Fall is Here!

The gate to our property.......

All that's left of the old red truck.

Here's a companion picture for the one in your guest bedroom, Kathi.

Indian summer is a favorite time for me!  Although summer is still the best season, I savor Indian Summer because it is the last hurrah before winter sets in for a looong time here in North Park.

The Haskins meadow with Delaney Butte in the distance.

The hay is up and the cattle are headed for home.

Funny how on the first day of fall I started craving "fall foods".  I guess I started seeing the leaves changing (very late for North Park this year) and digging out my sweaters and warmer clothes and that spurred on my fall appetite!  I also got on the ball and started some fall cleaning projects!  How weird is that!  Here are some pictures and a few of my "fall foods".

The pond looks like a mirror.

Bright red rose hips.

My Favorite Fall Foods

Chili, of course, is an all time favorite at this time of year!  Cream of squash, cream of cauliflower, tomato basil soups, potato soup, Grampa's stew, a new Mexican style stew I made up with Rotel tomatoes, Albondigos soup, posole, Beans and Rice Haitian, making chili sauce, tomato sauce, Italian sauce (anything to use up tomatoes before first freeze), fried mush (or polenta, a new favorite), cornbread, hoe cakes, potato pancakes, chicken pot pie, fall breads and muffins like apple, pumpkin, cranberry, banana, etc., corned beef hash, and chuck wagon beans.  Also anything zucchini to get them used up ( I found a great new recipe called Italian Zucchini Casserole with pepperoni, cottage and mozzarella cheeses, onions and fresh tomatoes that is really tasty!).  Pickled beets and eggs are a must using fresh beets from the farmers market! Hot apple cider or wassail, hot buttered rum, all kinds of hot chocolate, and, of course, all kinds of bar cookies but especially that all season favorite, Brownies!

  OK that's enough food fantasies for the day!  Now I'm going outside to take some fall pictures.

Our cabin in fall.

Oh the beautiful blue fall sky!

Today was absolutely a perfect day for picture taking and hiking so I was gone for several hours and took tons of pictures!  The peak of the fall colors here will be sometime next week, I think, so I may have to go out again but for today I took a lot of "artsy fartsy" pictures.  Some of them will have more meaning for the family but are still pretty.  I think I will have to do another post of just the fall pictures but here are a few to get started.

Lovely!

Fall is coming to the cabin!

Summer's last hurrah.  Indian Paintbrush is still blooming.

hi

Six Years Ago Today

Yep, that is me back in 2004 less than a year before I had surgery!

Today is my Bandiversary!  Six years ago I was in the Almater Hospital in Mexicali, Mexico with a brand new Lapband in place!  What a life changing decision I had made.  I didn't know then whether it would work or not, whether I would never be able to enjoy broccoli again (as one of my daughters pointed out), or even if this was just another of the many attempts I had made to lose weight and never gain it back again only to be disappointed once again.  Well, I am here to tell everyone that it did work and I am at my goal weight and still holding six years later.  I feel so much better with more energy and not so many aches and pains as I did back then.  I sleep better and do not fantasize about food all the time (well maybe I do sometimes but a few bites of it and I am good to go instead of eating way too much and then craving more!).  I can still wear clothes I got 5 years ago and they still fit although they are pretty worn out by now!  My back and feet don't hurt all the time and I just feel healthier. 

Bob, Dr. Aceves and I six years ago in Mexicali 2 days after my surgery.

I highly recommend weight loss surgery to those who are excessively overweight.  There are several new procedures around plus the old standbys so do your research and find out as much as you can if you are thinking about it.  I probably would have done the vertical sleeve if it had been around back then but I am happy with what I have and it continues to work for me.  I am glad I went to Dr. Aceves in Mexico.  Insurance did not cover lapband surgery back then and I am glad it didn't!  He is the best as is the hospital and it's staff.  I am so grateful to them all for such a special experience and for the successful outcome.  Here's to many more years of a normal lifestyle thanks to my lapband!

Me in June of 2011 drinking my morning coffee.  Yes, I still can eat broccoli and drink coffee!

