I Love October!!

October has to be my favorite month! I love the chilly weather, I love all the fall recipes, and I love Halloween! This year we'll be camping again, so won't get to have all the fun decorating the yard and house, but I will get to decorate our trailer and campsite! How fun is that??? I'll post pictures when we return home! Tonight it is already down to 33 with the windchill - I brought in my tomato plant - pretty sad story, I ordered it online, it arrived in June, I didn't get it planted until July, and it dutifully spent the next TWO MONTHS growing itself the mother of all root systems! It lost every single leaf, and then a couple weeks ago it went "TA-DA"!!! and started growing leaves again. What choice did I have?? So there it sits in a big plastic tub in the middle of the living room with a fence around it to keep out Miss Libby, the "busy basset". A few years ago I had a volunteer tomato plant in the house and by Easter I had fresh tomotoes! Wish me luck with this one! Hubby thinks I'm nuts...

My Aprons from Kernville

Okay, I managed to convert my pattern from Excel (don't ask!) to a .pdf, but can't figure out how to get it to a .jpg, but I'll keep working on it and post it later... for now here's the photo of the two aprons I cranked out the day before we left for Kernville. Margo's has all the cute wine things, mine has leaves and acorns... hmmm... acorns... maybe that's why that little squirrel was so attracted to my campsite... oh, wait, it was the $12 bag of peanuts... I remember now!

Yummy Soup Recipe!!

This recipe is from Cuisine At Home - Soups, Stews & Chiles. Absolutely wonderful! Hubby even liked it which is a miracle considering it wasn't "chile". I simmered the chicken while prepping everything else, and had it done in a reasonable amount of time considering I worked late tonight and still had to run to the market! This one is a keeper. Can't wait to try some more from this book!

SPINACH-ARTICHOKE SOUP
1 cup leek, sliced
1 T garlic, minced
2 cups cooked chicken, shredded
14 oz can water packed artichoke hearts, drained
2 T flour
1/2 cup dry white wine
2-1/2 cups chicken broth
1-1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
6 ozs fresh spinach (I used 8 oz bag from salad section)
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
salt & pepper (I skipped these and never missed them)

Saute leeks and garlic in oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Cook until leeks are soft, about 2 minutes, then add chicken and quartered artichoke hearts. Saute 2 minutes, then stir in flour and cook for 1 minute. Deglaze with wine and simmer until nearly evaporated, scraping any bits from the bottom of the pot. Stir in broth, milk and cream, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, add the spinach and parmesan, and stir until spinach wilts. Season with salt and pepper before serving.

Serve with:

PITA CHIPS
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp paprika
cayenne to taste
4 rounds pita bread
olive oil

Preheat broiler to high. Combine seasonings in a small bowl. Lightly brush pitas on both sides with oil and sprinkle with seasoning mixture. Transfer pitas to a baking sheet and broil until golden, 2 minutes per side. Cut each pita into 8 wedges. (Hubby doesn't like pitas, so I used sourdough. I also will cut the salt in half - way too salty for me!)

BYE BYE SEPTEMBER!!

Hmmm… long time no post! Besides the usual obligations, I’ve been up to my neck planning for the annual Sisters on the Fly Kernville event. Brought the trailer into the yard to pack it, and the adorable Miss Libby… who is still in puppy mode… decided to tear out and EAT all the wiring from underneath the trailer. Hubby was NOT happy and all the new wiring is now safely encased in conduit. Our Kernville event had 30 sisters and nearly that many trailers. It was so much fun to meet so many new sisters!! We enjoyed lots of fly fishing, antique stores, good food, and I think we’ll have 4-5 new sisters joining who happened across us at the campground!! Perfect weather – about 90 during the day, but that meant we didn’t have to wear waders. Nice and cool in the 50’s at night… ahhhhh!! Today I spent several hours getting my turtle’s indoor winter “pond” all set up – he’s pretty happy to be inside with heated water, but what a messy job! I am the poster child for the “free pet syndrome”…

Miss Libby's Roommate

This is Happy the Catahoula cross. The other half of the cross is Redbone/Black & Tan Coonhound, but he came out looking totally Catahoula. He's a big no nonsense hound, and he also has the Catahoula trait of having a very small circle of "approved" people. Catahoulas are the state dog of Louisana and are used for boar and bear hunting. He and Miss Lilah were both acquired from Beagles and Buddies, a dog rescue in South El Monte. Happy has no ears, at least on the inside. Ear infections were beyond treatable when we adopted him, so many, many, dollars later with a specialist in Los Angeles, he has no ear openings, and most of the interior hearing hardware is gone as well. Oddly enough, the "downside" of this surgery appears to be that he can now hear the UPS truck from SIX blocks away instead of the two blocks before surgery. Which means he starts barking sooner... go figure! His other mission in life is to tree feral cats on our fence.

Passed Dogs...

Turbo & Cameo - Black Lab/German Shorthair Pointer cross brother and sister - found them running loose as skeletons out on the Mojave desert... Turbo retrieved, Cameo pointed... both HATED water! Their markings were absolutely identical, but hers were speckled.

The "dainty" Miss Lilah, 100 lb Bluetick Coonhound - or Giant Blue Gascony Hound as we preferred to call her - she was most definitely from the old original French bloodlines.

