Thursday

Things to smile about ....

Colors of Spring
New adventures this spring: sourdough.
Our daughter in law recently gave me a sourdough starter; of course I happily accepted her gift. 
In years past, I did all the Amish starter and sourdough starter things. 
I have changed the way that I do sourdough this time around.
I do not babysit it. 
 I neglect it in the refrigerator for days at a time.
I feed it periodically and use the 'discard for things like chocolate chip cookies, or blueberry pancakes, and even 'Everything but the bagel seaoning' crackers. 
Then, about once a week, I feed the poor neglected thing, and make bread.

Chocolate chip cookies... made with 'discard'
Sourdough Boule
Double chocolate sourdough 
April Fool's day storm... we ended up with an inch or so.
In a tall tree, vultures spread their wings to dry and warm themselves.

Sun setting over the mountains.
On our way home from our five hour shift at the temple, the sun was beginning to set and it was such a beautiful and peaceful sight. 
💗

Attitude of Gratitude:
~ Thankful for the morning sun. 
I've always been 'solar powered'!
~Warm bread coming out of the oven.
~A birthday celebratory luncheon for my husband with our family and our new Grandson.











 

Wednesday

Woven days....


Manti Temple
We're working as Coordinatiors in the temple again, and it keeps up busy and blessed. 
We are trying to work on more of our family history, and do ordinances for our ancestors. We are nearing the 2000 persons mark for our personal family names that we've done in the past 12 months.
(This is an older picture of our son and his wife)
On that note... our youngest and his wife have added to our family.
We have another Grand! 
His name is Charlie, and he's now 6 months old, and perfect, of course :)






Tucker and Timber
The pups have grown up. We take them on daily walks up the mountain trail, or near the creek trail. 


Otter Creek Resevoir
More camping trips are in our future, to one of our favorite places.
I've been freeze drying a ton of stuff; things to take with us camping.
 This week, I freeze dried cream cheese. 

Clear Creek Canyon.
Going on a ride through the canyon is a frequent event.
We like to stop and view the many petroglyphs and pictographs along the way.

It is amazing how quickly time passes... 
I've especially noticed that time flies as I'm getting older.
I hope to blog more and have a small record of everyday life .

Attitude of Gratitude:
Daffodils blossoming, working in the yard, day trips. 


 

Sunday

~ Summer Scrapbook 2 ~



 




Beautiful summer sky. 
I can't remember a year when I've enjoyed summer as much as I am enjoying this summer.

Sitting at the kitchen table, I can hear the pft~pft sound of the pressure canner.
Turkey vegetable soup is being processed. 
My second pressure canning session of this summer. 
I am so rusty where pressure canning is concerned, so I've been doing small batches to remember and tune up my pressure canning skills.
My first batch of pressure canned goods was some boneless country-style spareribs.
They turned out wonderful, although I had a bit more siphoning than I wanted. Too hot of a burner... this time I'm trying to find the sweet spot on the burner setting.

Morning sky view, from my front porch...
Along our walking path, early in the morning. On this morning, we could still see a bit of the smoke from the fire over by Fillmore, on the other side of the west mountains. Quite a long ways from where we live, but the smoke was quite visable in our valley. The fire is completely out now, thankfully.
Our view from the front porch... mountains and more mountains.
Also, our neighbor's pasture for their two mules... that "HEE~HAW" so loudly in the morning, and see their chickens running around.

A good yard~sale find ~another puzzle by Eric Dowdle.
I've been collecting these puzzles whenever I see one for a good price at a yard sale or at a thrift store.


Turns out that our one white rose bush produces long-stemmed roses. What a treat!!
Another morning sky over our subdivision.
Another early morning soak at the natural hot spring . We only soak our feet and legs and watch the sun rise over our valley.


We have enjoyed taking our side by side aka : the scooter, up the canyon for morning rides.

The red barn. This is the red barn at a new RV park in town, where we can go for BYU Creamery ice cream. It's a real treat!
Growing up in Provo, and with my mom working for BYU, I have always been a fan of BYU Creamery ice cream, so all these decades and decades later to have a place for delicious ice cream in our little town is awesome!

We are big fans of popcorn. We recently bought 40 lbs of popcorn, We have Sam's club membership that we can order from and free shipping right to our front door. Sure makes it nice, especially with gas prices being so high and we are at least 2 + hours from the closest Sam's club.
We have a Whirlypop popper, and we love, love popcorn made in that thing! It's wonderful!
Along a 'country road' drive a day or so ago, we saw these hay bales being wrapped with patriotic mesh. How fun!!
Newest members of the family .. two border collies. Brothers.
We are training them and they are so smart!!
They will be outside dogs, but house trained so that when the weather is too hot or cold they can be inside.


Ye olde pressure canner **smile*.
I have a goal of emptying one of our freezers and canning all of the meat in that freezer. 
A few more yard sale finds... this glorious rooster and a wreath as well.
I don't know about where you live, but where we live, the yard sales have been few and far between. Not a ton of great stuff at the thrift stores either. I feel like folks are hanging on to their decor and deciding that they can live with their choices ...for now.
I did give one of our daughters in laws some darling country blue dishes that she has long admired. I found them at a yard sale, new in the box, last summer. 
She was tickled with them and I was happy that she was happy!

This week ~~ more canning. 
                 ~~ more cleaning out borders..trimming and weeding, etc.
                ~~ painting the garage side of the laundry room door. Really needs a re~fresh!
               ~~ beginning the process of switching around the library for my office. 
              ~~ morning walks and country drives, and watching the sunrises and sunsets.