Milk Dud Popcorn

Milk Dud Popcorn

As promised, here is the great, addictive popcorn recipe that Kim's family loves so much.  I had been hearing about it for several years but always pictured it as popcorn with chunks of Milk Duds in it.  Kim finally had all the ingredients in one place and made some for movie watching one evening while we were in Elko.  WOW!  It was great! So here it is compliments of  Kim Jones.

Milk Dud Popcorn

Ingredients:

All you need except for a splash of milk which I didn't have so I used some cream.

2 bags microwave popcorn

1 regular size box of Milk Duds

1-2 Tbsp. milk

Directions:

 

Pop the popcorn in your microwave following package directions.  When done pour into a large bowl.  Put Milk Duds in a small bowl and add a little milk.  Melt in the microwave until all melted about 1 minute.  Add a little more milk if needed to make the melted candy pourable.  Pour over the popcorn and toss to coat.  Enjoy this tasty snack on movie night or anytime!  Someone said you could do it with Sugar Babies, too, but I haven't tried it.  

I highly recommend you stock up on Milk Duds and popcorn before trying this.  It is so good you will want to make more especially if you have to share it with others!!!

Bob's healthy lunch for today.

My sticky, chocolatey, caramelly Milk Dud Popcorn "35% less fat" lunch! That's what the Milk Dud box said....

Lightning Strikes!

Carla and Izzy enjoy the view at the end of the Hidden Lakes road.

I found this in my archives as a draft so I don't think I ever posted it.  This happened in July during all our heavy rain storms.  I wrote this as an email to a friend and then decided to use it as a blog so here it is! I didn't take any pictures so this is it.

Awhile ago, we had some weather woes of our own! One Tuesday night, I think, we had a huge electrical storm with some very close lightning strikes.  It reminded me of Milwaukee or the PA mountains and the same thing happened.  I was taking a shower the next morning and all of a sudden there was no water!  It just came in about 10 second spurts and then was off for 20 seconds.  Although the lights never went out during the storm I felt sure we must have been hit by lightning.  I went out to the shop to see how the hot tub was doing and there were all kinds of problems out there.  The garage door was making humming noises and the hot tub was blinking on and off in time to the humming of the door!  Really weird.  Oh, and our phone didn't work either.  The phone guy came the next day and found the trouble about 3000 feet from the house.  The wires were fried!  He got that fixed and Bob called Harry Corkle (his nephew who is a building contractor) to see if he knew what might be our problem in the shop and our pump.  And as you may remember from my blog our road is almost washed out too and our little foot bridge is now completely washed out!  What a mess this weather has made this year!

Harry came to the rescue  this past weekend with big dump trucks of gravel to fix the road and all kinds of electrical stuff to test and repair our wiring.  It took 2 days and much digging up of lines and crawling around in our muddy crawl space to get the job done but in the end he determined that our wiring had been hit 8 places in all!!!  We were down here in Nebraska by the time he and Hughie got done fixing it and called us to tell me they had my hot tub back to heating again!  On the way down here we got to thinking that just maybe we needed to call our insurance man and see if it covered any of our problems!  So Bob called this morning and Yes!  it covered everything, so we are happy!

JJ and Ozzie's Big Surprise

I love this picture of Erin all dressed up getting ready to ride her motorcycle to church!

 A few weeks ago JJ, Ozzie, Erin and Brent headed to Sturgis on their motorcycles for their big adventure.  Unbeknownst to them we were headed west to Elko to give them a big surprise.  We knew we would be at their house for a week before they got home but that did not deter us.  We called Ozzie's mom who lives with them in her own apartment to let her know so we wouldn't scare her to death when we barged in.  She thought it was a great idea so off we went.

JJ's family was really surprised when they got home!  We had a lot of fun even the week before they got home visiting with friends and neighbors.  Since I had lived and worked in the Elko County School District for 11 years I had many friends living in the Elko area.  I figured I could visit with them before everyone showed up.  It worked out well and I even got to do some "crafting" with Tuinita, Ozzie's mom.  Bob got some driving time in with Becci, the neighbor girl he had been helping get her license last winter. 

