long post for fun times

so, i've been doing some fun things but haven't posted. So here are some comments and photos. hopefully not too long of a post!

Winter was well on its way, killing off the garden. I covered up flowers and tomatoes, peppers, even the zuchini plant. And got up early before the sun to spray things that I hadn't covered so they could survive. And it didn't warm back up for winter for over a week or so, so I felt stupid going out every night but didn't have time to actively harvest. Eventually I stopped getting up to spray and then stopped covering some of the flowers. and then joy of joys it warmed back up and has been worth it for the last two weeks or so!

Of course the squash was gone after the first night. Some of the squash got frosted but seem to be keeping just fine. I pulled the rest in as it got colder. Here is Angela displaying some fruits of my labor.

While the bannana squash are huge, the spaghetti squash is definately the winner as far as production goes. Unfortunately they got in late and didn't have a chance to ripen before frost.

I had a picture with Angela and some of my other veggies but lost that one. Here are three giant carrots I picked today with a regular store carrot on the far right for comparison.

My box of huge red tatoes. Nuff said.

Like I said earlier, I covered the zuchinni but as it hailed one night the ice sitting on top of the sheet was enough to freeze it. Guess I had enough zuchinni anyways.

So, a guy at work brought in a huge moving box full of organic apples (ie from a tree in his backyard that they didn't do anything with). I had one for lunch and then being the last one who left for the day, took down the sign he put up (free apples) in the office and took the WHOLE BOX. Kate and Mama were so happy you would've thought it was the latest boy band showing up to a teenage girl sleepover. I have made many many many batches of dried apples (which have all disapeared strange enough), some fresh applesauce, and yesterday apple butter due to Bethanie's inspiration.

I got my haircut short again. Its not as A-line as last time and a little shorter. I look cute. Too bad you can't tell from my photos.

Went to the Rooster restaurant with Angela. It was very tasty and her face was clasic when she got her first "zhen zhu" or Boba. This is Andy and Simi's new restaurant in Provo. My favorite is the chocolate lava cake.

I went up to park city with Cathy on a last fling before bball starts in ernest. It was beautiful weather, we toured the Heber Valley Camp (girls camp run by the church but wouldn't really work for our family reunion), saw amazing clounds, checked out the olypmic venue and had a fun, easy time. Cathy didn't want her picture taken, as you can tell but I got her in the car talking to Malinda.

My Maxmillian sunflowers are only starting to bloom and most of them fell down. I'm really hopefull for next year! My regular sunflowers seemed to not be as healthy this year. I'm not going to be able to mulch a lot of flowers and veggies due to disease.





I think these dahlias are perenials. I got some really pretty ones and so I'm excited for next year. I do want to get some of those giant ones just for fun.

This post is all mixed up, so just to clarify Angela came up conference weekend. She even managed to score some tickets. I don't know if she had that much fun hanging out with an old lady like me but it was fun to me to spend time with her. After Sat afternoon conference we went to petsmart to get Thorpe groomed but apparently its by appointment only. So he is still stinky but he got to pick out some toys. He likes the squeeker in this rubber ball but didn't like to pick it up. It made me laugh.

Last week is when I got my hair cut and then went to Park City. I also made an appointment for Lasik. I'm a good canidate thanks to my thick corneas. Whoohooo. I've got a pre-op next week and the following week I may get my eyes lasered. I say MAY because I MAY whimp out.

Melanie's Triathalon

I went down to St. George to watch Melanie do kokopeli. I had some trouble getting to St. George but once I was there everything was great. I always like looking at the lavendar fields on my way there, as well as for the big hawks nest. A fun call from Bethanie made the ride go quicker.

Melanie had found a great condo that was so much nicer then a hotel room. We laughed and talked and went to see the flowers at the temple. The St. George Temple is so pretty. It looks very little from any where else in the city.

Here is a picture of Melanie sniffing the cotton. Its interesting because unlike most textiles, cotton is exactly that out of the plant. its cotton!