Rendezvous

I'll try to keep the details short because I have quite a few pictures. We are members of the Breckenridge Buckskinners, and we host a reenactment of the fur trade, or mountain man rendezvous, in April of each year. Here is our camp on one of the seemingly rare days when it's not raining, snowing, or so windy that it blows tents over! This encampment is ten days of hard work with no electricity, no batteries, no matches, no "petroleum based fuels", just the tools any normal person in 1837 would have had... while living off the land as a trapper. We do, however, manage to live quite comfortably - note the WOOD BURNING STOVE peeking out from the right hand corner of the tent - yeah, I can get it up to ninety degrees in there during a snow storm - no problem! Also means I don't have to cook outside!
Here's Duke conducting some gunsmithing business with one of our Scottish shooters...

And here's son-in-law Bob keeping the cooking fire going... on one of those "cold" days...brrrr! But he's from Michigan - he was in heaven!

Shopping!

Rendezvous generally has a "traders' row" where all the vendors sell their wares...

Rendezvous kids lined up for daily awards in shooting, archery, tomahawk throwing...

We also like to do a summer rendezvous - one where we are NOT part of the working crew! This one was near Johnsondale, CA, but sadly, the landowner made other plans for this gorgeous piece of property along the Kern River... This was our camp in 2001 with daughter and son-in-law, and the picture below that is our VIEW from that camp...

Needless to say, I didn't get much accomplished that year - no beading, no shooting, no hikes, no archery, no leatherwork, no fishing, just sat there enjoying the view for ten days... oh yeah, and making sure everyone had breakfast and dinner!

More Shopping!

In 2002 the big McNally fire swept through there literally a couple hours after we broke camp and headed home. Over 150,000 acres were burned. You can see the bare areas in the background, but the fire went through "our meadow" so quickly that although most trees were lost (note all the stumps), some merely had scorched trunks. We returned in following years, but 2005 was our last year, and instead of hundreds of people, there were only fifteen camps. I have to say, I enjoyed that one more than any other rendezvous I had ever been to. We had an entire meadow to ourselves, and it was just incredible. And no matter what, there is always a potluck!

Hmmm... guess I didn't keep that very short, did I!

Special Turtle

Here's our rescued six-inch Western Pond Turtle. A coworker found him (her?) in the middle of a busy road and, not realizing he was a water turtle, scooped him up, took him home, and plopped him into a tankful of soil and offered him veggies which he could not eat without being under water. Most everyone at works knows I love turtles, so guess what! I brought him home and then spent a small fortune on a 100-gallon stock tank, filter, pump, lights, heater, water chemicals, plants, "companion" fish (he can't catch one to save his life), all necessary components to keep a water turtle happy, but it SO doesn't match our colonial bedroom decor!! The first filter setup I tried was guaranteed to process ONE THOUSAND GALLONS OF WATER AN HOUR and therefore our bedroom sounded like the pump room for the Hoover Dam or Shamu's pool. We had to yell to communicate. That filter, with a somewhat smaller pump, promptly wound up outside at Mr. Spoiled Rotten Pet's summer digs, the 150 gallon stock tank. Gotta love those "free" pets. He is quite cute though - must have been someone's pet - he has the traditional but disgusting hole drilled in the edge of his shell for a "leash", has a white scar on his head from some injury, and does have some eyesight problems which necessitates me hand feeding him the freshly homemade 7-ingredient turtle food cubes every other day or so.

Odd Song...

Anyone wondering what the story is behind that Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep song? That song was played CONTINUOUSLY by a radio station where I was living in Piedmont, KS in 1971. I never, ever, heard it again once I left there. However, that darn song has, over the years, popped into my head and stayed there with far more tenacity than "small world", so I decided to hunt it down and add it. Also found the video on You Tube. Wow. I've only run across two other people who remember this song. Enjoy!

Collections

These are my Indiana Glass Hen on Nest dishes. They are about six inches long. The first one, amber, caught my eye a zillion years ago while antiquing in New Jersey with my dear friend Bonnie. Needless to say, I was hooked. I have other brands, but these remain my favorite. I have yet to see a true cobalt blue or black one by Indiana Glass. To display them, hubby built me a backlit "chicken coop" thing in the kitchen out of a wooden packing crate for a refueling probe for an F-100 jet... okay, nevermind, I'll get a picture of it on here soon!

Then, I ran across these little Boyd Salt Chicks and there are over 200 different colors... must pick wisely!!

Miss Libby

Miss Libby is our newest addition - we have fallen in love with hounds as a group, and have placed Bassets on the top of our list!

Our 1966 Aristocrat Lo-Liner

Here's our adorable little trailer named "Chasing Rainbows". She is the flagship of our fleet of three! More on this whole story later... Sisters on the Fly... that should tell you plenty for now!!

My Blog Project

Well, I've been threatening to do a blog, and have finally gotten around to it. Also have one started for hubby... more on that later. Hard to believe that I have VOLUNTARILY added something else to do via computer - like I'm not on one enough already between home and work?! I have so enjoyed everyone else's blogs, and perhaps with this blog I can keep friends and family a little more up to date than I have been able to in the past... let's see... I'm pretty sure I can see my unmailed Christmas letter from two... or is it three... years ago right over there on that table... yeah, this has got to be better!