A trip up to Aqua Fria

The columbines were at their peak!

JJ, Ozzie and Brent (the young man who lived with them his senior year in High School and is now 23 years old) came roaring in to the cabin on their motorcycles last Wednesday.  They had been to Illinois to leave Ozzie's Dad's ashes with his parents.  They were on their way home and decided to spend a few days here with us.  Brent is a huge "Woodsy Loresy" fan so was in "heaven" when he got here.

Erin had told him a lot about her adventures up here so, of course, one of the biggest recommendations she made was to go to Aqua Fria.  Bob was sure there was still too much snow on top (10,500 feet above sea level) and the lake would still be frozen so we shouldn't even bother trying.  Well, that was challenge enough for Ozzie so JJ, Brent, Ozzie and I took the 2 four wheelers and set off to see how far of the 6 mile trip we could make.  Ozzie and I were on the blue one and JJ and Brent took the red one.

JJ and Brent as we started out on our adventure.

JJ at the forest gate very near where we saw the bear later in the day.

We made it to the Helena Trail and then up to the first side hill with no problems.  Then, as all you who have ridden the red four wheeler know, it could not pull both of them so JJ did a lot of hiking!  We waited for them at the first big switchback and JJ got on the front of the blue 4 wheeler.

Ozzie, Me and Brent at the point over looking North Park.

The Forest Service has not maintained the road AT ALL and all the dirt has washed out around the rocks and it is a mess!  A truly tough bumpy ride!  We made it to the top without seeing a speck of snow.  Right on top I think I saw a small drift back in the trees but nothing on the road.

A view of how most of the road looks nowadays.  A real bumpy ride!

I informed Ozzie I would walk on the part going downhill right where the old road came in and he was happy to let JJ and I off to walk.  I videotaped Ozzie and Brent coming down that part of the road which is littered with boulders.


Coming down over the last part of the rocks.  The big ones were around that bend!  More video of the big ones on the way home in my next blog.


  We rode on down and never saw any snow until we got to the big dip just before you go up the hill and down into the lake. The snow drift there was so small it didn't even cover the whole road.  Again JJ and I had to get off and Ozzie picked his way down the rocky hill to the drift.  Brent did not attempt the hill but went around some trees and came down the side of the hill. The rest of the way was a piece of cake!

The only snow we had to deal with on the way up!

We made it to the Aqua Fria!  What a view!

We walked around, took pictures, ate a little trail snack and climbed around in the rocks down toward the falls.  Brent and JJ waded in the barely unfrozen lake.  They didn't last long and did some major whining about how cold it was.  We must have been up there about an hour and a half enjoying the sun and how nice and warm it was for June and not much wind, either.  A perfect afternoon!

Wading in melted snow.  It's a tradition.  Brrrrrrrr!

JJ and I posing on some of the big logs by the lake.

A big crack in the snowbank that is always right next to the spillway.

JJ and Brent climbed up a rock slide to sit in their little nook.  I have a video of their climb you can see in my next blog.

Me sitting on a BIG rock by the falls.  You can't see them but they are to my right and below the rock and snow.

Snowbanks on the shore of Aqua Fria.

A view out of the canyon into North Park in the distance.

Ozzie playing on the big rocks next to the lake.

We came home with 3 of us on old blue and Brent on the red one.  That road is REALLY bad!  We tried to go on the Helena trail over to Beaver Creek but a tree had gone down recently across the trail and we weren't prepared to clear it away. So we came on down.  Shortly before we got to the Forest gate, Ozzie pointed out into the trees.  I was looking for columbines  or a deer or moose but didn't see anything.  We all stopped and JJ and Ozzie both said at once "Did you see that bear?"  Neither Brent nor I did.  JJ saw it in a tree right near the road and then they both saw it running away!  Luckily it was away and not toward us!  Dang!  I really wanted to see a bear in the wild.  We had seen a lot of bear poop and now at least some of us saw the real thing.  Didn't get any pictures either!