Isn't she cute and all ready for her race!

We had a great dinner (melanie, mom, and i) then met Melissa back at the condo. We walked around that night and turned in early since Melanie had her big day. (Well Melanie turned in early, the rest of us talked till much later, and then mom and I kept talking after we went to our room). I've decided I really like king beds.

Now for the big day. Melanie got up bright and early. I had to get up early for me, but I was still a pleasure to be around! Unfortuanately none of us remembered to grab Mel's camera so mom and i resorted to camera phones. Melanie did awesome!

Mom is sure cute! I don't know why I didn't end up with any Melissa pictures till the end....

The swim start:


The Swim: (this one is pretty boring)

Coming Out Of the water she looks great: (sorry about my loud squeeky voice)

Here she goes on the bike!

Here she comes back on the bike

Transitioning and into the run (notice my awesome phone camera skills!)



And now for the big finish!




Isn't she cute! Still smiling:

Here is Melanie getting her award!











It was a beautiful day, and Melanie did awesome. We did the Cafe Rio lunch and then hung out some more. We ended up staying in St. George for that night, watching the BYU game and then the general relief society meeting. Grabbed some delicious shakes and then went to bed. Next day hung out some more, went to church and then I drove home :(

It was a quick fun vacation. I'd love to see Melanie do another triathalon this season as she did so well in this one.... I'll always come cheer her on!


See this link for her take on the day
http://msmarthelm.blogspot.com/2009/09/around-triathlon.html

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!

So there went August

Yep there it went. August was a hard month. Lots of fun things happened too so I should focus on those.


Yesterday was a pretty lazy day. I'm discouraged in my garden so mostly i'm just watering it and picking tomatoes or other things for salsa. I should spray things and kill bugs but it doesn't seem to do much good so I'm kind of letting it go....



I've only got two of these little cantolopes still left on the vine.

Oh and I tried a little cow horn pepper. I took a tiny bite off the very end (the 'coolest' part of a pepper) and the thing lit my mouth up like the fourth of july. I had planted types that said they were mild, but someone must have a different idea of mild then I do. my anahiem, poblano and hole mole ones are pretty mild, the rio grande, and mucho nacho are medium spicy fyi.


So like I said, yesterday was a lazy day except I did make pickles. I went somewhat off of this recipe: http://postmodernfeeding.blogspot.com/2009/08/spicy-quick-dill-pickles.html but made changes cause thats what I do. All the cukes, dill, coriander, and peppers were from my garden. Mine aren't very spicy (cause I know my roommates won't eat em so I only used two anahiem peppers), or very pretty (odd shaped cucumbers) but they are very tasty. I made three jars full so if you are around you should come try them. It says they'll last for a month in the fridge. I think they are getting stronger as time goes by so if I make them again I will use less vinegar.



Can you tell that I've already been eating on them? They are funny shaped because thats the kind of cukes I grow!









I had tons of cucumbers but the problem is about 1/2-1/3 of them are extreemly bitter. So I peeled every one and tasted everyone. The non-bitter ones were made into pickles. Then I tried to get the bitter out of the bitter ones by soaking them in salt waters, but that didn't work so well. A couple soaked out but I would've had to taste every single piece again and it was nasty enough the first time!





Anyways I lost my phone a week ago. So I went to the store and got a new one yesterday. Mama found my old phone today. It was in the apron pocket that I cooked in last week. See this is why I have a rule that I don't worry about anything lost for at least a week. Oh well. The old phone is having trouble. The one thing is that there are still some pictures on it that I didn't send myself from my weekend in Idaho. i might take it in to see if they can turn it back on just long enough to get those off...

Last weekend was awesome. I think I need to get out and do things more often because it actually did help me have a much better attitude going into last week. I did a bunch of things with Cathy including checking out Utah Lake (yes I've lived her over 5 years and never made it to the lake thats just down the hill). Its not that bad, except for the massive amounts of bugs that come out at night. Its cause its way marshy and I'm used to man made lakes mostly that don't have a lot of marsh.

