30 September 2012 - Domestic Diva aka Canning Queen

Here it is, the official last day of September.  Also the last official day of my sister's birthday month. The celebrations have wound down --all the daily bits of "What have you done for yourself today?" and there was a lot happening, let me tell you!  In spite of all the celebratory stuff going on, I have been busy.  It started with Jack and his garden. 

His tomato plants were not only prolific, but incredibly delicious. I think this was the best crop we have ever had. A hot dry summer is certainly the best thing there is for growing tomatoes. After looking at all the red in the garden, he announced we were canning.  

Seriously, what is more cheerful than a blue bucket full of tomatoes?  Two buckets?  Jack and I pulled out all the canning equipment and put up 7 quarts of tomatoes. Jack manned the steamer, kept me supplied with scalded tomatoes and I slipped the skins off and packed them in jars. Great teamwork.

But that was just the beginning. I happened to mention the weekend canning project to David Swan, who one-upped me with his story about all the tomatoes that he dried and packed. He uses plum tomatoes for this and I remembered my brother David had a couple of loaded plants that he couldn't eat fast enough. Jack and I wandered down to David's, admired the work on his blacksmith shop, picked tomatoes, then went shopping in his cupboard for some lids and bottles. 

We galumphed home with the tomatoes and since the process sounded so easy, I did them that evening. Some of us are slow learners. I know he told me to put them in the oven for nine hours. By the time I popped them in the oven, they needed to come out at 2am. Yep. Set my alarm and got up, pulled them out, turned off the oven and staggered back to bed. 

Fast forward another two weeks and Jack is dragging tomatoes in the house again...not by the bucketful, this time, but by the trug. We had to stop and fortify ourselves for the job with a toasted tomato sandwich. 

Thanks to Amy for adding that sandwich to our repertoire. Yet another YUM is added to our world. 

When we went to  pick tomatoes at David's, he sent me home with a canner that was so big it took both Jack and me to lift it when it was full. You can see how it hangs over the edges of our stove. 

But between that blue hot water bath canner and the pressure cooker canner next to it, we processed another 13 quarts of tomatoes in no time at all. Our fruit room is starting to look really good with all the jars on the shelves.

I made the mistake of mentioning to David that I was thinking about making crabapple jelly. The apples were starting to fall and they looked so good I hated to waste them, even if the deer love to eat them.

He pressed his steam juicer on me. There was nothing for it. Now I had to pick crabapples. Wow, does that ever work great. It saves a ton of time and takes a lot of the work out of making jelly.  It almost looked like a still sitting on the stove...all I needed was some copper tubing and I could have been making crabapple liquor.  I got three and a half quarts of gorgeous pink juice from this one batch of crabapples, and the next weekend turned it all into jelly. 

 I can only wonder what is next? Pickles? Chutney?

23 September 2012 - Monster Slugs

Over the summer, we have had some weird bugs, pretty bugs, fun bugs-- you name it--show up in the yard. I love bugs. There is such an infinite variety of colors, shapes, sizes, and it is all fascinating. 

But today there was a slug infestation. Slugs are not bugs and are not usually in my oh-look-how-cute-it-is file. But these slugs were actually kind of cute, even though they were really big. And the color was definitely interesting. 

 My only question is, how on earth can you step on anything this big?  Gooey!

21 September 2012 - Moose

Jack had not wanted to go to Park City with Amy and me, as poking around in shops is just not fun for him, but he was really sorry to have missed seeing the moose when we were in Brighton. 

So Friday afternoon after work we headed to Silver Lake hoping for a moose sighting. It was great! Not one, but two! My best guess is that these two were yearlings, but nevertheless, they are still very large animals. Going up in the afternoon was perfect as there were very few people around. 

In this picture of Jack, if you look closely you can see both of them. The male has his head down, but you can see the white of his antlers just behind Jack's collar. 

We had a great time watching them, then walked quietly around the lake to sneak up through the bushes for closer pictures. We were able to get up very close, probably too close. YIKES!

Our boy had a lovely long beard that was soaking wet since he was eating underwater vegetation. 

Amy and I had been here a week earlier, and the leaves had not turned color yet. You could see in a few places that they were starting to yellow up. A week later, most of the aspens had turned yellow so we had some color. 

We left Silver Lake behind and headed for Park City. Again, the hills were aspen gold. 

When we drove over the top of Guardsman Pass, it was equally golden. There is nothing quite like aspens turning gold among stands of pine trees. It has always been one of my favorite sights. 

 In Park City we went straight to the resort for the rides. We bought combination tickets for the Alpine Slide, the Alpine Coaster and the zipline.  Woo-hoo! We went for the zipline first hoping to get up there before the hoards of kids started arriving. We took the ski lift up and admired the color as we ascended. The maples were orange and red, but in a muted palette due to the dryness. The picture below was taken at the start of the slide.

 Speaking of the slide...here's Jack resting after hauling his sled from the ski lift over to the slide. 

I loved the zipline, but it was over too quickly, so my favorite was the coaster.  You could go down the hill full throttle and not worry about falling out or falling off the track. 

Jack also loved the coaster and had no problem screaming down the track at full speed. Does this look like he is having some fun?  Oh yeah. 

And here is an idea of what the track was like. It curved back and forth through the trees on its way down hill. Those turns were exhilarating! Absolutely, I want to do it again.

And this is what just a small part of what the Alpine Slide looked like. 

  It was a great day!

17 September 2012 - Week with a Friend Part 2

Continuing with my adventures with Amy... on Friday I decided that we needed a dose of the mountains. We started the day by driving up Big Cottonwood Canyon--a spectacular drive with towering rocky peaks on both sides of the road with the occasional sheer drop down to the river. We stopped at Brighton and took a walk around Silver Lake. It was a gorgeous day, and the walk was lovely.

