Road Trip and More

A couple of weeks ago, Jim and I took off across Nebraska into Colorado to pick up a trailer to make it into a boring trailer, which hauls a boring machine and a mix system. Since it was a 4-hour drive, Jim likes me to come along. It makes the drive more interesting and helps him stay awake. 

Several years ago before we became empty nesters, Jim and I started to do a few more things together. It made easier the transition from having a houseful to just the two of us. 

It also helped that Lynette went college in Kearney so for those years she was in and out. Also, our other two kids live close enough to see often. 

The trailer dealership was right next to the sale barn in Brush, Colorado, so after we inspected the trailer (Jim) and paid the check (me), we asked for recommendations for a good place to eat. 

We were told the sale barn cafe was as good as any and better than most, so we went and enjoyed our meal very much. So much, in fact, a couple days ago, Jim was wishing to go back. A bit far, of course, but perhaps there's a plain ol' cafe closer, that sells good ordinary food. 

The decor was metal signs over the whole of it. These were by our table, and I would have loved to go around and read and photograph them all, but that wasn't practical. 

I read the first one to Jim in the way a woman would say it and, well, all my women friends will likely understand why I liked the other. 

On the way home, an hour away, I guess, we overtook or were overtaken by a rainstorm. It rained so hard we couldn't see and everyone on the interstate had slowed down using flashers. Then everyone started moving on to the shoulder. It was a bit surreal to see vehicles lined up on the shoulder, lights on and flashers going and no traffic. Then it started to hail, so we sat while the thumping went on overhead. The largest hailstone I saw was walnut sized. As if things weren't bad enough, I got a tornado warning on my phone. Well, what to do now? Can't get in the ditch, might drown. Too rainy to drive away. So, we sat. I felt a curious sort of calm come over me.  There wasn't anything I could do about the situation I was in and I knew it. 

After a bit, the rain let up and all the traffic started up again. We drove along watching the weather radar on our phones and realizing in less than a half hour we were going to meet up with another storm and sure enough, same song, second verse. We waited again by the side of the road. Not as long this time. and when we got to the shop to drop off the trailer it started raining. We only got .80" at our place.

It took us an hour to drive the last 20 minutes.

These next photos have nothing to do with Colorado, cafes, or storms.

Barry got a bearded dragon lizard for his birthday. It's cute now. I'm not sure how "cute" they are when they are 2 ft. long. 

This really is the same person, Barry just had a haircut in betwen.

 One thing Jim likes to do is go 4-wheeling at the farm. We spent an hour roaming about and being bounced to death over hill and dale and creek crossings. At least, I was. I was very ready to be off and back in the pickup. I don't know why it seemed worse bouncing than usual this time. 

End of Summer

Earlier this year I had a coupon for a local nursery and decided to buy this water hyacinth.  My flower garden has become a shade garden over the years because we have a big ash tree in the middle of it.  I wasn't expecting it to bloom since it is supposed to be in the sun to do that.  Obviously this month it got enough sun to bloom.  I've put one of them in a bucket to see if I can over winter it and start them up again next spring.  These are considered noxious weeds in places that don't freeze in the winter. 

I had the boys at my house one day this month because they didn't have school due to parent-teacher conferences.  I only had them one day since the next day they were on their way to see family in Denver.  Zane is into looking up recipes to make desserts, and this chocolate caramel trifle was his choice of the day.  

He puts thing together in a rather haphazard manner, but it sure tasted good. 

This has been a very peachy year.  I bought four 16-pound lugs and canned them.  

Our peach tree produced it's first crop with 14 peaches and I made pies with them.  

I told my mom I was making peach pie, it's her favorite, and saving one for her.  

It was really yummy.

My neighbors have a peach tree and they've given us peaches in the past.  She gave me about as many as I bought, but since they were windfalls they look a little more work.  I put those in the freezer to use for smoothies, ice cream topping and cereal fruit.

Coming up next....

Various pictures of the boys on their Colorado vacation.  

Red Rock Canyon

I suppose one really doesn't need to post multiple photos of the same kids.  

But, I did anyway.

A New Year With a Glance at the Past

The First of January --

This is the time of year that many of us reflect on the previous year, look toward the next, 

and write a few resolutions. 