The 3 of us on "Old Blue" I still am trying to figure out how to do some video stuff.  This is really a still picture!
We went over to the old yurt platform and took a few pictures--no wildlife, though.  Kenny saw a whole herd of elk there a week ago but not us!  The mosquitoes were vicious there so we didn't last too long and came on home.

At the Yurt.  The mosquitoes were so bad JJ had to put her hood on!

It was another great time.  I feel so blessed to live here in "God's Country" and that I am still able to do these fun adventures with my family!

Check out my next blog to watch more videos and pictures of our trip!

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Father's Day Rhubarb-Strawberry Pie Recipe

 *click on the pictures to make them bigger and hit the back button to get back to the blog.

 The rhubarb has gone to seed, how beautiful it is!

I decided to make a Rhubarb-Strawberry Custard pie for Father's Day, but I had a dilemma.  Bob has a memory of a rhubarb custard pie that Uncle Albert's friend and sometimes cook, Gracie Gamber, used to make.  I have tried all sorts of recipes;  my mother's, allrecipes.com and many other ones but none of them "taste like Gracie's"!  Along the way, I have gathered many delicious (in my opinion) recipes.  So today I combined several of these recipes and, of course, added a few modifications to make a pie that may not be like Gracie's but I'm hoping will still be very delicious!  Because I was combining recipes, it made too much filling so I put the leftover filling in custard cups and made a couple of custards, too.  The results turned out to be yummy, just like I thought.  The real name of this creation should be Rhubarb- Strawberry Sour Cream Custard Pie with Grandma's Special Crust but I've shortened it down to Meemo's Rhubarb-Strawberry Pie.

The pie and two custards, which we ate while I was writing this blog!  Deeeelicious

MEEMO'S RHUBARB-STRAWBERRY PIE

For the crust:

 3/4 Cup butter

1 1/2 Cups flour

1 Tbsp. white sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and lightly grease a 9- 10 inch pie plate.  Blend ingredients in an electric mixer until fine crumbs.  Press into and up sides of the pie plate.  You may have some leftover since this recipe was for a 9x13 inch cake pan.  I try to make the crust about 1/8-1/4 inch thick.  Bake for 15 minutes until set but not brown.  Set aside to cool a bit.  (I don't do this but that's what the recipe says.)

For the Filling:

4 Cups chopped fresh rhubarb ( I use frozen and will discuss time of cooking later)

3 Cups fresh strawberries cut in half or sliced depending on size.

2 eggs

2 Cups white sugar

1 1/2 Cups sour cream

1/3 Cup flour (I think I may use 1/2 Cup with frozen rhubarb but I do like my pie a little juicy so maybe not).

Turn oven up to 450 degrees F.  Whisk together in a medium bowl, the egg, sugar, sour cream and flour.

Spread rhubarb and strawberries in the pie plate and then pour the sour cream mixture over top of the fruit.  I think you could just mix the fruit into the sour cream mixture and fill the crust.  Then if you have too much you can put the rest in custard cups* to bake with the pie--that's what I did.

For the Topping:

1/2 Cup flour

1/2 Cup brown sugar

1/4 Cup melted butter

In a small bowl mix flour and brown sugar together and add enough melted butter to make mixture crumbly.  Sprinkle over the top of the pie (and custards if you have enough--I made more for them).  

Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 350F. and continue to bake for 40** minutes, or until edges have puffed and topping is golden.  The center may still be slightly jiggly.  Mine was very jiggly so I cooked it about 15-20 minutes longer because of the frozen rhubarb. I tested the pie doneness by putting a knife in the center and seeing if it came out clean, too.  About an hour and 15 minutes total.  Let cool completely before slicing and serving.  

*I put the custards in the oven after I reduced the temperature and cooked them for about 50 minutes.

**may need to cook longer if using frozen fruit

Well, it looks tasty

 Ready to dig in!

By the way, I have never found a Rhubarb pie recipe that tasted like Mom's either!  Even the one she claimed to use!  I guess our memories include more than the taste.  Maybe Lynn has the right recipe.  I hope she will try this one so she can eat rhubarb pie for breakfast in France!  That is one of my memories.  Lynn and I and, I think Mom, even, eating rhubarb pie and exclaiming on how much better it tasted the next morning for breakfast.

