Flying away

Yesterday, Saturday, our family went out.
Off the mountain and into town.
We were soaking up the last bits of warmish weather.
When we left the house at 10am the temperature read 37-degrees F.
Not so warm.
The geese were rallying their flocks as they were circling the grain fields
setting their compasses for the long flight south.


We adjusted our flight north in search of adventures ~

It was one of the last of the farmers market's for the season.
A time that always makes me sad.
Saying goodbye to those who I see weekly and feed my family off their land.
I will miss the ritual of market.
And the fresh food.
The farmers are tired and ready for winters rest.
They deserve to put their feet up and take a break.
I guess I am ready to put my boots on and do some sliding,
as I may have mentioned, I love skiing!




Harvest celebrations were being held at many different farms.
We choose one and went to partake in the celebration.
Our local farmer had hauled in his pumpkin harvest and was selling them.
They were in four different sections - Small($5), Medium($6), Large($7) and Extra Large($8)
We choose two from the large section, carried them out to the car and went on to enjoy the rest of the festivities at the farm.
Which included wagon hay rides, live bluegrass music, bobbing for apples, pumpkin carving-for those so inclined, apple pressing and of course fresh apple cider, bee keepers collecting fresh honey(free samples!) and pony rides.

Even with the wrath of heavy frost I still find beauty in this sunflower.
It's head turned down. Sun at her back.
Sad to see Summer and her warmth go.

The precision with which the bees create is amazing.
Mind blowing.
Perfect.
Tasty!

Great day together as a family.

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Fall has firmly planted her feet on my valley.
You can feel her presence in the way the grasses along the ponds blow west, instead of their summer lean towards south,
in the way colors are starting to show on the mountain sides
and tree lined river banks.

We have had our first nights of heavy frost.
Frost that left us scrambling in the morning to find the ice scrapers,
ice scrapers that will now reside inside the vehicles
till late May or early June.
Frost that made all things green and growing in the garden a desperate
shade of blackish-green.
And all that was looking up for so long, now looks down to the earth
in such a longingly way.




Our first sightings of snow on the peaks
have brought great joy and excitement.
These are just the type of clouds that we will be needing
to fill our mountains with snow.

The light shows and productions that have been put on by the
clouds have been stunning.

But before winter slides in for the next five months,
a little fall action

Heading into town for an evening game

A beautiful setting for a soccer game

Our #10 in motion

As we headed home from the game, the sun had set
and the temperature had dropped
to a balmy 38 degrees.

I'm glad we only have two more week of this.
It is freaking cold standing on the side lines.

Sunday - Family Walk

It was just too sunny to stay inside so we loaded up into the truck and headed to the river to go on a walk and give Elsie a bath.

Smiles were worn by all.Elsie loves to ride in the back seat with the kids

First things first - find Elsie a stick

The hubster found me a heart rock

Princess found an ice arrow

I really like heart shaped rocks

Elsie waiting for the stick to be thrown

She stands funny when anticipating the next throw

Looking up to the west - can you see the lookout? We all hiked up there last summer. Princess did it in her socks.

Rivers are a great place to think

We tossed rocks through thin ice

The prince managed to stay dry

Elsie got her bath/swim

We walked and discovered

She smiled a beautiful smile



We saw things dying



We saw new growth, that reminded us spring is coming.

Our beloved winter is leaving.

We came home and cooked chicken burritos and watched movies.

Today was a great Sunday.

GraditudeX5

- Digital cameras

- Netflix

- A husband who likes to cook

- Sunday walks by river edge

- Jalapenos

Lots of this and that with pictures

Here I am.

I am soooooo sucking at this regular blogging concept. Oh well, it is only for me and for the kids when they are older. While we are on that subject, that being kids, let me digress. As I call him, Little A let me know today that 1. he is not little and 2. his name is NOT Little A. OK, fine. He is right - he is neither of those. For me that poses a question, what shall I call him and Miss I for that matter, so that someday there future employer doesn't read all about their childhood. So, after our chat I asked what they would pick for internet names. Note to self, don't ask for input where I don't really need it. After much discussion this is what they have came up with. 'Miss I' my girl prefers to be known as Princess and 'Little A' prefers Prince. Believe me this did not come easy. There must have been 20 to 40minutes of discussion figuring out what they wanted their names to be in cyber land. Not bad, not great. I can deal with their new cyber names.