I'm not making many resolutions.  A long list tends to failure.

I have a few goals in mind, but not set in stone at the moment.

I didn't give last year my best, and I want this year to be different.  

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The end of the year is a special time in our family.  

Zane was born the last day of the year, and this year he turned 10.

My first grandchild is in the double digits.  

He's changed from a little boy to a big one.  

He loves to read and play board games.

He loves computer games and his tablet.  

This year he wanted me to make his birthday cake.  

He wanted a layer cake--4 layers.  

At first he wanted black frosting, but we talked him into Lego blue.  I had the idea then that I would put primary colors in between the layers and went looking for red paste food color, forgetting what time of year it is , but there was none.  

I found red frosting and knowing I had yellow, green and blue colors at home I was set to go.

I have four 8" cake pans so I carefully measured the batter so I could divide it evenly between the four pans.  It sure looked like 4 cups in the big measuring up, but after I put the first two layers in the oven, another cup of batter in the third pan, ...

and there wasn't a cup to put in the last pan.  So, I divided what batter I had between the last two pans and had layers of different sizes.  

I used some things called "bake evens", adjustable heavy cloth thingys you dampen and put around your pan so the cake doesn't rise up in the middle and you don't have to waste a lot of cake cutting off the top to even it out.  That worked, if not like a charm, satisfactorily enough that when I piled them up, my cake only leaned slightly.  

The trouble began after I frosted and stacked the layers and began on the royal blue color I wanted for the outside.  

Being the messy, not picking up after myself cook that I am, I had various colors and powdered sugar and utensils scattered over my counter, and carefully adding the blue paste, noting that I didn't have any too much to begin with. So, I keep adding and mixing and adding and mixing and not looking what I was doing grabbed the green paste color and got this ---

Teal

And no more blue coloring.

I went into town to Walmart and no paste blue color.

No gel primary colors.  Was I going to have to buy the blue, brown, black and some other color I don't remember just now, to get my blue?

Then I saw a torn box of the primary colors and carefully holding it together purchased it and got in into the house and there I discovered I lost the red color.  

Thankfully, I didn't lose the blue.

This was as good as I could get. 

I'm sorry I didn't get the blue I wanted, but circumstances and ineptitude were against me.

I put some cocoa in the teal frosting hoping it would look more, er, edible, but to no avail.  If you eat it with your eyes closed, it's good.

What to do with it?

The only suggestion I've received is to use it in graham cracker cookies.  You won't be able to see the color that way.  

Zane decorated it, and we ate it all up.  

Happy Birthday, Big Guy!!

Just a Little Bit Busy

 Sickness abounds this winter. The boys have all missed a few days of school the last of January and first of February culminating in the Friday of the week when I was called in to get Christian from Pre-K mid morning and then later to get Zane who was coughing his head off and had a fever.  When I arrived at the school there was Barry, too.  He was still coughing, but no fever.  With the scare we are all having with Influenza A, it's no wonder they wanted to get rid of them. 

Jim was sick the weekend before and I was right there in the middle of the three boys.  I just kept on keeping on like moms (and grammas) do when they are sick and have kids to look after. I went to bed right after supper a couple of nights. 

This is what I wrote that week in my family letters:

"My mouse (computer-wise) has died. Again.  Either that or the three batteries I scavenged from  Lorene’s junk drawer have also died, which I doubt.  I can’t play my games without my mouse.  Well, I can, but it takes a long time and now I will have to buy a new one. Again.  I don’t know how many I’ve purchased in the last year.  I think, however one of the ones I tossed shouldn’t have been.  When I figured out it likely was a battery problem, it was out in the trash.  There is a limit on how much dumpster diving I will do, and a mouse isn’t it. 

We’ve had a couple days with 40 degree highs, but with the nights still plunging down to the teens, our snow isn’t melting very quickly.  there is an enormous pile in the lot next to Lorene’s and Zane spends most of his after school time over there.  Tomorrow the high is supposed to be about 19.  I read an article in the paper with (I think) Nebraska’s main weather expert, that Nebraska can’t lay claim to a climate, being hemmed in by cold to the north and heat to the south.  We have such a variation of snowfall, rainfall, heat, cold, drought—sometimes all in one day—that about the only thing to expect is change."

