I’m a bit of a chilihead. Living in Southwest Colorado for 10 years, (not to mention southern California for a while when I was a kid, and traveling in Mexico for 9 months in my 20’s) has given me a serious appreciation for a well-balanced bowl of red. Read the rest of this entry »
With a three day weekend upon us, two very antsy dogs in the house, and yet another day of overcast, fog, and temperatures hovering between 28 and 34 degrees, we decided to Get Out Of Dodge anyway, and look for a new place to go for a hike. We also needed to run down to Milton-Freewater Oregon, 10 miles south of here, to pick up some rabbit chow. Read the rest of this entry »
In retrospect, perhaps these should be renamed “rabbit pellets”. They may not be the most appetizing thing to look at, but trust me, they taste great.
Years ago, I had a subscription to Saveur magazine. I love to travel and I love to cook, and I thought a magazine that combined the two would be great. Alas, while the travel stories were inspiring, the recipes just weren’t a good fit for me. A bit too haute cuisine and hard to find ingredients for how I tend to cook. During a one year subscription, I made one and only one recipe, for Sugar Plums. Read the rest of this entry »
A friend of mine was explaining her alternative to the traditional New Years Resolutions. Instead of picking things you want to work on, things that you don’t like about yourself or the world, things that are negative, pick three words that represent what you would like to have MORE OF in the New Year. What a lovely idea! Read the rest of this entry »
Wait, there was a Soap Making 101 post?
No, there wasn’t. (Actually, now there is. I wrote it AFTER I wrote this post). There are LOTS of great resources on the web to learn how to make soap. I learned primarily from the Miller’s Homemade Soap pages. It’s a clunky website, compared to how sites are put together now, and is not regularly updated anymore, but it’s still a great resource. I also highly recommend the About.com info on soap making, and tons of great resources on SoapQueenTV put together by Brambleberry, a soapmaking supplier that I’ve been ordering from for years. Read the rest of this entry »
Beads are made from Sulpey, that poly clay that you bake. My mother-in-law gave me a bunch of it years ago. Works great for this purpose, and makes me want a play-doh barber shop for Christmas!
I love December. Wrapping up the outside stuff (still no snow, so always more plants to mulch, pens to clean, and hoses to put away). Time to play with the inside stuff. Time to take on new projects, or old ones set aside for way too long. Read the rest of this entry »
Meet Gideon (left) and Rossi (right).
As some of you may remember, we’ve been looking for a new dog for quite some time. Our two current dogs are more than 14 years old. One is blind in one eye, mostly deaf, and no longer able to squat when he poops, or, often, even able to make it outside from the garage. The other is getting cataracts, is about 10-15 lbs overweight, and has bad hips. She has a difficult time getting around, and mostly guards her food bowl, which explains the weight gain. We still love them both, but they aren’t much good for scaring off the coyotes at night or protecting the property while we run to the store (or up to Spokane for an overnight errand). Read the rest of this entry »
OK, not the best picture in the world. We were more interested in eating it than photographing it.
Confession. You know the whole cupcake trend? I am SO over it. Not because I don’t like cake. I love cake. But because I don’t love buckets of icing, and I like my cakes to be relatively light (both in terms of sugar, fat and texture). I’ve never had a cupcake shop cupcake where the icing did not outweigh the cake, and the cake, in order to hold all of that icing, was as dense as pound cake. They always put me into a sugar coma and leave me regretting the purchase (I know, I’m weird that way). I had a coworker who was an icing lover. Whenever we had cake in the office, I would scrape off about 3/4 of my icing and drop it onto her plate, much to her delight. Read the rest of this entry »
Years ago, I helped train volunteers to guide kids on outdoor educational nature walks. It was an intense 17 hour, three day training. Accompanying this hands-on information overload was a large three ringed binder. Volunteers were expected to understand and be able to replicate the information it contained. To lessen the pressure, interspersed throughout were funny or inspiring quotes and sayings. Things like “first you pee, then you see” to remind volunteers that if their charges hadn’t had their basic needs met, they were not going to pay much attention on the trail. Read the rest of this entry »
This is the center of the gravel driveway.
Well, after about 2 1/2 months of no rain, we’ve had more than 2 inches in the last few weeks. Aside from the wet, the weather has generally been in the 60’s to 70’s during the day, which means that lots and lots of cheat grass (Bromus tectorum) and storksbill are germinating like crazy. Areas of the pasture that were totally brown a few weeks ago now look like a golf course. Read the rest of this entry »
MilesAwayFarm
Miles Away Farm Blog 