other veggies

I grew these for the first time... Kohlrabi. It is very tasty, and wasn't too hard to grow. I'll try to grow even more next year.

Cucumbers. Guess which one is called Japanese Long?

They are really mild and have grown well.

almost

purple cherokee









brandy boy









green zebra











my mouth is watering

visitors welcome

Ok, Melanie and I didn't eat any pie or have any beer (root or otherwise) so we didn't officially celebrate PieandBeer Day. We still had fun.



We went to the Pioneer Celebration at North Park in Provo.

Old cars, including this fireengine.











There were little boothes, including a guy that told us he was one of 17 certified tatting instructors in the US. He knew a lot about lace.




Melanie got a frozen banana and that was way tasty. I bought some bananas afterwards so I can try it myself.


Then we went to check out the Provo Farmers Market. In which there was maybe 3 farmers. The rest were fair type boothes. Melanie got some honey and I bought some garlic, and then we got some tasty vitals. Melanie got a bowl of chicken (huli huli?) and rice for $2 and I got a way tasty buritto and a lamb taco (they were out of carne asada). We also got some mint lemonade which was so tasty and refreshing that I'll have to make some myself.



It was a nice day and we spent some time in the great outdoors.

Hung out at the home, and wanted to go to the rodeo but it was all sold out :(
Instead we got some dinner at Rooster, and then some dessert at Farr's icecream











We spent the evening out on the porch enjoying the cool of the evening and chatting, later on with Cathy.

Although it was a short visit and Melanie was sad to go, I was sure happy she came, and wanted to let others know they are welcome to come visit too!









To even it up, Melanie posted too...

cherries and chicks

My little cherry bushes are producing a small handful of berries this week. They are not tasty. Don't know what to do with them as there isn't enough to turn them into something tasty.... Maybe I'll freeze them and then add them to rhubarb or something similar later. Rhubarb is also not tasty until messed with.

Everytime I go to the local farm type stores, they have these there. I want one! They don't actually carry the kinds I want. Yes, I've done some research and have a list of chickens that would work for my backyard.... I'm desperate that way.

Our landlord seems to like me so maybeI should ask him.....

Family Reunion Ends and odds

HAPPY PIONEER DAY EVERYONE. We are going to have some rootbear and some apple pie so we can celabrate appropriately (PieandBeer Day)


Beautiful morning, but I was not happy to be leaving. I had thought about going to Vegas with Melanie to make the reunion last a bit longer, but her house was full and I think she was still all stressed about the reunion.... so i was very sad.













I had breakfast that morning, hard boiled eggs, bacon, and various types of hot cereal with all types of toppings, and toast for those who preferred. I brought way tooo much food. Still had a gallon of OJ left, 1 large pkg of bacon, 18 hard boiled eggs and 18 raw eggs, 2 loaves of bread, and tons of cereal left. Oh well. At least no one was hungry.








We cleaned up the homes, got packed up, took pictures, and everyone headed out.
,

Here is the side of the cabin when I tried to burn it down.

Here is my stuff bag with my pedometer and key chain light that Melanie was so awesome to do.

One of the little towns on the way back (I went a different way back) was having a festival so I stopped and got a yummy prime rib sandwhich. That made me feel a little better.

It was good to be home and to get to work in my garden. Mama had a party there that night so we worked to get the home and yard looking spiffy. Even though I was exhausted it was nice to get some of the things caught up...

Biscuits and Gravy.

No more words needed, but this is me writing so I will use more words cause I want to.

There is a little place not far from my house called Joe's. He is hillarious. His biscuits and gravy are the best I've ever had.

I'm not a biscuit and gravy connoisseur, in fact I'm fairly new to the whole concept. First time I had it I was in 11th grade (went to a school retreat thingy at Sonlight Camp in CO).

Its probably a good thing I wasn't exposed earlier. This way its not part of my everyday repertoire, which could have disasterous results. Biscuits and Gravy in general, and Joe's in particular, is a heart attack on a plate. But, oh so worth it.

Family Reunion Day 4- Closing Ceremonies

My last post on the family reunion got a little long so I thought I would post seperately for what we did that evening. Nathan and Neita had some very tasty vitals and then we watched a couple of videos put on by the Idaho Helm clan and the Parkinsons. I've got some tallented Nephews and Neices.

After looking over the results, awards were presented for the different events (for mine there were plastic shot glasses on a string, seemed appropriate for a balloon toss?).

Then the medals were given for the different age catagories. Melanie got these way cute things to commemmorate. The little guys sure felt special! I had gotten a bunch of leis and it worked perfect for our closing ceremonies.

Lots of strong peeps

It was a great family reunion. We had a lot of fun and it was in a beautiful place. We were only missing Jim and Angela. I'm guesing that at the next reunion Alec will be on his mission which is a crazy thought!

Bethanie and Aaron provided a very tasty dessert of strawberry short cake. Tried to make the night last as the next day was leaving time....

Squash Mac and Cheese

For Dinner on Sunday I made something scrumptious so I wanted to share. The bread didn’t turn out so well. I tried one of those no kneed breads and it was way to wet, it just kind of spread out, and the knife cut didn’t work because there was nothing to cut. It actually tasted ok, so I’m not sure if I measured wrong or what happened. Oh well. I probably won’t try it again until the winter because it heats the house up so much (you bake it at a high temp inside a duch oven).

Of course the calabacitas and cantaloupe was good, but the star was squash mac and cheese. What you say? You don’t like squash? Well try this my friend and your tastebuds will beg to differ. I still had a banana squash on the counter from last fall and it was starting to look a little wrinkly so once I saw this recipe I thought this would be a good way to use it up.

