supply hasn't disappeared, I can only assume he got himself a real job and moved out. Funny how that happens.