Oh, Deer! Where Are You?

The guys left Friday afternoon to spend the night in the woods.  Their idea was to get as early a start as possible for the opening of deer season.

They found a nice area to set up camp.

The "two man" tent wasn't really big enough for these two men, so they set up the tarp over the back of the truck for the second bedroom.  :-)

They had a good time but the most they saw was a couple other hunters in the distance.  So they came home Saturday afternoon. They'll try again later. 

Meanwhile I had asked Wil what kind of cake he wanted for his birthday on Sunday and he said one of those kind of cakes we used to buy in Bakersfield from Albertson's. I think they called it a Strawberry Boston.  You've probably seen them in your Vons/Safeway/Albertson's/etc bakery department.  It's a white cake with vanilla pudding between the layers and whipped cream and glazed strawberries on top.

I went to a couple of grocery stores and their fresh strawberries looked awful. I made a homemade white cake and I thought I might be able to make some sort of concoction to put on top and hold it in with the whipped cream. 

Well...  Okay, it didn't turn out how I had hoped or imagined, but it still tasted wonderful.

Remember, I've never claimed to be a great cake maker!  

Yes, my cakes don't look pretty, but at least they taste pretty good.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WIL!

Painting Again And Happy News

These couple of days off I decided to get cracking on the painting again.  This time it was time to tackle the stair case walls and the office area.  First the purple stair case wall.

This is two coats of primer. I'll see what it looks like tomorrow to see if it needs one more primer coat or if I can just go ahead and put the color on.

Such an improvement already!  I would like to get some sort of new sconces too.  The ones there are cheap looking and look like they've been painted over.  Ugh!

My happy news is after a horrible weekend at work, on Monday I was informed that I am now a permanent part-timer!  YAY!  I wonder if the fact that one guy quit, one guy was either fired or quit, another guy was fired, and a girl quit has anything to do with me finally getting on as a permanent employee.  I'm sorry for those other people but I'm not going to turn it down.  I need to work for about four more years or so (unless I hit the Lotto just right! LOL). 

And today our son had two interviews for jobs.  Both had very positive outcomes, with one calling for a second interview in a couple of days and the other waiting on the drug test.  Now to just figure out which position to go for...  

Splitting Our Pile

We rented a log splitter today.  We had our work cut out for us!  

 

The split pile started out small.

We each took turns with the different chores.  One person operated the splitter.  Another got the pieces to put on the splitter.  And the third person stacked the split logs against the wall.

About 2/3 of the way through we dispensed with the stacking and just concentrated on the splitting.

After all, the splitter had to be returned by 6pm and we could always stack later.

Plus I kind of pooped out about 2/3 of the way through!

Done!

Done splitting, that is.  We have a lot of stacking to do, but that can wait for another day!

Fire Sunset

When we were driving home the other day we couldn't help notice the beautiful sunset.  Unfortunately my camera didn't pick up the true colors.  I may need a refresher class on using the different settings...

The bad thing was the dramatic skyscape was due to the huge fire in the Sisters area (Pole Creek Fire).  You can see the giant plume of smoke rising up.  The red dot in the middle just above the ground is the sun.

Here's another shot when I tried to make an adjustment on my camera.

This is a similar shot to the above picture but I played with the editing settings afterward.  

I do love my digital camera!

Visit To GaGa's With Smoked White Fish

As I mentioned yesterday we went for a visit to my MIL's house.  She mentioned the trees had been sprayed and it looked like some of the spray got on the window.  So Hubby and son went on the roof to try and clean it off.

At least make them useful while they are here!

One to do the work, one to supervise.  As it turned out, the windows are old and apparently the seal must have loosened somewhere because the condensation is between the panes.  We found some of the other windows in the house had the same problem.

After checking the windows and before dinner we had a snack of smoked white fish.  I used to have this fairly frequently when I was younger and I just love it.  White fish are usually considered a "trash" fish and a lot of people just throw them back in the water after catching them.  

When I found out the Crooked River has a lot of white fish I told my husband to keep them and we would try to smoke them.  As you can see they turned out beautifully and I can tell you they are delicious!  If you've never had smoked white fish they are kind of oily, like a salmon, which keeps them tender and moist.  If you are careful you can flake the meat right off without the bones.  

No more throwing the white fish back into the river!  (PS-The old folks are doing great.)

Lava Cast Forest

We went to visit MIL yesterday, but first we stopped at the Lava Cast Forest, just down the road from her place.

We turned off Hwy 97 and before we knew it we were on the 9 mile gravel road to the Lava Cast Forest site.  The road wasn't too bad, just a little rough in some spots, and then we found the parking lot.  It was a nice wooded area with parking for cars and buses.  This remote area even had a nice bathroom.  There were flyers to take with you to explain what you were seeing while you were on the one mile path. 

My one complaint is that many of these type of areas are "fee areas" where it costs $5 to park.  Maybe this is a petty complaint on my part but I feel like we are paying so much through our property taxes and especially income taxes that I think it should be that cars with Oregon license plates should be exempt from these fees.  That's my opinion and now on with my story...

Of course, since we like to do things backwards we didn't notice the flyers until after our walk was done.  We figured out there must have been something when we saw numbered markers along the way.

Our son moved back in with us last week and here are Father and Son.

One of the many holes that dotted the area.  These are formed when the lava flowed around the tree and cooled and the tree burned.  The lava cooled and the burning tree was not hot enough to reliquify the lava, leaving behind the hole where the tree used to be.

I took so many pictures of these tree holes.  It reminded me of so many years ago when we were at Yellowstone Park and I took a million and one pictures of the bubbling mud holes and hot water holes.  And that was long before I had a digital camera!

The ragged landscape.  Good thing there was a nice path otherwise this would have been impossible to walk around.

Looking through a fallen tree lava cast.

This is the fallen log from the above photo.

And finally a Mother and Son photo.

Cleaning The Freezer

Our freezer and refrigerator that we kept in our garage has basically been out of commission for about two years now.  Not that they are broken, but they have been in storage for a year and then sitting in the garage at our new house for about a year.

I finally got to the icky chore of cleaning out the freezer.  When I opened it there was mold and mildew.

The actual cleaning wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  I sprayed the entire insides with bleach and let it sit for a few minutes.  Then I took a soapy rag and washed it out, then rinsed with the hose.  I let it dry overnight and now it looks as good as new!

Eventually I guess I'll have to get to the extra fridge.

Taters

We harvested one potato plant and were pleased with the results.  These were from the containter.

These are the Yukon Gold.  The red potatoes are still growing (the green leaves in the picture).

Our crop!

How they ended up:  boiled and chunked with tons of butter and some grated parmesan alongside a Cornish game hen.  Delish!