December's going fast - baking, decorating and socializing

 It's that time of year again that I love. We've settled in from our summer travels and acquired our Christmas Holiday spirit and an extra amount of good cheer. Now for the holiday baking - yay! Fruitcake first so there's plenty of time to "mellow" it (with a bourbon sprinkle every now and then). Next was to use those peppermint crunch baking chips to make chocolate chip, peppermint chip & pecan cookies. They were very good and I got a lot of good feedback from my taste-testers. They will be my cookie exchange offering.

Fruitcake is a wonderful thing!

Got the fruitcake swaddled & wrapped, my cookie tins out, plus
the .10¢ recipe books that I scored from the library, I think I'm set.

Peppermint crunch, chocolate chip, pecan cookies

Not sure what got into me, but I couldn't stop baking. So since we love macaroons, I had to try these Chocolate Macaroon Bars. Basically a compressed chocolate cake-like crust covered by a chocolate chip, coconut and pecan macaroon layer. Oh my goodness, these were goooood! I cut them up into tiny squares so I ended up with a nice sized batch. Some of which went into the freezer.

Chocolate Macaroon Bars. A 9" x 13" pan - probably 60 pieces.

I've been steadily working on my stock of Bobby-Dazzlers so I have something to offer my friends and neighborhood folks. Lots of people have the "secret Santa" type gift exchange events going on at work or Sunday school, and these seem to fit the bill. Sales have been steady. I dedicated a portion of the craft room to a small display setup. I obviously won't let strangers into my house but my neighbors are fine. I close off the rest of the house and the craft room has it's own entrance door to the outside courtyard.

Dazzler display area. I close off my craft room from the rest of the house.

We have had some nice weather and some breathtaking sunrises this month. The other week a large flock (30?) of American White Ibis came marching through our end of the neighborhood. Very cool! They started getting a little strung-out by the time I took this picture.

This end of the neighborhood is a cul-de-sac, no through traffic.

As for sunrises, check out this beauty!

Winter sunrises are just the best. 😍

Another traditional thing that I adhere to are snail mail Christmas cards. Even though I wish my Facebook friends all the best for the Holidays, I still send out Christmas cards to family and special friends. I love seeing them on my mantle so I'll bet they do too. I do "assorted" cards rather than buying a box of one type. More interesting that way and less of an expense.

Well, I guess that's all I got for you this time, but there's plenty happening in the upcoming weeks, so stay-tuned. Thanks for dropping by and you have a wonderful Christmas. Peace be unto all. 🎄 

A busy couple of weeks

 It was (finally) time to knuckle under and get some of my personal  "maintenance" items taken care of, meaning follow-up (stitches removal) on the MOHS surgery site for the skin cancer spot, my annual wellness and prescription renewal visit with my Doc, a re-check with the eye surgeon that did my cataract surgery and last but not least a root canal on the tooth that started bugging me in late Sept. Ruh-Roh as Scooby would say. 🥺

I've never had a root canal and I was pretty stressed out about it, but I went in yesterday to have it done and I have to say I was quite pleasantly surprised. It went very smoothly and I've experienced very little pain or discomfort - YAY! I hope that it may continue that way until it's settled down and stabilized within a week or so, then the crown will happen. They prescribed an OTC "pain bomb" of 3 x 200mg Ibuprofen plus 2 x 500mg Acetaminophen 2 times daily as needed. Wow, I never knew you could safely combine the 2 for tackling inflammation & pain relief when needed. I took the combo after I got home and have not needed any such measures since.

Great, and phew. Another item was to tackle getting a new phone. My old one only had 16GB internal storage(!?) and was running Android 9, haha, time to get up to speed. Another Samsung (A15) w/128GB internal storage was on sale & just right plus it was easy to port my contacts etc. over to it.

In process Butterflies - Commission from a Craft Fair visitor

One of the visitors to my booth during the Craft Fair asked me to make her a couple of butterflies, one a bit simpler and one really "beaded-up". Delivered them over the weekend and she loved them. She followed up with an email asking if I'd ever made a hummingbird...humm? I told her I'd look into whether I could develop a good-looking, workable shape.

The weather around here has been nice, in fact we had a bit of a cool snap last week which really felt good, although it was way too breezy for my liking (don't bother with the hairspray). 😳 I used the cooler weather to trim back our crepe myrtle out front. Hate letting all the leaves/berries fall onto the rocks in the yard, then you've got to deal with all the subsequent sprouts.