  One last memory goes back to when we were quite young, sometime in elementary school.  We, the neighborhood gang that was around my age, would sneak into the rhubarb patch and each pick a stalk of rhubarb to eat raw out of the garden.  We would put salt on it and carry on about how good it was.  I hated it but didn't ever admit it to anyone.  It was way too sour and made my mouth dry and puckery!  I wonder if any of the other backwoods kids thought that too???? Sue? Ned? Tom? Tip? Lynn?

Afternoon Coffee Break

I got out my Limoges china to take my pie pictures so I want to post them because I love this china! 

 

  

Fishing at the Pond

Well, now that the internet is back on I can get caught up on all our adventures!  We've had quite a few of the relatives and some friends come out to help when the water was high and then to relax and go fishing, 4 wheeling, camping, watching it rain, rhubarb picking, and working on the puzzle.  Today I am going to concentrate on the fishing!

About 2 weeks ago Kenny, Toni and Levi came out to do a little 4 wheeling and some fishing.  Levi got a new little 4 wheeler for Christmas and was all set to go on an adventure.  he was so cute on his little 50 I had to try to video him!

As you can tell I haven't got the film editing down very well yet!

After they 4 wheeled for awhile they went fishing at the pond and caught some very nice fish.  Levi caught "a big one" so we had to take pictures.

As always, click on the picture to make it bigger and hit the back button to get back to the blog.

Levi shows off his fish with his mom!

Levi's big fish!

After seeing those nice big fish nothing would do except I needed to get over to that pond the next day and see if I could catch some for dinner!

Just right for our dinner that night.  I did them on the grill.  Yummmm!

The next weekend Carla and Jim came up to help with the irrigating in high water.  That will be the subject of another blog, but in order to help, they got some new irrigating boots.  Carla needed to test them out for fishing and so I went with her and here were our results:

Carla shows off our fish. Hers is the one in front.

Carla is the winner!  15 inches long and at least 2 lbs.

All these fish were caught in the pond with a Super Duper lure.  The river was still too high to try fishing in it but now the water has receded a lot so I may have to see how the fishing is down by the beaver dam. The rains seem to have slowed down and the wind is up so maybe some worm fishing is in order!  A few days ago I did get this picture after an afternoon rain storm.

Both ends of the rainbow.  The middle was still shrouded in clouds.

Picking Rhubarb with a Delicious Recipe to go with it!

As I mentioned yesterday, I decided to walk up to the rhubarb patch to see if there was enough there to do some baking.  When I got there I was surprised to see at least 8 seed pods already coming up out of the patch!  Mom always said that meant the end of rhubarb season so I decided I better get to picking!

The Rhubarb Patch.  Can you spot the seed pods?

I had brought a paring knife with me plus a garbage bag to put the stalks in.  I trimmed the leaves off so it wouldn't take so much room and wouldn't be as heavy either.  I really thinned the patch and when I tried to carry the bag (about a mile or so) it was too unwieldy and heavy.  I laid it in the shade and walked back home.  I got the 4 wheeler out and zipped back to the patch before some cows came along and trampled it.  Not very likely but who knew--Harvats were moving cattle out to the summer pasture.

  My bag of rhubarb with the leaves trimmed off.

I trimmed off the other end of each stalk.  Chopped them into bite sizes, put them in the colander, washed them,

 Chopping up the stalks

Ready to wash

bagged them and finally got them in the freezer about 11:30 PM!

 All bagged up and dated

 Of course I cooked dinner, ran up to check the ditch, took pictures of the high water and watched 3 movies before I really got going on the project!

Today I decided to make my favorite dessert with rhubarb.  Even those who don't particularly like it, love this recipe.  It goes by several different names, is quick and easy to make and has many variations but this is the one I love.