After this was all written and I fretted and stewed for over a day about this mouse situation, it occurred to me that I should put the little thingy that goes into the USB port into another one, since that worked another time.  I reached for it....GONE!!! After turning my bag upside down, searching in all the corners, I called Lorene, "oh, we have it here," she says nonchalantly. She could have told me!!  Of course, she knew nothing of my panicked search.

At the end of all the sickness hullabaloo, Barry was the only one able to wrestle in their first tournament.  

3rd Place!!

The next week the boys were out of school for two days due to Parent Teacher Conferences so I thought one day we should roll out cookie dough and make a huge mess cutting them out, frosting them and applying sprinkles.  

So, we did.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find the rolling pin.

 (Later, when we asked Lorene where she kept it, she had no idea where it was.) 

Thus, we just smashed the dough flat with our hands and proceeded to make thicker than usual cookies and decided we liked them better that way anyway.   

They went a bit overboard on the candy pearls.

The next day, Jim took pity on me and came with me.  He played Monopoly all morning with Zane and since Zane ended up with Park Place and Boardwalk and whatever the green properties are on the same side, he won, after much wrangling on both sides, and a little grace given by Papa early on in the game.  

After lunch, Barry and Papa did the dishes and we packed up to spend the rest of the afternoon at the Children's museum.

Barry was tidying up the store.

Christian laid carpet in the building zone.

All was well and good until Mom comes to pick up the boys and we've lost Zane.  I walked around once, Jim walked around twice. Lorene walked once, no Zane.  (This is not a big place.)

Lorene and Jim walked again around, in opposite directions and this time she heard his voice.  He was in an enormous box of those colorful building blocks that some kid's Dad built.  I saw two kids in there when I went by, but just assumed the dad has two kids.  Zane says he called, but it is no surprise I didn't hear him.  

As we headed out the door Barry shrieked that his hat was missing.  He took in there a John Deere ball cap and during the time we were there, I had it, Jim had it, and at the last Barry had it on his head.  Then we forgot all about it.  After reporting the loss to the staff, I started off to take a look around.  The young woman I spoke to soon was chasing after me saying, "I know where it will be!" This was the end of the day and they were tidying up.  Sure enough, there it was in the dress-up clothes in the farm area.  So, Barry went home happy.  We went home tired. 

I finished that week by doing my grocery shopping booted, hatted, coated, scarfed and mittened in zero degree weather.

Then, I decided to make tomato soup from the frozen tomatoes and got 21 pints. I rashly decided to 

make the last six gallons of frozen tomatoes in the freezer into juice in the middle of the afternoon and got 11 quarts of juice that I finished at 8:30 pm.

I attempted to make Swiss cheese and mushroom burgers for lunch but my cheese sauce was a bust.
I don't know if I needed to use the whole block of cheese or if the cheese didn't have enough "Swiss " taste. I used the leftovers, which was really just white sauce with the cheese in it to make an egg casserole we love.  I sauté onions and mushrooms with ham or sausage, when the eggs are barely done, mix them with the cheese gravy and bake.  I use 9 eggs and we have three breakfast's worth.  After it sits in the fridge overnight I need to stick it in the oven as soon as I hop out of bed to get a half hour of cooking time.

Jim has finished his deer blind and got it out of the shop.  That gives him more room to move around in there.  He also dismantled half of his painting/sand blasting booth since he's done painting the frame of the "B". Now it's back to sandblasting and painting parts.  His dad added an hour
meter into the dash and Jim took it to a jeweler to see if he could fix it. He said he could try, for $300 and then no guarantees.  So, after paying the $10 fee to get the glass off, Jim decided that he would put it back in unworkable, or...do some more research among people who repair old John Deere tractors.