I'm giving up trying to fill in all the blanks of what happened during the days/weeks I don't write. Ya get what ya get and ya don't throw a fit, per the kids.

So here we go... Oh, and forget what I said about not going back,cause we are going way back but for just a moment or two, possibly five. I feel the need. Having just lost my entire hard drive and NO I didn't have an external hard drive. I want to save some of these photos from being lost.

The Prince lost his first tooth way back on Sept. 26 2008. Oh, he is so cute! He pulled it out himself. I really should write the story of the MIA tooth fairy, perhaps one day soon. Lets just say the tooth fairy got hung up in Hong Kong and was a night late in visiting. We have a note to prove the Hong Hong trip too. In tiny tiny fairy handwriting no less.

Then came the second tooth 16 days later. Tooth fairy was on time. And payed good. I'm thinking of losing a couple.

Here is a fun little side note, see those baby blues? Wouldn't you think that his daddy or I have blue eyes? You might, but you would be wrong. Wrong, wrong. We are both brownish green. Now for the funky part - both of our mothers fathers had blue eyes. And now both of our kids have the most beautiful big blue eyes. I love them. And they some how got the blondish hair color, while we are both dark brown.

Genetics, pretty amazing.

Then came walks and picnics. This happened to be 10-08-08. Leaves were just starting to turn and fall. Weather was brisk. Snow was on the mountain tops and we were dreaming of...

Skiing. This was the first year that the kiddos got their own downhill ski gear. It was so funny to watch them walk/clomp all around the house in their skis. We were just waiting for snow.

One more picture from our day at the river..............

The Prince is 5 and 1/2 the Princess is 10 and 1/2

Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all came and went. I have photos but won't add them at this time.
January brought many inches of snow down in the valleys and feet of the fluffy white stuff in the mountains. Which will hopefully keep the forest fires and smoke this summer to a minimum. And keep all of us smiling and playing till March.

That's all for this post. Next time the greatest Christmas gift of all - A trip with just adults to someplace warm and sunny. Wonderful. Wonderful. Many thanks to my parents.

Peace.

Have you made cheese?

The package said mozzarella in 30 minutes. Reality was, mozzarella in 75 minutes with another 15minutes of working with the whey to get a small tub of ricotta. But it was fun. And we will be doing it again. Soon.

We started by cleaning our glass jars and heading over to the dairy to gather fresh milk. The smell brought me back to childhood. My parents had friends who family owned a dairy. Besides the typical cow smell, walking into the actual dairy was a blast from 1981. There is no real way for me to describe that smell, but I'm pretty sure there is no other smell like it on earth. The kids thought it was one of the most offensive they had ever smelled. I was hoping the farmer wouldn't walk in while they were holding their noses and nearly gagging, while over and over telling each other how much the building stunk.

The dairy is a small operation, I didn't count, but my guess is less than 50 cows. I was surprised at how small the tank was. We were scooping, yes scooping, out of the tank.

The room had the obligatory money box for the milk. The box was labeled 'milk for dogs and pigs $2 per gallon'. Which provided a great opportunity for the Miss I and me to have an honest conversation about rules and laws. Why the farmer couldn't legally sell unpasteurized milk for human consumption. Why we have so many mindless laws. Why people don't think for themselves. And why we must.

So back to cheese...the mozzarella turned out great (my husband needed the camera for work, so we have no pictures of the process), very tasty and a great consistency. We made pizza dough that afternoon and ate pizza for dinner. I think we will do a lasagna this weekend and use the ricotta in that. The next time we will get a couple of gallons and do a bigger batch since the kitchen is consumed in milk and whey.

Both the kids had soccer practice and games this week. Miss I's game was Wednesday with the win going to her team. And, Little A had his first game tonight. He was so excited to have a real soccer uniform. He got up early this morning and put it on, he wore it all day. I think he would have worn it to bed if I hadn't objected. Watching the mass of little bodies chase after the green soccer ball was pretty comical. They were a clump of five and six year old's, going every which way, not knowing any better. Miss I has another game tomorrow evening after choir practice.
The joys of fall.

Autumn and pyrex

So it happened at 9:44 this morning, according to the NPR fellow. Autumn is here. It sure does feel like it, cool and breezy, even with the sun trying to give us some rays as it moves ever farther away from our northern hemisphere.