The next day we went fishing! I love fishing. However my fishing pole is still in New Mexico (Angela and Mom please bring me my fishing pole if you can!). Cathy had an extra fly rod (its Malinda's) and so I fly fished. Thats way fun! I stood in the river which automatically makes things funner. I don't quite have the hang of it, but I sure hope to practice in the future. I think I'll price out Walmart and Cabellas and get some polarized sun glasses I don't know that Cathy will want to go with me again because she actually likes to catch things.... somehow fish know that I don't really want to catch them and they've obliged so far. Thanks fish! Thanks Cathy (and Malinda)!

After fishing and our picnic lunch on the middle provo (between jordanelle and deer creek) we went swimming at deer creek. holy cow I'd forgotten how much I love swimming in lakes. it is so relaxing and fun. The weather was perfect, even if that meant the lake was more crowded then I've ever seen it. That was fun though because more boats equals more waves. I like waves. I've got to get up there a bunch more to make up for all the waisted summer.

Earlier this month I went up to Idaho for the Owyhee County Fair. Thats always fun and usually crazy hot calling for lots and lots of $2 snowcones. This time i was prepared with shorts and sandles and t-shirts and cash. It ended up being rainy and cold, but I still used the money! I like the chill better to be honest. Other then almost dying on my way there it was great. I know some of the kids didn't show as well as they hoped, but considering they almost didn't have pigs to show, and they sold them for more then last year, I think they should be proud of what they did. i love that the Idaho Helms have so many entries in the different catagories and get so many ribbons! Way to go guys!

I'm missing a bunch of photos I took with the kids and their pigs. So sad, but hopefully they'll post some on their blog soon.

Here are photos from the crazy storm that kicked up (hence bringing the cold weather to the fair) and caused me to almost die.,.. ok not really, but it was scary.

Here is a picture of the sun, the smoke from the fires caused it to look like this way through northern utah. Then just past the Idaho border the wind kicked up and blew tons of dust into the air. So that visability was reduced to very short. Pictures don't work real well, but if you look you can only see like 2-3 white stripes ahead.

I had slowed down since a truck going the other way had flashed me.

All of a sudden there was a semi stopped in front of me. I stopped in time. Then I realized that the next guy might not and I'd get squished so I sort of pulled of the side of the road to the left, In this picture you can see the semi, the red truck I was following and the white car that almost hit me and then ended up being in front of me.

There was another mini van that almost got me too, so I moved further off the road. There was cars off on both sides of the road making the two lanes of north bound traffic into 4 stopped lanes of trafic. The ambulance had a tough time getting through. This was scary when I thought I was going to get squished. I called dad to make sure that pulling to the side of the semi was the right thing to do.

Here is where I stayed parked for the next half hour or so.

This milk truck was not too far in front of me. I kept wondering why the guy was getting out in that crazy dust and wind. Its cause a purple semi just ahead of the one I almost ran into side swiped him. I figure if we had gotten stuck there for much longer at least we would have something to drink :)

Some emergency workers trying to get to the actual accident. They had masks on and bright colors but it was still probably difficult to breathe and it was hard to see them.

We finally started to move 30-40 minutes after just sitting there. Wind was still blowing and dust was still limiting visability, but I saw what I thought caused the problem.... Two semi's one jack knifed. But no, they didn't cause the problem. There was a couple of cars piled up and the semi jackknifed to avoid them.

Didn't look too bad so hopefully everyone was ok. Not too far from here the dust cleared somewhat and we picked up speed. Then I passed where they had closed the road heading south. Felt bad for those people, but also a good idea since I'm sure there would've been more accidents.

Fortunately coming back to Utah was much quicker and less scary.

Wish I had time to document lots of the other happenings, but I don't want to bore everyone, and this post is long enough.