RHUBARB CUSTARD CAKE ALSO KNOWN AS RHUBARB UPSIDE DOWN CAKE

Ingredients

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package moist yellow cake mix
• 2 cups diced rhubarb
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 1/2 pint (2 cups) whipping cream

*I use lemon cake mix sometimes and 3-4 cups rhubarb if you really like rhubarb.  Raise the sugar amount if you raise the rhubarb although some people like the tartness of the rhubarb.  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan. Prepare cake mix according to the package directions. Pour batter into prepared pan.  *Be sure to make high altitude adjustments if you live up here in the mountains!
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the rhubarb and sugar. Spoon the rhubarb mixture over the cake batter. Drizzle the whipping cream over the top of the rhubarb.
3. Bake 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cake cool completely before turning it out onto a serving dish. Serve with whipped cream on top of each serving if desired.

  * if you use frozen rhubarb let it thaw and pat it with paper towels!  I didn't thaw it and it still turned out good. 

Other suggestions include sprinkling strawberry jello over sugar and rhubarb mixture, use raspberries instead, and add more cream if you like the custard and bake a little longer.

This recipe came from allrecipes.com and was called Maryann's Upside Down Rhubarb Cake

This is 1/2 recipe made in a 9x9x2 inch pan.  Bob and I can't finish off a full recipe!

Yummy, I ran low on cream so made it with half and half but could have used a bit more for more custard!  I used a lemon cake mix.  Also, I didn't have enough for whipped cream on top but it sure is moist and good!

Way Up At The Headgate

We had a wonderful weekend!  Thomas, my grandson, and two of his friends came up to get away from Casper for a few days.  They had all kinds of plans for things to do while they were here but we had a few plans for them to help us out, too.

The most pressing chore was to go up to the headgate of the Little Jessie ditch and see why there wasn't much water coming down it.  Bob was taking the Cat and Thomas and I were to follow him on the 4 wheeler.  The other boys were going to town to buy supplies for their camp out later that day.  Thomas and I lasted behind the 2 or 3 mile an hour Cat just past the first ditch and then went around him so we could do a little walking around and exploring on the way up.  We checked out the Thinking Rock and the big washout and then cruised around looking for cool camp sights.  We continued on up the mountain and did some more exploring (OK--I kind of forgot where the headgate was so we did a lot of walking up the ditch.)  With so many trees going down from pine beetle damage we had to go off the trail to get around them.  Bob just pushed them aside with his big play toy!  One tree was way too big so he had to go around it, too.

 Thomas heads up the hill to the Thinking Rock

 Looking down on the ditch and then the river

 Thomas stands on the edge of the headgate with the river behind him

We finally reached the headgate and discovered someone must have been messing with it and pushed it clear shut!  There must be some crazies running around in the remote parts of the forest is all I've got to say.  Bob showed Thomas what to do and we got it jacked up (it's an old wooden one with no wheels to turn just leverage!)

 Bob explains to us how the headgate works.

It's an oldie!

 Bob is still giving us instructions!

  The river is running higher than Bob has ever seen it in all the years he has been up there.  I took pictures but with the roaring of the water it was much more impressive!

 The Beaver Creek is really roaring.

  We hiked back up to the vehicles and I walked along the top of the ridge and checked for leaks in the ditch.  There was one suspicious place so we walked down to the weir so we could cross it and go back up to the leaky place to fix it.

 Coming up the hill from the headgate.  Notice all the beetle kill.

 I love this picture!  The trees aren't dead and they smell divine!  That is the canyon going up to Aqua Fria in the background.  Still lots of snow up there.

When we got to the weir, we discovered we had opened the gate too much and so Thomas and I walked back up to the headgate and lowered it by 1 board.

 Thomas is closing down the headgate a little

  That was enough for the water not to go over the top of the leaky part so we finally could come back home.  It was such a gorgeous day we just enjoyed it to the hilt!  One sour note--I killed 3 big mosquitoes filled with my blood!  This is way too early for those pests!

Here comes the Cat.  Notice the dead tree I'm standing near and the live little ones along the trail

Looking over the job.  The river roars on down.

The Cat is headed home.  He about wiped out the fence in the foreground as he came through but it made it unhurt.