The lake was clear and cold. We followed the board walk around and then into the woods behind the lake. The smell of the woods was incredible--heavy pine scent mixed with aspen. 

The pine trees are old growth and for our dry climate, are huge. Our walk was punctuated by the antics of some preschoolers equipped with small plastic magnifying glasses and who were also looking for cards with letters and numbers that had been tied to trees and bushes along the path. The kids were funny, very cute and of course, noisy. We left them behind and continued on the trail around the lake. We passed a few people fishing for trout and two men running radio controlled cars. 

Suddenly Amy grabbed my arm and said, "I think I see a moose!"

We stared for a minute then started trotting along the path to get back where the moose was before the next group of kids went by.  Fortunately the kids took the other path, so Amy and I were able to get up close and personal with the moose. 

After moose watching for while, we continued back around the lake. We passed a sign we hadn't seen earlier. It was warning of moose in the area and said a moose can stomp a person to death in minutes. Signs of trouble include ears laid back and neck fur standing up. Oops! See photo above.  Our lady was not happy. But Amy and I sure were. 

We left Brighton and headed up higher in the mountains, crossing over Guardsman Pass then traveling down the other side into Park City. It was a gorgeous day for a drive.

The aspens were still green, just starting to get a hint of yellow.
Here's Amy at the top of Guardsman Pass where we can look into three different canyons and see Park City, Heber City and Midway. 

We wandered up and down Main Street looking in the windows of boutiques, jewelry stores, art galleries and restaurants. We had a late but really good lunch at the 412 Bistro. It was fun being ladies who lunch on a weekday, and eavesdropping on other groups of ladies who lunch. And it was a good thing we did, because in all the excitement of the day, I had forgotten one of the most important reasons we went to Park City... the alpine slide and alpine coaster!

After lunch we drove over to Park City Mountain Resort and checked out the slide, coaster and zip line. Amy demurred on riding the coaster and zip line, but I got her on the slide. It was a ball!

It took us 15 minutes on a chairlift to get to the top of the slide. We had great views of the mountains as well as of kids screaming down the slide below us. 

I think Amy was afraid she was going to be one of the screaming kids, but I never heard a peep out of her all the way down. I screamed, but only for effect when people in the chair lift could hear. 

This is one of my favorite pictures from Amy's visit. She looks determined, but there is a little smile that tells me she may be enjoying this. 

It was a fabulous day and we were both exhausted when we finally made it home. 

Saturday morning we took Amy out to breakfast at my favorite food truck, Saturday's Waffles. 

 Nothing but waffles. Really 
good waffles. The two guys that run this place are happy and really make it fun. 

Since the waffles created a sugar high, I decided it would be a good day to go downtown and give Amy a dose of weird Salt Lake. We started in the Gilgal Sculpture Gardens, all created by one guy in his backyard.  It is an odd little monument to his religious beliefs. Quotes from the Book of Mormon are engraved into huge rocks. A sphinx statue has the head of Joseph Smith. 


After a much needed lunch, we toured the roof garden on top of the LDS Conference Center.  This fountain is just a small part of the roof garden. Hard to imagine all the water and gardens over the top of a center that holds 20,000 people. 

Next we walked over to the temple grounds and through the gardens.  We saw at least eight brides exit the temple for the requisite garden photos. Amy was amazed at the assembly line marriages. I was able to get Amy posed in front of the reflecting pool-- a staple in the wedding party photo stops. 

 



I liked how the fountain echoes the shape of the temple. 

The gardens were the best I have ever seen them-- absolutely perfect riots of color. 

This is another favorite spot for wedding photos. 

           

 
 Behind Amy is a columnar oak. These have been growing here since I was tiny. I hope to have one in my own yard some day soon. 

From here we walked up the next block to tour the Lion House (Brigham Young's house).  

I was surprised to find no mention of his 27 wives, only his first wife Eliza was mentioned.  Cleaning up history, I suppose.  The tour and stories about the use of the rooms were quite different than I remembered.  

A passer-by was kind enough to take our picture in front of the Lion House.  

The rooms were ornate and filled with furnishings that you would hardly expect in a home completed in the first five years after the Mormons arrived in the Salt Lake valley.  This family gathering room had two pianos and a harp, two crystal chandeliers, gilt trim, just for starters.
 
After this, we came home and collapsed. 





Sunday morning we drove up Emigration Canyon, past the This Is The Place Monument and Park on our way to Ruth's Diner for breakfast. Ruth was an independent woman long before  women's lib. Breakfast was wonderful--I had trout with eggs. It was superb!

The grounds around the diner have been refurbished since my last visit and were full of sculptural accents made with old oxygen tanks. I was disappointed that none of them had clappers, but the noise might have been a problem.

 After breakfast we continued up Emigration Canyon and crossed over to Parley's Canyon and on home.  The hills were dry and bare, but the rabbit brush was in full bloom. 

This view is from the pass looking toward Parley's, with Little Dell reservoir in the background. 

We decided an at home day was in order. Jack drove us up the street to the trail head of Neff's Canyon.  The three of us took the trail around the old reservoir. It was a beautiful fall day. After completing the circle around the dry lake, Jack drove back home while Amy and I walked back taking a circuitous route that was about two and a half miles.  Once back home we spent a quiet evening going through quilting books and magazines looking for ideas for quilting patterns that Amy could use the circle quilt she is working on. 

 Monday, we decided to have another at home day, so I dragged Amy out to my print shop and she helped me print, cut paper, interleave, stack and sort 200 cards for a letterpress project. Yep, a restful day. I was really grateful for the help. Without it, I would not have finished the project on time. 

Tuesday she left for Michigan. I think she was glad to get home and into her normal routine that included more sleep and definitely more down time. Even so, I know I had a great time!