Final Pickings
This fall has been crazy in Denver. Our average first frost date is September 10-20 (depending on where you look), but we didn’t get a real frost until this week…over month later than expected! We have of course enjoyed these late veggies, and here is the evidence.
Joel’s brother, wife, and their daughter visited us last weekend, so here are pictures of our niece chowing down on some of the quart of cherry tomatoes we picked.
Since I knew the frost was hitting this week, I spent some time on Monday picking the last tasty treats despite the cold, gusting wind. The cherry tomatoes are ripening nicely, but I don’t have high hopes for the peppers and tomatoes that weren’t remotely beginning to ripen.
Otherwise, I’m just hoping to keep a few of the herbs going as long as possible.
Unbelievable
If you don’t live in the city, you may not be familiar with street sweeping. Once a month, our side of the street is “swept”, so we move our car to the other side. On the previous day, the other side is swept, so they move theirs to our side. This has gone pretty well, except for the 2 times we’ve gotten tickets. Oops. I won’t go into it, but one of them was not our fault!
Anyway, I went out to get the car last week on street sweeping day. Like a good girl, I had moved it to the other side. I noticed something under my windshield wiper, and to my shock, this is what I found:
1. This appears to be from one of the only neighbors on our block we have been unable to meet. We’ve made brief attempts, but he seemed to thwart us.
2. I believe he is incorrect in stating that we essentially have assigned parking places…on the street. Besides, our block always has plenty of parking.
3. Apparently our tax dollars reserve said parking place for us. Who knew?
4. I guess us parking there once created a “problem,” as described on the back of the note.
Overall, we were quite surprised to receive a note like this. It makes us sad for this person, as I guess he must be pretty unhappy to write a note like that. We probably won’t live in this house too much longer, but maybe we can build a bridge sometime.
Still going
Well, the garden is still producing a bit here and there. Last week, I got these lovely items:
Tonight, I picked a zucchini and 3 more butternut squashes. The cherry tomatoes have slowed down, but they are still producing some nice ones. We don’t have a freezing night in the forecast, so that is great, but we shall see… Update: Although the low is only 43 tonight, we do have a frost advisory, so I better work on that tonight.
Quiltette
When we found out our good friends Joseph and Courtney were expecting, I knew I wanted to make them something. I made the patchwork ball for Ethan and Carla last year, so I wasn’t sure what I should make from my extremely limited sewing repertoire. I guess it had to be something new. I must have been feeling ambitious when I decided to make a little baby quilt (or “quiltette” as I dubbed it). As I have zero quilting skills, this was quite a project for me. I tried to make it as simple as possible, using only squares from charm packs instead of making blocks.
When it came time to quilt, I figured I’d just do it by hand since I didn’t know what I was doing. I practiced on a scrap piece, and it was awful! Apparently hand stitching needs some practice. I also practiced machine quilting, but it wasn’t working either. Per the internets, I needed a walking foot for my machine, and that was just the trick. I just traced the lines of the squares on the face to quilt it, and I didn’t make too many mistakes. Finally, I bound it (on the airplane to Nashville) and was done!
I’m not up for any quilting projects any time soon, but I’m glad I did it. See this post for a picture of baby Noland!
PS – Props to Anna Maria Horner’s Seams to Me: 24 New Reasons to Love Sewing
Little Matterhorn – RMNP
After visiting the Matterhorn during our 2007 trip to Switzerland, there was no question about visiting Little Matterhorn in Rocky Mountain National Park when we found out about it in my Colorado Scrambles: Climbs Beyond the Beaten Path book.
The real Matterhorn:
This time, we wouldn’t just see it, we would make the point to climb it! The hike starts out at the popular Bear Lake trailhead. Our guide book had us exiting the trail near Lake Helene to approach the mountain. We kept commenting that Little Mattherhorn looked nothing like the real deal…and from this approach, it really didn’t.
After boulder and talus hopping for a couple hours, we finally reached the third class ridge.
We were in complete solitude until we met up with a couple nice guys on the ridge. They were kind enough to snap a picture of us on their decent and email it to us! Thanks Dan!
The ridge only took around thirty minutes in each direction. The summit is really just a big cairn at the end of the ridge. The most exciting part of the climb was a tight chimney (probably class 4) right before the summit. I don’t think Lauren was too excited! Note from Lauren: This was a fake smile because I had just gotten my leg stuck!