I finally quit coughing my lungs up, so Lynette felt safe to come to our house for a meal, although my voice is still iffy so I made lunch, not dinner,  (I have been totally corrupted by the current generation, unwillingly, I might add.) for Lynette and Anthony.  As I was making Sour Cream Enchiladas, I noticed I forgot to buy the green chilies for the sauce. The problem was forgetting to put them on the list and when in the grocery store thinking of meatloaf rather than enchiladas.  So, we had green bean casserole (still thinking meatloaf) and chili-less sauce and strawberry/banana salad because I forgot to put lettuce on the list.  I made a bean enchilada for me and I didn't have to adjust the sauce.  For dessert we had marble cake with chocolate frosting.  I was in the store and the mix jumped in my cart.  It brought back some lovely memories and we haven't had cake forever.

Last week I made a blueberry pudding.  That's what the recipe said, but it was really blueberry cobbler and Jim and I ate it all ourselves. 
Blueberries were on sale this week, so I bought some more, to make another.

I also made hamburger buns, and a few dinner rolls on Saturday.  With the rest of the dough I made raisin cinnamon bread and we ate the whole loaf over the weekend.  YUM!

Eggs-zactly!

Photography in the hands of anyone under 10 is suspect at best.  I've been going through my photos this morning and deleting all the fuzzy ones, the twenty of stuffed animals, the ones of the floor, the ones of kid's nostrils and especially the ones of me.  I do not look well in the four or five layers of clothing I wear at Lorene's or taken unawares.

This one, which was taken by Zane with my approval is the best one showing the stair steps of size going on with this bunch.  There was a better one of me, but Christian's head wasn't there. 

Our chickens are laying again because we've had a few nice days.  Our Americana hen is doing her job and producing green eggs.  

And what we do with eggs; green or brown or white, is make egg sandwiches with cheese. 

Yum!

I love the way kid's minds work.  This is a portrait of Gramma.  

I'm wearing a long two-color dress and have long hair. 

Doughnuts and Darlings

I am at Lorene's this morning.  I just picked Christian up from Pre-K and fired up the computer to finish the blog post I started yesterday.  It's gone.  All the writing, all the pictures, I will have to start over.  

We had two weekend snow storms that made a sandwich out of this week.  The first one resulted in a late start for the school kids as well as Lorene so I was able to go to Pleasanton in the daylight for a change.  The second one for which we were wound up to fever-pitch with expectation was rather a bust for us.  After hearing the blizzard would start in the early Sunday morning, then 10:00, then 3:00, then 6:00, then midnight, we went to bed with no snow on the ground but everything shut down on Monday in readiness.  I was looking forward to a day off, but also mentally preparing myself for a if-this-snow-doesn't-come-I better-be-ready-to-go attitude.  

We woke at 6 o'clock a.m. to a raging blizzard.  We couldn't see the lights of town.  We could hardly see the neighbors.  The blizzard was over by noon, resulting in 3 or 4 inches of snow.  

Lorene got double that and my folks got 12".  I worked my tail off that day with laundry and office work and catch-up housekeeping.  I planned meals and made doughnuts.   We had some special visitors for the week so I needed to be on top of the food around here.  

After the first snow we went to the eagle viewing station near Lexington.  With Jim's binoculars we saw 10 bald eagles and some ducks.  

This is as good as I can do with out a telephoto lens.

Bufflehead Duck

In the evening we had Nathan, Lily and Paislee over for supper.  Paislee is nearly 18 months and she's not a baby anymore.  She runs and climbs and investigates everything!  

Cheese!

We had hamburgers, with store bought buns.  I tried to make buns the day before but the yeast must have been bad because the dough didn't rise, or at least not enough to make decent buns.  I was in a hurry and tried to bake them.  I shouldn't have bothered. I put some of the unbaked dough back in the bread machine with more yeast.  It rose, and I forgot about it and left it out all night, so that was a wasted effort.  Too much rising is about as bad as not enough. 

It was nice to see some days this week about freezing.  It did make for a bunch of sloppiness underfoot, but also encouraged the boys to play outside in the snow.  They wanted to build forts and tunnels, but there wasn't quite that much, but there was plenty to dig and throw and sled on.  

Zane is working on a tunnel.

He wanted to be pulled out of his tunnel.  I don't know if it was harder after he turned onto his back, or if he just wanted a pull out.

So Barry had a try, but I had to help him. 

I love to see these boys working with and for each other. 

There is a slope on the property next to them so they spend considerable time out there with there sleds and the neighbors as well.