When JJ, Erin, Brent, and Ozzie plus Micah and his whole family got home we had a fun time figuring out where everyone would sleep.  Micah, Kim and the 3 girls slept out in the "box", Ozzie's camper.  The rest of us fit into their house.  Erin slept in her room in the basement (which is Tuinita's apartment) and I slept in the sewing room down there.  Bob was on the couch in the upstairs living room and Brent had the room we usually sleep in upstairs.  Bob didn't get much sleep up there due to kids, Micah or Kim running in and out most of night!  Of course the little ones were up early as well! Brent even passed through at 4 AM to go bow hunting with friends! Bob and the little girls also fought over the TV.  He was trying to watch the Little League games and they wanted to watch Nickelodeon!  The girls also LOVED my Ipad, Kindle, and computer.  Natalie, the 4 year old, got on the Ipad and found all kinds of apps Carla had on it for preschoolers and was playing them!  Next thing Micah knew she was watching Tangled on my Ipad!  She recognized the Netflix logo and clicked away until she had ordered it and was watching it.  These high tech kids amaze me!  She had never seen an Ipad before.  My electronic stuff was in use the whole time so I didn't get much done with them!

 Kim and I helped JJ get her room ready for school since she couldn't get into it all summer due to asbestos removal.  I think she finally found out she could get it all done and ready in a few days if she had to, so she won't have to waste 2 or 3 weeks every summer at school!  Every fall I kind of miss the excitement of starting school, but getting the room ready and visiting with teachers and staff was plenty enough for me and now I am happy!  I even made it to Tuesday morning coffee with JJ's teacher friends the day before school started in Elko County.  Ain't retirement lovely!

Since I have not been a regular blogger this summer I have a lot of catching up to do.  I am adding some pictures taken during several visits Carla made to the cabin this summer to get the ball rolling!

While we were in Elko Kim made her famous MilkDud Popcorn.  Her family LOVES this stuff and I could not figure out how it all worked.  Finally I ate some and it really is fabulous so I am going to post the recipe in my next blog!

On August 6, 2011 Jim, Carla, Bob and I went for a drive over Buffalo Pass.  The sign said it was open, but we never made it even to the top.  Here's where we turned around!

Just before we left for Elko, Carla and Paul came up for a visit.  This is Carla's big fish she caught out of the pond!

Carla with her bouquet of wildflowers with Rabbit Ears in the background on our alternate route after being "snowed out" of Buffalo Pass.

One of My Favorite Movies

The Man From Snowy River

A few nights ago Bob and I watched one of my favorite movies (a Western!) and I was just as impressed with it as I was when I first saw it in the movie theater in Fort Collins in 1982.

Some of the reasons I like it are first, the gorgeous scenery of those Australian mountains and the camera work that went with them. The scenes with Jessica on that cliff and the storms coming over the mountains are breath taking. I also love the scene where the ranchers are all gathering to go after the brumbies. Their costumes and their authentic looks are how I always have envisioned Australian "cowboys". That guy with the beard and the big curvy pipe is my perfect Australian rancher!

The photography is beautiful in this movie.

Another thing I love about this movie is the music. The piano and French horns, oboes, and just the whole thing is beautiful. I even went to youtube and listened to some of the compositions from the movie on it!   From Fuer Elise to Jessica's Sonata to the background music while viewing the horses and mountains, it really sets the mood.

http://youtu.be/PMR7oHJoXTA

This is Jessica's sonata with some lovely slides to go with it.

This really is a steep cliff.  Notice that the trees are straight.

My favorite part of the movie and the most famous part is when Tom Burlinson rides that horse off the cliff. The first time I saw this scene I figured it was trick photography but after watching it many times and reading notes on the movie I now know it was actually done! I had heard that Tom had done his own riding for this movie but I found the following quote that really surprised me.

Tom Burlinson had never ridden horses much before making this movie and when he took Denny over the cliff to go after the brumbies that was a one-take shot at full gallop down the cliff face.

Jim and Jessica up on the mountain.  Spectacular scenery!

I am not really a true horse person and never watched many Westerns until recently but this film also has excitement, romance and a good story. The horses are beautiful and so are the Hereford cattle (I had to mention them, hehehe.)

The horse scenes are beautiful!

I have included the chase scene and the "descent" over the cliff below. The camera work of the horses crossing rivers, running down a steep cliff, and running through snow is spectacular!



Now I think I need to go get out our video of "Man From Snowy River" and it's sequel and have an evening of visiting Australia once again!

The final scene of the movie.  The Man From Snowy River.