Happy on the summit!
By the time we reached the parking lot, we had been hiking/climbing for 9+ hours! Thanks to my great wife for being a champ! We ended the day with some great thai food in Boulder and crashed when we got home.
P.S. After doing a little research, I found a picture of Little Matterhorn from Odessa Lake, and it looked much more like the real deal from that angle. Photo Credits: Andrew Mace on Flickr
It’s Fall in Colorado
Last weekend, we took a little trip to the mountains to check out the leaves changing. Although I do miss the variety of fall colors in TN, the aspens are pretty spectacular as well. We camped Friday night near Kenosha Pass and then headed back to the pass for a bit of hiking on the Colorado Trail.
Mandy’s Wedding
While in Nashville, we had the pleasure of attending my old roommate Mandy’s wedding in Gallatin. Mandy spent countless hours making countless items for the wedding. Now I wish I had taken pictures of some of her details! You can check them out on her blog if you want to bask in your own laziness and lack of craftiness…seriously…Mandy is a crafting machine. Here are a few pictures we took on the big day.
S-5 (old roommate) reunion:
Canning Fun
As part of my ever increasing domestic aspirations, I did some more canning. Last week, I canned tomatoes. I didn’t have enough from my plants to can and since they’ve been tasting bad, I went to my favorite Berry Patch Farms and got a box of organic tomatoes. Peeling, coring, and seeding the tomatoes was a lot of work, but hopefully they’ll be great this winter. Here are two of the pints:
Last week, my friend Laurel invited me over for a grape jelly party. Her neighbor (also a church friend) has a huge grape vine, and another lady from our church was coming over to teach the art of making grape jelly. We picked tons of grapes (I should have taken a picture!) and made loads of freezer jelly. We had heard of a method of canning grapes with water and sugar to make a not too concentrated grape juice concentrate, and I wanted to try it. So yesterday, I picked more grapes and made the juice! We’ll see how it tastes, but it was at least a fun experiment.
A while back, we had a groupon (50% off deal) for Door to Door Organics. They make weekly deliveries of organic produce to subscribers. The produce is of course not local at all during much of the year, so I waited to redeem mine until a good bit was local. My delivery came yesterday, and I’m excited to use everything! It’s turned out not to be a great cooking week for me, but I’ll see what I can do.
If you’re interested in garden updates from other people, check out the Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage.
Nashville fun
We had a wonderful trip to Nashville around Labor Day. The weather was shockingly not hot which was such a blessing. We were hit with the humidity when we exited the airport, but it didn’t bother us again. During the trip, we were quite busy, but we had a great time visiting with family and friends. The highlights were Mandy’s wedding, seeing Joseph and Courtney’s new baby, having meals with my family, meeting up with Joel’s parents in Huntsville, going to Waverly to see Grandmommy, and visiting with the Fykes, Baxters, Huffards, Otts, Allyson, Dave, Brittney, and Joel’s old coworkers.
Joseph and Courtney with baby Noland:
Us with Noland:
Mom with Noland:
The Huffards:
Joel holding sleeping Noland in the sheep they received as a gift…I think it was called something like a Pillow Pal, and apparently they’re fancy?
Us in Huntsville at Monte Sano State Park with Joel’s parents (there wasn’t anyone to take a group shot):
Hiking with my parents at Radnor Lake:
We can’t wait for another visit!
5 Years!
A couple of weeks ago, we had our 5th anniversary. For our honeymoon in 2005, we went to San Francisco and Yosemite National Park. When Joel needed to go to San Francisco a few months ago (part 2, part 3), we figured that would be our main anniversary celebration since it was almost 5 years since we were there before. We still wanted to do something on the real day, so we headed to Georgetown, CO for a little historic small town fun. Here is a shot of the downtown and one of us downtown.
We stayed at the Hotel Chateau Chamonix, and we highly recommend it! It was pricier than we wanted to spend, but it was worth it for a special occasion.
Our other main activity was touring the Hotel du Paris museum. It was fairly interesting, but we do not recommend it because the tour guide was really rude. The main Georgetown attraction is the Georgetown loop railroad, but we didn’t partake this time. Overall, Georgetown is a a nice place for a quiet break. Joel might not agree, but it was quite nice to have a weekend in the mountains that didn’t involve strenuous activity!
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