I had an opportunity to stop into a really nice Big Lots over on the other side of the river after delivering the Dazzlers and found a new baking chip that promises to make my cookie exchange offerings ultra-good. 

A creamy chip with peppermint candy chunks.

I can't wait to use them. I saw one recipe that featured a blonde cookie with coconut plus the chips and finished with a drizzle of dark chocolate to amp-up the pretty factor. That sounded intriguing, although if it's a cookie from my kitchen it's going to have pecans in it for sure. Also, at this time of year I'm anxiously awaiting Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Peppermint Bark Squares. So, so good, a super nice treat for after dinner.

Love, love!!

The other morning the Boss was up just before sunrise and took this shot from our 2nd story master. Pretty cool, pre-dawn rocket launch with a whoop-tee-doo contrail.

Well, that's about it for us, nothing terribly exciting. Thanks for stopping by though! See you next time.

Last minute scramble, a successful craft fair and MOHS

(Haha - did I fool you with the header? Just had to show off my banner.)

We've definitely gotten into the groove back home here and are enjoying some cooler fall weather this week. I've spent some time being productive in the kitchen, making and baking, and have stashed a fair bit in the freezer for coming days when I'm feeling lazy or are too busy to cook. Stuffed peppers was one thing I made with enough filling left over for a few burritos - win, win.

Too busy to cook is how it was leading up to the Mandarin Garden Club Craft Fair. I was in overdrive making up 'Bobby-Dazzlers' in various sizes and price ranges to add to my stock so if I had a really good day I wouldn't run out.

A small sample of some Bobby-Dazzlers

I'll admit to being kind of stressed-out with this being my first solo show. You might remember last fall I shared a booth with my neighbor, (I only had my trivets for that show). Her booth was an inside space but this one was an outside space. I was borrowing her pop-up tent and furnishing it, which was a much bigger deal for me. 😲 Going to all the trouble to set up and stage a booth, making & bringing all the inventory ~ a sure recipe for a big bite in the butt by Murphy's Law. Sure enough it rained (hard) during set up, the tent didn't have side panels although I did have a plastic dropcloth for one side. Well, I was one wet duckling, however, the rain didn't last long, my stuff didn't get too wet and I dried out too.

It was a great day, very successful and encouraging. 🤩🥳 I was one beat-up tired little lady by the time I packed it in and packed it up. Being on my feet all day was hard, but it was much easier to engage with potential customers than I expected ~ my chit-chatty skills are a bit rusty but serviceable. I expect I'll to try to find a few more laid-back venues around town at which to sell my wares.

A so-so shot of the booth

One fun thing I did was to have lunch with my friend Nancy. She was headed to Europe for a river cruise and to spend some time in Paris, but we managed to get together at the Green Papaya. What a fun atmosphere, very snazzy, stylish & sparkly, plus a serving robot brings the food out for the server. Cool, I'd never seen that before.

Serving Robot

Halloween Deco in full swing

And finally, I had to have MOHS surgery to remove a spot of skin cancer (BCC) from my scalp. What a weird feeling when they put the sutures in and then pull them tight like lacing up a corset or something - whew! So that's taken care of, make it #5 for my face/head. (Years of sailing in the Caribbean (or living in FL) will do it to you - I see plenty of walking wounded around here, lol.

Thanks for taking the time to check out what we're up to and feel free to comment.

PS. I read in another person's blog about a spam folder under comments in blogger and when I checked it I did have a few from y'all in there. Sorry about that.

Trip home, just dodged Hurricane Helene

 Here we are with another catch-up post covering the trip home from Rocky. In general, it was a good trip, with a few extra days included. 

It was beginning to look like time to wrap things up out west and head back to Florida. The overnight temps were in the high 30's range, and even though the days were beautiful, we knew it wouldn't last much longer. The electric fireplace was very welcome and really sheds a lot of heat. Between the fireplace and the thermostatically-controlled plug in heater we never had to fire up the furnace. Time to say goodbye to Rocky, and Rustic, until next time.

Coming home, we did our usual thing of overnighting in Cheyenne WY then hopping on I80. We stopped for 2 nights at the Point Randall Resort on Lake Ozark, Missouri. It was a restful stay however the weather was soggy. From there we headed over to the Paris Landing Lodge in the Tennessee State Park system. West of Nashville, what a beautiful setting on Kentucky Lake, just off the Tennessee River. It's rather newly built and quite fancy. Cushy rooms and a nice restaurant too.

Paris Landing Lodge, Kentucky Lake

Ed came through this area on his river cruise back
in May and wanted a better look at it.