Speaking of irrigating, today I decided it was time to go pick rhubarb.  I set out walking (since I really need the exercise and I wanted to take some pictures along the way).  I had not even got out of the driveway and I noticed a lot of water had been running down our road cutting a little trench.  I'd never seen this before so I went back and got Bob.  The water has been so high the last few days that the ditch closest to our road went way out of its banks and ran down the road.  It had gone down enough that it was no longer running over, but we decided to go on up and check out some more ditches.  Luckily I brought the camera with me and took some pictures of springtime around here! The ditches were doing OK so it was an enjoyable ride!

Bob's doing a little irrigating

A question for the Manville kids.  Where is this?  What is the building in the background?

Look at that blue sky!

Kathi and Danny, I hope one of those isn't "your tree!"

We drove around and couldn't see the writing anywhere so I hope we just didn't know where to look.

More about my rhubarb adventure, fishing, and Springtime in the Rockies in later blogs.

A "Fun Family Adventure"

One last report on our Memorial weekend is in order.  I felt I must talk about another Manville/Corkle type holiday event.  Back when my children and their cousins were school age and a holiday came along 2 things usually happened.  1.  We would plan to celebrate with some kind of meal with local relatives which most often meant  at least the Corkles came out to the ranch.  2.  Since there was a lot of extra help, Bob and/or Uncle George would plan to get some kind of project done before we ate.  This could include moving cattle, branding or working cattle for some reason or other, putting in a garage/shop door, some kind of irrigation project, fixing a piece of equipment or testing it, or whatever.

The moving cattle thing was the worst since there was always a lot of extra traffic on our country roads.  Campers, fishermen, hikers and so forth wanted to get where they were going and didn't feel the need to be sitting still while a herd of cows and calves balked at crossing a bridge or mama cows tried to go back to find their calves who had ducked under fences.  So of course someone would always lean on their horn and come plowing through the herd scattering them everywhere.  This project never went as planned ("Oh, it ought to take about an hour just to move them up to the North Field") and by late afternoon we might get to eat the planned noon meal!  there were usually some of the kids' friends and lots of cousins involved in this and not all of us were on horseback, either!  It seemed like no project that was attempted ever worked out the way it was planned so the kids always knew to eat a big breakfast when holidays occurred!

Now to the present, when my children and some of my grandchildren are all  grown up and only Bob and I are left at home.  The Corkles are also grown up and we don't seem to get together as much any more so Bob and George don't get to make plans for projects--or do they........

Bob seems to still be in the mode on a smaller scale since there are just the two of us around usually.  Especially for Memorial Day.  As it happened, Bob had just had a new to us John Deere Crawler delivered to the top of the hill on Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend.  On Sunday, he announced that we would drive up and get the Cat and then I could drive the car back down to the house and he would bring the Cat down.  I had been down sitting on the porch enjoying the rest of my coffee, reading and hearing Bob playing with his new toy, pushing trees off the road. I was so absorbed in my book I didn't realize how time had passed and the next thing I know, Bob is walking in to the cabin!  The new crawler had quit on him about a quarter of a mile up the road!  He was fuming as this has happened to us before with used equipment we have purchased.  His first strategy was to go to the neighbors to buy about 10 gallons of diesel since we only had gas here.  When we got over there (about 2.5 miles away) they weren't around so we decided to go into town to get it (about 20 more miles away).  We got the diesel and some groceries and headed for home an hour or two later.

We loaded the two 5 gallon cans onto the 4 wheeler and took it up to the Cat.  Bob mumbling the whole time about filters and clogged fuel lines, and 30 day warranties.  I suggested we only use 1 can of diesel in case running out of fuel was not the problem and we wouldn't waste the expensive stuff if we had to drain the lines (a brilliant idea, I thought!).  We poured in the 5 gallons , said a little prayer, and hit the starter.  Whoopie!  It started right up!  A true first in the annals of Manville fun family adventures!  I was able to take the 4 wheeler home and prepare lunch a few hours behind schedule!  I was so excited I forgot to take a picture of the stranded Cat.  It was quite picturesque, too.  Well, I feel sure there will be other opportunities.......

The culprit in our fun family adventure!  Notice the Delaney Butte in the background where our home ranch was and the sight of many of our holiday adventures.