Fun Times

Funny that most of my posts talk about food. Guess you can see where my priorities are.

Last weekend I went to greek fest put on by the Greek Orthodox Church in SLC. It was interesting and the food was great! I want to go to litergy now (thats what eastern orthodox calls their mass) but they don't offer it at a time that is real convient. I couldn't get any decent pictures of the dancers. It was really hot under the pavillian even though it was a beautiful day.

The week before that we went to Sushi. Jillian came along too but didn't want her picture taken. Sushi has really grown on me. I like it a lot.

Cathy and I've been trying to go camping for a couple of weekends in a row. We were going to go this weekend and she got her little tent camper all ready. Then there was lots of thunder and dark clouds so we decided not to. That was a bummer but Mama made a deep dish zuchinni pie (recipe from the Greek Festival) that was super tasty and we ate good food and laughed about silly things, and watched the end of a documentary on killer whales. Very educational. Then we went to bed.

Oh, but before that I went to cabella's. I got a fly rod! YAY. I got a pretty good deal, and it came with everything I needed (and some things I don't). Its a 9' 5 weight, and came with a case, a pack, basic flies for this area, hemostats, line straightener, nippers, strike indicators, leaders, goop noose, mixed shot, zipper clippers, float goup, and of course rod and reel. I practiced with it and it was fun. I tied a small flower to it so I could practice catching hummingbirds (j/k) after I lost one of my strike indicators in the flowers. Maybe after winter comes I'll find it. Cathy came over and showed me some things. She is amazing. She decided to see if she could get it in the trash can, and yep she did. Cathy showed me some stuff, but she started to use her coach voice and I got nervous. I don't respond well to coach voice apparently I get performance ptsd or something :) Actually it was really fun and I can't wait to go try out my gear for real.

Saturday evening Cathy and I went to the state fair. That's fun. I left my phone at home so I stole some pictures from some random blogs. I got my turkey leg so it was a very succesfull fair trip. We saw lots of exhibits, lots of smelly goats, even smellier lambs, and they were finishing up the hog sale. Lots of beef calfs, and one gigantic ox. I've seen oxen before but that guy had to be almost half again as big. He was a Red Holstien/Brown Swiss Cross which meant he had gorgeous big eyes. He reportedly weighs over 3000 pounds and is over 6' tall. Here is a picture I stole off of someone else's blog. We also saw tons of rabbits, and pigeons. Who knew that there were pigeon shows. There were some interesting breeds, but I like the regular poultry better, but guess it was pigeon day instead.

Neither of these pictures do big red justice.

For those of you who remember nanguo. She had a couple of kittens who are pretty much fully grown now. She hisses at them to stay away which isn't a very nice thing to do to her own kids. They are more shy then she is but starting to come out more. I keep hearing scuffling noises on my back porch while writing this and its cause the two kittens are wrestling. Even wild kittens are fun to watch. I need to find a place that is willing to spay/neuter ferral cats. I like these guys but they need to stop reproducing. AND STOP KNOCKING OVER MY POTS!

For Dinner tonight I made Pasta alla Norman again, but did it my way instead of following the exact recipe in Cook's magazine (I did that last week). I used my own sweet onion, sweet pepper, tomatoes, eggplant, zuchinni, garlic, basil, tomatillos, sun dried tomatoes, etc. It is very tasty! Less cheesy this time cause I made more sauce and stuck more veggies in it. I really liked the tomatillos in it cause they add sweetness. I got it out to take a picture and ate a bunch more. Had some cornbread with it. I love how fine my new grain mill gets the whole wheat flour, I can use 100% whole wheat!

Yesterday while at Costco they had a demonstration of the blendtec blender. I have serious kitchen gadget impulivity. But they are there for a whole week so I can think it through. I've been wanting a food processer, but now I'm thinking their blender could work. However its pretty pricey. Its the same guy who invented my way awesome mill, and he was observing the presentation and struck up a conversation with Mama. I figured out pretty quick who he was, but Mama was suprised when I asked him if this was his product. He was a funny guy. He does those "will it blend" thingys and told us his youtube sites got more then 2 million hits and he'd been on various shows. Go check it out, he is funny.

This humoungous tomato (bigger then my head and shown next to a typically sized tomato) is a brandy wine. Super super tasty and I got a bunch of them. They seem to come in waves and I don't know that I'll get another bunch before the first frost. Definately growing these again!

This is a really cool NY times piece on my friend Nicey (I wrote it that way so you know how to say it). She was in my ward when I lived on Cherry and she got baptised just 3 years ago. NY times does little "day in the life of" stories and they picked Nicey as a missionary in NY. Check it out!
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/1-in-8-million/index.html#/naisi_zhao

videos from sheepdog trials

Here are the videos from the sheep dog competition. You can't really see it. Sorry. First is a couple of the splash dogs. I sat with Heidi and James for part of it. Its pretty funny the difference between these dogs and the very well behaved sheepdogs.