Nice pool and firepit plus outside 
seating for the restaurant.

Lovely Kentucky Lake

At this point we began to become concerned about our weather prospects due to Hurricane Helene moving in and heading north. We dithered for a bit trying to decide whether to stay or go, but eventually headed east as quick as we could and spent the night in Knoxville. Our original plan had been to head over the mountains down to Asheville, then hit I26 to 95S, but fortunately, after scrutinizing the weather from every direction, the Boss did a re-think on that plan and instead we headed east on I81 to catch I77 at Wytheville, VA, then over to 95S and down the east side of NC/SC and GA. 

This was the day Asheville took a pounding and I26 got washed-out in places. We dodged that bullet, and skirted much of the rain. That evening we made it safely down to Santee, SC for the night - WHEW!! 😳 The next day we saw quite a few trees down as we made our way home. Everything in our area was fine with just minor debris (mainly tree limbs and lots of palm tree fronds).  

Since we've been home it's been lots of food shopping and cooking, plus plenty of cleaning and decluttering. Nothing like spending 4 months in a 26' RV to make you appreciate less clutter. 😉

Here's a look at the chicken pot pie construction and completion - so good, and 3 for the freezer.

Got to have the obligatory frozen peas!

The last thing on my mind is to cover my recent obsession with my beadworks projects. I got started on these while wiling away the hours  this summer. The result - I've made quite a few "bobby-dazzlers", or suncatchers if you prefer. I made the decision to set up a booth at a local craft show. It's a smaller one at the Mandarin Garden Club here in Jacksonville, so hopefully it won't be too overwhelming. Those big craft fairs totally freak me out, too many people and too much happening. I won't even attend one. Next post will be about how that occasion turns out. I'm having a blast making these pretties, now if I can just brighten someone's day with them.

These are just some of what I've made, but they
give you an idea of what I'm talking about. This pic
definitely doesn't do them justice at all, you need
sunlight to see the fabulous sparkle ans shine!

I'm also offering my trivets and wood/chicken wire suncatchers. I'll let you know how it goes. They are fairly labor intensive so I'll never make more than 50¢ an hour, haha. 

Thanks for dropping by and we'll see you the next time. 😘

Way behind on the blog; last auto-tour/lunch trip before bail-out.

 Well, around mid-Sept we were getting ready to think about winterizing Rocky and heading back east before any cold/wet weather could move in to bug us. You may remember that last year it rained on our day of departure making the last minute pulling in of the slide-out, locking all the storage chests/bins, putting up of flower pots and firepits, and all the other assorted chores a pain. 

But before all that happened we decided to take a lunch outing up the canyon (west) to see if there was any snow up at Cameron Pass. We'd been getting mid-30's at our elevation (7200') at night and thought there might be a chance. We had a great time at first until we came upon the dreaded road work. Out west, (and up north), they try to fit all the road work in before the snow flies, and Hwy 14 was no exception. Milling up the old road surface and repaving - whew! After about a 15 minute lay-up, the "follow me" guy showed up and we were past. While we waited, I jumped out and grabbed a couple of pics of the river, which really looked great.

There was a small stand of birch being lit-up by the slanting sunlight so I took a couple of shots of them too.

(taken from the car right before the
convoy got underway.)

When you head west out of the canyon you are heading up into the North Park area, where cattle ranching and agriculture reign supreme. We saw a cool-looking group of cowboys on horseback meeting up in the pasture before getting to it. I was too slow on the uptake to get any shots. Also slews of both firewood stockpiles and stuffed hay barns and roly-poly bales out in the fields. The "business" of fall was upon us. Quintessential North Park, where they were not in favor of the reintroduction of wolves!

The whole pasture was pretty densely-packed with cattle,
this is just a small sniglet out the window.

I have so many great hay bale shots I don't know
which ones to pick. I guess if you have to
winter-over a herd you'd best be prepared. 
Love those long, wide open views!!

We saw the beginning's of some fall color as we headed towards Walden, CO.  We (the Boss) decided he wasn't going back the way we came so we headed up and around through Wyoming to come in the back way.

Here's a great shot of what I'd say was some "premo" land for some  industrious farming/ranching folks, right on the river and beautiful scenery. Bet it's pretty in the wintertime, long way to the grocery store though, 45mins-1hr?

So pretty, I think this was near about at the stateline WY/CO.