You can't really tell from the picture but this squash is huge. 18" long and about a foot tall.

I got the recipe from here and then I doubled it, upped the squash, used whatever cheese I had on hand and did the salt and pepper to taste -not as much salt and accidentally way more pepper (the lid popped open and so I had to scoop up the top layer- I think I left my pepper grinder at the family reunion. Definitely need to replace that!), and left out the paprika.

For the cheese I used the end of a bock of chedder, some pre-shredded frozen sharp chedder, a bit of mozzarella, some cotjia, and some pre-shredded italian mix. Due to the Cotija it wasn’t smooth, but it worked really well with the smooth squash puree.

I don't take beautiful pictures of food, but we had already eaten half of this as it was so tasty!

The end result was so good, that I cut up, cooked, and pureed the rest of the squash to freeze for later. I can make it at least 3 more times since I have 7+ cups left. It is amazing how such a big squash actually doesn’t hold that much since its mostly hollow.

One bad thing about cooking in the house is our kitchen was in the 90’s by the time I was done. (according to the instant read thermometer I used to check the bread). It felt so good to go into the living room to eat dinner! We keep the door closed as our swamp cooler really only does one room anyways, but its not been keeping up very well with the higher temperatures.

The microwave also quit a few times cause it got so hot making my time in the kitchen pretty long, but was still totally worth it.

4 cups (dry) small pasta (elbow, shells, etc).

Cook as directed and drain. While cooking, melt

2T bs butter over medium low heat in a saucepan and add

2 Tbs flour. Whisk and cook for 2 minutes. It will resemble a paste.

Slowly add 1-1/2 c milk.

Continue cooking and whisk until combined, and almost bubbling.

Next add 1.5-2 cups squash puree,

3 cups cheese,

4 Tbs cream cheese (I think you could leave this out or add sour cream or something else if you don't have it),

Salt and pepper to tast (if your squash is really sweet will probably need a bit more salt, and I like lots of pepper).

Stir until combined and cheese is all melted. Add sauce to the pasta stir it up, and serve!

It was even good the next day and the day after that for lunch :)

Pride

So the washing machine stopped working. grrr. Could hear it running, but no movement. I decided to see if I could fix it. The internet is amazing! I looked up various sights and thought I new what was wrong with it. However, the only way to tell for sure was to take it apart.

Mama and I followed some instructions on the web, and it was amazing how we were able to take the thing apart. We found a u-tube video to help us, and sure enough we pulled the motor out and found that it was the drive coupling. The only thing that was different was we couldn't figure out how to pull the pump off. We still managed to pull the motor off, and as soon as that happened, there was the broken coupling.

Since it was memorial weekend we had to wait to get a new part, but it cost only $13. Then we followed the directions in reverse and put the thing back to gether and it worked! The hardest part was figuring out how to get the cabinet back on, but we watched the u-tube thing a couple of times and on it went.

Yay for us!

Family Reunion Day 4

I needed to wait until other people posted about the family reunion so I could steal their pictures for my post. Mom did a great post about the olympic events (see here), and Aaron, finally posted an album for his pics. Yay!
This is my favorite:









Anyways Day 4 had a few scary moments, but was still great. The parkinsons provided morning breakfast of cold cereal. There was something about Neita claiming the Special K cereal, but I think everyone got what they wanted. Then we went to zions to do the narrows together.

I had Aaron take this picture of some of the "hanging gardens" that were really pretty.

While on the bus, dad didn't feel so great and so he got off, and then collapsed. Fortunately it was onto a bench instead of the ground. A whole crowd of concerned Helms rushed off the bus. Felt pretty scared and helpless, but he ended up being ok, fortunately. I had asked the bus driver to get help, and I guess his radio didn't work. By the time he figured this out, Dad had started to come too, and didn't look so bad anymore. Dad was pretty embaressed about the whole thing, but probably would've felt worse if the EMS had responded. Think it was a hypoglycemic response to the lack of sleep, sugary breakfast, and heat.

So although that put a damper on things, and Mom, Dad, Jenny, Bethanie and kids stayed behind to recover at the air conditioned lodge, the rest of us set out.

After a short walk we came to the end of the trail and had our lunch.

Whoa whats on my cheese?

Yum, cucumber

(Thanks Aaron for the flattering pictures :)

Some weren't that prepared as they only had flip flops and such. I had suggested using their regular shoes for the water, and walking back in flip flops, but they all seemed to do ok.

There was a big crowd and most of the walking sticks were gone, so I went about finding enough while the others finished lunch. I ended up going with Sarah most of the way who was doing it bare foot!

It was really fun. I liked it where it got deep!

It got pretty deep, pretty quick on the short people, but they were good troopers!

Wyatt decided to see how deep it got and had to swim. I tried to help him and got my stuff bag wet, but not as bad as Wyatt! Poor guy he was pretty cold for the rest of the trip.

I was really impressed with Neita packing Malina where it got deep, one expects it of the brothers to pack the kids around (I guess Nathan carrying 2 is impressive). Joel feel asleep but all the other shorter peoples seemed to like it to! I hope Aaron also posts his videos as he filmed a lot of it.

Couple of group photos at the place were we turned around.

Here is a picture of those who were taking a photo.

Beautiful Waterfall coming down into the river








Taking a rest in the shade, although it was plenty cool in the canyon with the cool water on your feet

More pictures of us hiking:

Theres Alec with his manly stick

Aaron had an even more manly stick.
Thanks Aaron for all the great photos!