I had the best intentions to have the kids put on warmer clothes and we would go for a hike to observe and be in nature. But, um well that didn't happen. Nope we are still in our little house them working on school and me cleaning out kitchen cupboards. An interesting and frustrating job. Why did I feel the need to save every glass vase that I have received during the past 12 years of marriage? Why? I don't have flower gardens to fill these empty vases. Nor do I see that happening in the near future. And the seemingly endless pieces of corning oven ware that I have never used, some that I didn't even know I owned. Why do I keep them? My lil brain tells me I keep them in case. In case of what? All my other shelves burdened with baking dishes suddenly crash to the floor and they all break into a million little pieces...but just wait, isn't corning/pyrex nearly impossible to break. Aaaaggghhhh. I baffle myself.

This evening holds soccer practice for the kiddos and husband. I'm trying my hand at making a vegi minestrone soup for dinner, baking some sort of bread and creating a salad. Oh and putting back all of my cupboard contents, minus the glass vases. But at least all that ovenware will be nicely organized to collect dust for another 12 years.

Tomorrow we make mozzarella for the first time. I'll try and get some pictures.

Fall day - evening too

Today is cool, damp and gray. Not normal for our mountains this time of year. This past week we have had temps in the upper 70's and one afternoon we enjoyed a brief reminder of what 82degrees feels like. Though at night we are dropping down into the low 40's and high 30's. The few nights that mother earth has taken off the blankets (cloud free, clear skies) we have had frosts. My poor garden has been nipped by jack frost. Leaves are starting to die back, and it appears that the rest of my tomatoes will have to ripen in a newspaper and cardboard shelter. I'm trying to decided if I should transplant my herbs into pots to be brought inside for the duration of winter. I love being able to gather what is needed for cooking, fresh. I love even more the fact that it is all free. And always tastes better than that bought at the market. Our small house won't hold all my potted herbs, so I'm thinking rosemary and parsley will be the ones I try to overwinter inside.

Yesterday morning the kiddos played outside, kicking soccer balls all over the lawn, climbing up crab apple trees, feasting on many. Free-ranging the rabbit. Digging tunnels into the hillside. Making forts complete with grass roofs and separate rooms. It is so great to see them at play. Enjoying nature and all it has to offer. We must get into the mountains before trails become muddy and then icy. We have time, at least several weeks.

In the afternoon winds and rain whipped out of the canyons, soaking the ground and blanketing the peaks with a fresh white layer of snow. This isn't the first snow our peaks have seen this fall but the first time the snow lines came down past the high alpine rocky slopes and into the trees. I suspect we will start seeing the larch trees starting to turn their tell tale yellow. I say keep on snowing(up high) and building up our base layer, last year we enjoyed a really fantastic snow year. Skiing was great. And even better was the lack of smoke from forest fires this late summer and early fall.

I helped a friend who was catering a wedding at a 'summer cabin' at the base of the mountains. A couple of observations; 1-cabin?, try huge log house in the woods, 2-high heel's and silky dresses are a tough gig to pull off on uneven, unpaved mountain terrain (and just perhaps the 12 glasses of wine don't help much either), 3-when setting up a ridiculously huge tent to feed 134 guest, use all the stakes and tie downs, they are there for a purpose, 4-it is entertaining to see folks scramble (in heavy winds and spattering rain) (and high heels and suits) trying to tie down a tent that is catching gust's of wind and threatening to take flight, 5-when in Rome/mountains - do as the Romans do...wear jeans, layers of fleece and aggressive tread shoes, especially if you are consuming LARGE amounts of alcohol and are a city slicker in the mountains. Really folks who you trying to empress with your prada and kate spade wear. For the love of pete return to your city homes quickly. Now, please. Rant over. All of us locals did get many laughs all evening and night long, ya gotta admit it's interesting watching humans (especially when they are so far out of their comfort zone).

It felt great to crawl into bed last night. Under our wool blankets with windows wide open and cool breezes blowing in. I refuse to shut our house up just yet, when we will be with out fresh air moving about our house for the better part of 5 months. And no, my dear kiddos the heater may not come on, but feel free to put on a sweater and a pair of smartwools. Cold noses are healthy noses, or at least that's what Grammy used to tell me, so it must be true.

Now for a warm dinner-let's see what the pantry has for us.