These are various shots of the border collies at work, if you can make them out....

Grounded but worth it!

I am grounded. I got sunburned yesterday and we all know what that means. Actually I'll probably go outside again tomorrow. I'll just try to be more responsible in the future!

I was going to post some fun pictures but my phone is dead and my charger is at work. So tomorrow if I go to walmart I'll get a car charger and then might post some pictures.

Friday I was pretty lazy. I did a little work from home, did a little housework, worked a little in the garden, and canned some grape syrup and some green beans. I've decided not to pick any more beans this year. Instead, I'll just let them dry out (they're dying anyways) and see if I get any dry beans. The grape syrup was the green grapes I had in the freezer since last year when I made the grape jam. I think syrup is easier. I just boiled it down for a long time, ran it through the blender and a strainer and canned it. Today I made the most delicious buttermilk pancakes for dinner and the grape syrup was way tasty on it.

Saturday I was going to go to St George but events conspired, and I stayed put instead. It turned out ok. It would've been nice to see Melanie, Melissa, and some Gartz's but there is something to be said for sleeping in my own bed (namely I don't get so onry). So after a great breakfast at Kneeders (the chunky cinnamon french toast of course), and seeing Angela and Dad for a few minutes as they headed through to Rexburg (they had a few things to bring me from NM, but unfortunately couldn't find my hat in the rush to pack and brought the wrong fishing pole) we headed up to Soldier Hollow for the Sheepdog Trials.

I really really really want a border collie. Now is not the time but I can still dream. I love watching those dogs work. They love to work and are just so smart! I also love that they have real workin' names. No "princess fluffieness of dorsetchires" or "Lobuff Hyspire Lasting Impression" (just pulled that one off of a winner from westminster dog show) but real names like Lad, Tess, or Lyn. Its a beautiful location and just facinating to watch. If a dog gets hot they just jump right into the water trough they have provided. Very business like but they also just seem so happy to be working. I did some reseach and learned that the Soldier Hollow trial is an invitational and is an exceptionally difficult course. They use wild range ewes who are not used to working with dogs and the course is really really big! I didn't see any sheep charge any dogs, but they did stampt their feet at the dogs, and there was one really naughty ewe who later got marked with orange because she was not going to be herded and that wasn't fair to the dogs (that sheep took off from the rest and wouldn't go back to the herd, the dog got way off on that sheep and got disqualified.... poor Gunner, he was in trouble and he knew it!)

I liked watching the control dogs whose job it is to put the sheep that were just in the main field into the holding pen (they only run each group of 5 sheep once a day). So efficiant and excited and focused! The sheep would get curious and watch the ones that were being worked and would start baaing to them and so the group of 5 would try to head over to the penned flock, making it more difficult for the dog. To help one lady tied her control dog over against that fence so the sheep stayed away. You should've seen the look that dog gave her. He was all excited to work and was intent and waiting and then realized she just put him over there and he wasn't going to actually work the sheep. The look of suprise, then hurt and then disgust followed by resignation was almost comical to watch. He kept shooting hurt looks at her until she moved him back by the people.


We also caught some of the "splash dog" competition which is just fun to watch. Those dogs are very enthusiastic but I can't really say well trained, or exceptionally bright, after watching the border collies work. I saw part of a duck herding demo and that was funny because the dog I saw just looked like she wanted to EAT the ducks. I think she was even drooling at one point! I felt bad for the ducks because sheep are way bigger then the little border collies and this dog (some sort of australian cattle dog) was way bigger then the ducks!

We stayed up there quite a while. Cathy was pretty patient with me! The weather was great except when it rained and then got really hot. I then came home and worked on my primary lesson which went ok today. One of the more naughty kids was really asleep for all but the first 15 minutes of sharing time and last 10 minutes of class or so. Now I'm thinking I know why this kid is having troubles, heaven knows I'm not on my best behavior when I'm tired!

Like I said earlier I made scrumtious buttermilk pancakes for dinner. I followed a recipe in cook's magazine. I think I can make them just as tasty and fluffy with whole wheat by beating the egg whites seperate like i do for the best of the west waffles. I felt like it was hot today so it was a simple, fast, and tasty dinner. I fried up some canadian bacon and for the veggy had stuff for tomatoe, basil, and mozerella with basalmic vinegar. I really like the mozerella I picked out. Much creamier tasting and less rubbery. Yum!

I like Sundays but they are usually somewhat sad since I have to go to work the next day. Not so for today! Whoohoo!