More dear oh deer

Yeah the damn deer did come back for desert. Got the squash all the way down to the nub in the middle of the plants. Don't seem to like the old leaves. Phillip covered up the beets,chard and new cukes with wire. Just a little late to save the squash in the garden. I have some planted up close to the house out in front where the deer hasn't ventured yet. I hope it is too close to the house to suit it. They are in bloom now and have small squash on them. Got some cukes and watermelon out with the flowers that are doing good so far. Maybe the marigolds will keep the deer from smelling them. So far so good. Been in the high 90's here yet so maybe all will make it to maturity.

Here is a puzzle or two to look at. I got them from a guy who used to live in Spokane and now has moved down to Walla Walla to live with his Daughter on a farm.

When you look at this do you see grey spots in between the black squares?

Stare at this one for 30 or 40 seconds and then look at a light colored blank wall. You will be surprised at what you see.

Granny

Getting motivated!

Last night I had the intent to get up early and try my hand at fishing the Blue River north of Silverthorn. I set my alarm for 6:30 A.M. so I would be there before the sun rolled into the valley. When the alarm went off this morning though I felt like fishing was less favorable than crawling back into bed for more sleep. I checked the reg's and thought "ehhh... I can only keep two fish and both of them have to be over 16 inches..." I have fished the Blue before and I've caught some decent fish, by that I mean I fished it the summer of 2003 with 15 outings and landed one rainbow that was about 13 inches. Sooooo, I crawled back into bed. I got up about 9:45 and felt pathetic. Since I was not going fishing I felt I had to motivate so that I would not feel like a total lazy slob. So I ate some breakfast and put on my hiking clothes and hit the trail. The goal was to walk out my door and hike all the way to Buffalo Bill Cody's grave site/museum, which is about 5 miles uphill from where I live.

Steph and Sis are familiar with the network of trails that link up to the Lookout Mt. Road where the museum is. However, they may not be familiar with this new trail. The Jefferson Co. park system must have cut the trail not too long ago.

There were other changes as well, this section of Apex trail has been re-routed.

One thing I thought was a bit scary is that it looks like they have been thinning out trees on the "Enchanted Forest" loop. I think it is kind of scary because we have had three big fires in Colorado and here is a tinder box of cut trees all dry as a bone.

After slugging up the trail I finally made it to the top. Here is a picture looking west from the museum parking lot.

Here's a picture looking down on Denver. Denver doesn't have the best air quality so this picture is a bit hazy. The haze that normally exists is supplemented with the fires going to the north, so this would be a neater looking picture under different circumstances.
Around 4:00 I made it back home with tired feet and a tad dehydrated. It was worth it though and I feel like I did something today other than loaf around. Maybe next week I'll go fishing on the Blue River.

First frost

We  got frost enough to kill the garden a few nights ago. The lettuce actually survived, and I figured it would be the first to go on a cold night. The arbor filled in quite nice but the east tower has a bit of frost damage on the top. The M-wall is pretty much finished for now, until spring, unless I get some time and cooperation from old Ma Nature.

I have built a royal exalted grand throne in the far corner of this picture. It is Poobahtic design and location, towering over all other rock benches around the area. From the driveway the top of the throne is about 6 1/2 feet tall, from the floor of the Corgi Coliseum below the throne it's about 10 feet to the top. 

The M-wall has been fun, but when my neighbor saw how it was going he decided to build a huge retaining wall at his place and that was about fours days of hard rock lifting work. I am so burned out on rocks right now. I could barely muster the energy to finish my project, [still not finished]

So,,,anyway from the Royal Exalted Grand Poobah thrown I can throw the Kong for the Corgis and get good distance because I am so high above the ground. And of course it is a most lofty and prestigious position from where I may be adequately worshiped. Yes,,I said "worshiped" ,,,,Oh! It's good to be Poobah.

Dear me deer.

The damn deer did come back and brought others with him. They ate everything in sight, even the flowers.
Didn't eat the squash or the cukes but maybe they are saving them for desert. Phillip is just going to have to put in a better fence next year or maybe have venison in the freezer.

Since we still have summer squash I will pass on a recipe or two to anyone else who has some.

Zucchini fritters.

2 cups shredded zucchini
1/4 cup shredded onion
2 eggs
1 tab. oil
1/4 tsp salt
dash pepper
dash garlic salt (optional)
1 cup cottage cheese
1/2 cup pancake mix

Beat well and fry big spoonfuls in hot oil. Smash with spoon a little to flatten.
Eat as a side dish or pour on the syrup for breakfast.
If you feel you can handle it then fry up a couple slices of bacon to crumble and add to the mix.

Surprise crisp.

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter or oleo
1/4 cup shortning
1 3/4 cup flour
1 1/2 cups quick oatmeal
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
Mix together and pat half in a 9X13 or larger cake pan.
pour in the cooked mixture and top with the other half dry mix.
bake at 350 for 30 to 45 min or until browned and bubbles come up the sides, which ever is first. Serve with whip cream or ice cream . don't tell anyone what is in it and they won't guess.

Filling

4 cups shredded zucchini
1 large shredded apple
juice and zest of 1 lemon
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/3 cup water
Put all in a sauce pan and cook till soft and slightly thickened.

Good stuff ...Granny

Fishing trip!!

That's what I said to myself this weekend when I got a crazy idea in my head. I had pondered the idea of throwing my camping gear in the truck and driving down to the only place in Colorado where I have had excellent luck fishing. The place I'm talking about is the Crystal River which is near Redstone, CO south of Carbondale, CO (home of Northface co.) At first I had doubts. What is the weather going to be like? Is it going to be worth the three hour drive just for an overnight trip? I checked the weather and it was supposed to be totally sunny with highs in the low 80's and zero chance of rain. So I said "fk it I'm heading down. I was on my second hole when I realized I made the right decision. Bamm! a hungry brown trout gobbled up my lure and I thought "ok, maybe this is the only fish I get this weekend but will I be able to catch more than one.?" As the trip continued my doubts vanished with each hungry fish attacking my lures on just about every cast. Here's a picture of that first brown.

