Snow shoes for Christmas!!

This is just a quick post to show my most favorite Christmas gift ever!!! I think that I'll remember this year, which is really something considering the economy these days.
Can you believe this old grandma person is playing on her new snow shoes!
I got such a kick out of this and I really had a blast walking around in the back yard on these things. It was seriously fun. I can't wait to get up into the mountains and trek among the snowy pines.
My husband is also getting a pair so he can come play in the mountains with me. The added bonus is the workout we can get. It's a struggle to control the weight during winter and I'd love to get back into shape.






See, I'm smiling!!








My two grown kids got a few nice things to, but who cares about them? Just kidding!

Sledding

This morning I went sledding with my daughter and two grand-daughters.There's a pretty good hill right between the local grade school and a church. We were able to park very close to the hill and keep an eye on baby Jacob while we played nearby.
And yes, I rode the sled down the hill too. Maybe that will show up in my daughters blog.

Here's Emma (age 4) ready to go:


Susan and Becca (age 2 1/2):



Hiking back up the hill:



Becca went down the hill all by herself. We were totally surprised when she got on the sled and wanted to go without help. Just last year, she wouldn't even touch the snow. This year, however, she totally enjoyed herself. She was all smiles.





After sledding, Sue and girls built a mini snowman.




A couple of sledding videos:

Thanksgiving 2009

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope that you had good company, good food and a chance to reflect on your blessings.
Yesterday began with roll making. In the morning I made several and then made more in the evening, for a total of 48.
My daughter cooked a big 20 lb. turkey, stuffing and green beans. We had a late evening pre-Thanksgiving dinner at our house. This was all for the love of left overs. I'll send lots of turkey with my son, when he leaves in the morning.



Today at 2:00, my husband, son, youngest daughter and I met at my oldest sisters home in Ogden for dinner. None of her own children could come to this. That's how it goes with grown up families sometimes.

This first picture is of mom and dad:


My son and daughter having chips and dip. There were also some giant shrimp; so good.


This is Debera in her kitchen. She worked really hard on this meal. She made the turkey, mashed potatoes, yams with marshmallows, green beans in cheese sauce, deviled eggs, celery sticks with cheese spread, cranberry sauce and soda. She also did a lot of clean up. She said that her kitchen was a one man affair so it was hard for us to help her like we wanted too. Mom and I settled for talking to her and watching her slave away during clean up time. I've got a kitchen thats sort of like that too. The rest of the gang went for an after dinner walk.
They got back from their walk just as Deb finished tidying up her kitchen.
Mom made a delicious raspberry salad that was so good that we also ate it as a dessert. Mom and Dad also provided two huge pumpkin pies.
I feel like such a pig on Thanksgiving, but it's all too good to resist. I'll get back on track tomorrow.


She set a nice table for us and then she and her husband sat at the kitchen counter.


She's got a pretty white Christmas tree. Her living room is very well decorated.


Dad, mom and me in the basement;


This is Dave; Debs husband. He let others serve themselves first. Thanks Dave.


Thanks again, Deb, for inviting us.

Little Cottonwood Trail

I was spontaneous this afternoon and made a quick 15 minute drive to this trail head. I walked for just 30 or 40 minutes. I've learned to not let an opportunity go to waste in the Fall. Our winters can seem long at times.



The sun was shining brightly on the other side of the road, but this side of the canyon was all shaded.
Still it was nice to be in the woods for a little while.




The river is still running well:






There were lots of crunchy leaves on the trail;








Look what I found up there. If there's snow in the mountains it's just a matter of time before it's down here in the valley.


Anyway, that was my little walk in the woods. It's nice that it's all so close.

More Applesauce

I've finished my applesauce making for the year. The total is 41 quarts; which took 4 afternoons, since I worked on it by myself.

I would put canning in the 'fun' work category.

Nebo Loop

This was a nice Saturday. Joe and I got to ride along with my mom and dad to look at the Fall colors.

These first pictures are going up Payson Canyon:



I loved the red leaves. I took this from the back seat of the car. This tree was so close I could almost touch it:




Deer on the side of the road:




We stopped in the Black hawk camp area for a picnic lunch. This area was kind of neat because every camp or picnic site had a hitching rail for horses. There were a few horses and mules up there. I've always sort of liked horses.
This is mom and dad:


Mount Nebo (also called the 'Magestic Mountain')



We stopped at an overlook and got out of the car:




On the way home we passed through Fountain Green. Mom showed us where she lived for about seven months as a nine year old girl. There's no house or barn here anymore; just a dry field and some trees.