About and hour later I landed two little rainbow trout. By this time I was thinking "if I catch any more fish I'm going to have to put more ice in the cooler." So I drove back to Carbondale for some supplies and it was also getting pretty hot and I wanted to cool off "hmmmff... low 80's huh, feels more like 97 to me." So I thought I would kill some time and cool down by slamming a Gatorade and making a few phone calls from the shade of a bench outside the store. After I made a few calls the sun was starting to go down. I decided to try a few more places on the river and then find a place to 'car camp' overnight. The last few holes I tried at the end of the day were not so hot and thought 3 fish in one day is not too shabby (especially since the last time I caught three fish in one day in Colorado was the year 2002). It was time to get some dinner and set up camp since the sun was starting to drop below the mountains. I tried setting up my tent only to find out that the elastic cord that holds the tent poles together completely lost its elasticity. "Hmm... ok no tent that sucks... well it's a good thing that the weather prediction had zero chance of rain because I'll be sleeping under the stars tonight."

So I felt like I was really roughing it, I mean who needs a tent anyway. So much so that I thought about how I would describe my "roughing it" setup in terms of everyday living. For instance here is a picture of my "roughing it" kitchen.

Here is a picture of my "roughing it" dining room and kitchen table and refrigerator.

When your "roughing it" rooms can be magically transformed to suit another purpose. For example, my dining room can change into the bedroom, presto change-o!

"Roughing it" can be achieved by finding out that some of your stuff doesn't work (like a tent) but your "roughing it" can be enhanced by forgetting items like eating utensils. So I had warmed up some jambalaya and realized I forgot a spoon. So I slurped down the juice and the solid pieces I ate with some makeshift chopsticks that I whittled out of sapling branches. Hey! it worked!

So after putting stuff away I crawled into my sleeping bag and then I thought "oh no I have to take a whiz." In a tent I hate this because you have to get out of your sleeping bag, unzip the door on your tent, slip on shoes or brave walking barefoot and hoping to not step on anything sharp. However, when sleeping in the back of your truck you can crawl out of your bag stand up and pee off the side without stepping on the ground. I should mention that one should not do this if there is a strong wind blowing in your face. I was lucky and there was no wind at all. The stars were beautiful and it is kinda neat to go to sleep by counting shooting stars but it was pretty cold.

The next day of fishing was awesome and in one and a half hours I caught two monster browns and a little rainbow, I figured that 3 fish was good enough and that I would try one more hole on the way back to Golden. The last place I tried to fish apparently had a natural hot spring. It was pretty random to smell the slight hint of sulphur and see steam coming off of a trickle of water coming out of the side of the riverbank. I tested the water with my finger and it wasn't scalding but was hotter than I like my shower. If I go down there again (probably next summer) I'll pack swim trunks and go for a dip.

The great Montana road trip

Howdy, a few weeks ago Steph and I got her moved up and settled into her new surroundings in Billings, MT. My boss was gracious enough to give me some time off so that it wouldn't be a up to Billings and back again kind of a trip. So being that this was the last time we had together before I went back to Golden we wanted to make the best of it. We were able to spend three days in Glacier Nat. Park and spend some time visiting with Ma & Pa. I was able to squeeze in a little fishing and we did some huckleberrry picking. We came back with a pretty good gob of berries. Anyway, I was a bit of a shutterbug on this trip and snapped off a few pictures. I thought I would share my favorites.

At the Logan pass visitor center there was a mama mt. goat and her baby. Steph and I were a bit peeved at the idiot people pretty much getting on top of the animals to get a picture. The mama goat didn't seem to mind too much but the poor baby was stressed out. You could tell that the poor thing wanted to stay close to mom but kept running away when people were breathing on the mother. Luckily a ranger came by and told people to get back. Anyway, I wanted a picture but didn't want to be a jerk. Steph said "how about we go into the visitor center and take a picture through the glass?" I thought "I'll have to turn off the flash and there will not be enough light, but what the hey I'll give it a shot." It actually worked!

Here is a picture taken from the tour bus on Going to the Sun road. They had a free shuttle, which was nice because we could let someone else do the driving and we could look out the window. The downside was that it ate up most of the day and we spent a lot of time waiting for the next bus, because it not just one bus east and one bus west. It was pretty complicated in that you had to really be on the ball and know which bus to take at which time or you could be stranded on the other end of the park.

Some cool water falls, the St. Mary Falls if I remember correctly.

Here is a picture taken from the Many Glacier visitor center.

Here is a picture of Trick Falls, named so because it looks like water is just randomly shooting out of a rock wall. Pretty cool.

This is a gnarled tree in the area Dad has dubbed the "Twisted Forest." I have no idea what is up with trees in this area. I can only imagine that it is either some localized parasite or some genetic mutation that has been passed on to seedlings and for what ever reason the seeds have not gone to far from the parent tree. Weird

Me catching a monster rainbow trout. By "monster" I mean a seven incher. Hey, it's better than being skunked!

Steph picking huckleberries. She makes a good huckleberry picking companion. She doesn't eat stuff that hasn't been rinsed off. Probably a good idea to wash food first but I have no issues with eating berries right off the bush. So vis a vis, I'm not a good huckleberry picking companion because I will return to the truck with a purple lipped grin.

link

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=opera&hs=AfQ&rls=en&q=i%C3%B1uksuk&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs
rfai=
This is the link Bill tried to post.