Mom shared some of her experiences in Fountain Green. She had to eat a lot of muttin (lamb) and she didn't like it much. She was glad when they left there.


We made another stop in Mount Pleasant. That little town has a very nice museum.
We came out through Spanish Fork Canyon. They drove us back to Sandy and they went back to Salt Lake City.
Nice day!!

Plum Jam

Today's project was plum jam.



The 4 jars on the left had a tsp. of butter added to the cooking stage and resulted in an attractive, clear gel. The 4 jars on the right were done without the tsp. of butter and they came out a bit foamy.


I found several good recipes and after studying them I took some small liberties to suit my own taste.
My own recipe looks something like this:
1 batch= 6 cups of blanched, pitted, peeled and chopped plums
2 tbls. lemon juice
1 1/2 pkgs. no sugar needed pectin
1 cup honey (instead of 4 cups of granulated sugar)

I had 24 med. plums which made 12 cups of chopped plums.
I ran two separate batches since every recipe said to keep the batches between 6-8 cups each. This is so the pectin can set up.
I also put half of each batch through my blendtek mixer so that it was part smooth and part chunky.
The jam was poured through a funnel into the jars which had just come out of the dishwasher. The lids were soaked in very hot water.
Finally I put all the jars in my steamer canner for about 20 minutes.

Peaches

Today I did a tiny peach canning project. I've never done them before and I wanted the experience. I used just eleven store bought peaches.
I did learn something important too; peaches shrink! Next time I'll be sure that every slice is laying on it's side and I'll squeeze as many peaches into a jar as possible.


My next little project will probably be jam. That should be super easy.

Salsa

My tomato plants did so well that I had to find a way to use all the tomatoes. The best way was to make salsa. This recipe used 30 tomatoes and made 20 pints. It was surprisingly simple; just blanch and peel tomatoes , chop a lot of things, and then simmer for a couple of hours . I put all the jars through the dishwasher, filled them and then sealed them with my steamer.




When I got done in the kitchen I went and found my son and his younger sister out scraping old paint off of the trim on our smaller upper deck.
Having grown children is so nice. Sometimes they're very helpful.

Applesauce

I've just finished making applesauce. It took me a couple of afternoons to do this. In the end, I have 19 quart jars, plus 12 pint jars, counting one that was eaten already. I would have had 20 quart jars, except one jar broke in the steamer and I threw it all out. I didn't want to feed glass to anyone.



The apples came from mom and dads trees.
My next project will probably be Salsa. I need to use up all the tomatoes that I'm harvesting from the yard.

Tomatoes

I'm just showing off my tomatoes. I have three plants. This is about 1/2 of what one plant will produce. So, this represents about a sixth of what we've grown this summer.


I also just happened to pull my multi-grain bread and apple pie from the oven, so I added that to my shot.

28th Wedding Anniversary

Today is our 28th wedding anniversary. To celebrate we went on a picnic in the beautiful canyon above our home. I don't think there's a restaurant anywhere that can top what nature gave us for free today.
We picked out this spot about a month ago and hoped that the weather would cooperate with us and it did. Today the sky is blue, the temperatures are mild and it's not even windy. We couldn't have asked for more.
We spread our table with a white table cloth, white cloth napkins and heavy plates. We decorated with wild flowers (the snows will get them soon anyway) and by luck there were tons of pine bows laying everywhere. The ski resort did some cutting. We didn't do any damage to nature.




For our picnic we had turkey sandwiches on homemade bread, potato chips, strawberries, diet coke and homemade chocolate covered apples (see previous post).

Me:

Joe:

The view behind our table:

Isn't this nice?:

After our picnic we took our dishes and things back to the car and locked it up. Then we went a couple of minutes up the road, put on our camel backs (water) and went tromping in the woods.
The leaves are starting to change colors. Up higher they were very orange and red. Down where we were they were mostly yellow, but still pretty.






We brought some nature home with us. We found the orange leaves just off the side of the road, on our way home. We also brought the pine boughs home that we had used on our picnic table.



Happy Anniversary to us! We have three great children who are officially adults now, and three neat little grand children. We've survived two rough economic downturns and we're still plugging along.