Miles of dirt roads, wide vistas, hay bales and old, deserted properties. This was by our lunch spot, which was, BTW, beside a river and in the shade. A lonely-looking spot in a really pretty location. (What was the back-story?, inquiring minds want to know).

The last long leg of the journey was coming in through the thick forests that encompass Deadman Road west of Red Feather Lakes. It's a long, dirt road through the woods. We saw deer in the road, lots of deadfall and eventually, quite a few people enjoying dispersed camping opportunities. 

Not the best shot, we stopped way early and this is zoomed in.

Here's the route as shown on the car's nav system. See all the squiggles, yeah, a long road!

A fairly exhausting day followed up by hot showers, drinks and dinner. A good adventure for sure. Just a week or 10 days later a fire broke out along the eastern edge of the Deadman Road forested area, north of Red Feather Lakes by Crystal Lakes, human started 😢. They got it under control quite quickly ad I think it was contained at about 138 acres.

That's it for now, but look for more "catch-up" posts detailing our trip back east and to current times.

Thanks for stopping by! 🥰

More summer fun w/Hiking, Crafting and Cooking

 Summer is sliding on by pretty quickly. We've been out here in the Poudre River Canyon for 2½ months now and it won't be all that long before we are packing up to head back home to FL. 

It has been a really nice summer with quite cooperative weather; not too many hot days and enough rain to keep the grasses and wildflowers green and happy.  Some years with scarce rainfall the canyon terrain gets dried out and turns brownish golden. It certainly makes for a prettier drive into town when it's green, the rock formations stand out more and look more dramatic.

So far on our drives through the canyon we've seen deer (a group of 4) and big horn sheep (group of 4). It's always startling to come around a corner and there they are - yikes! Many times oncoming traffic will flash their headlights in warning, super helpful, nobody needs any drama!

Big Horn Sheep, ewe's or juveniles, heading back
out of the canyon. There were 4 in this group.

I've been mentioning the rabbits and tiny bunnies out and about, and how they've been nibbling. They have been good bunnies lately working on the dandelions and clover in the yard and leaving my flowers alone.

Headed over to a sprinkler puddle for a drink.

It seems I've gotten the "beading" bug and have been enjoying it very much. One thing I've been working on is using armature wire to sculpt flowers into which I add beading. They come out so cute, and look much better in person where you can see the sparkle & twinkling from the various colored crystal beads.

Another project (or 2) has been working with the chicken wire and bead suncatchers. I made one using a thrift store picture frame and enjoyed the process very much, however the results seemed a little stilted for me. I decided to try a few more "free-form" attempts using reclaimed deadfall branches. Here's how one such effort turned out, I like it a lot. Again, the missing sparkle factor really makes it look flat, but it's not, it's pretty lively when hanging outside with sunlight and breezes blowing.

This branch is only about 8" across, so not a huge
commitment in time spent or materials used.

As for outside activities, we went for another hike in Dadd Gulch the other day, which was a great leg-stretcher. Sometimes it seems like the hardest part is coming out of the gulch and walking down to the car parking area. If you zoom in on this pic you can see our car wa-a-y down there, lol.

It's that slightly downhill stuff that gives my hips fits. Here are a few more shots from the hike.

I get the Boss to lead the way.

I was going to try for a "wild berry" collage shot but only saw these bright red berries and didn't dare venture into the brush looking for others, can you say bears?

And some pretty purples..

I've had some nice chats with a few of my "sometime" residents. There are some really nice people in the world. I am doing a bit of crafting with one neighbor and another is from my hometown area of Rochester, NY.

Not a lot of cooking photos taken lately. I seem to get caught up in the process, then eating the results before I remember I need to take a shot of it.  One I did get was this nice-sized pan of eggplant parm I baked in the Ninja Foodi. It made 4, 2-person servings for us and 2 for my neighbor, (she takes my overage which is so nice!).

Check it out - I've already started to slice it, LOL!

One final thing, we like some of the regional bread offerings and miss them when we go back to Florida. The 2 that come to mind is Izzio's Sourdough bread (San Francisco style), and Rustik's *big* half loafs of seeds/grains. So big we always split it (how else are you going to get it into the toaster?, 😁).

Well, that's it for now. Thanks for dropping by and come again. 

A lunch trip to Dowdy Lake and a hike

A very good week was had by all, what with a picnic lunch up at Dowdy Lake to start things off and a day or so later a nice hike up the trail at Dadd Gulch. The weather has been good, but we do have serious haze over the land. No smoky smell but blue skies are non-existent right now. A view along the way, pretty, but prettier with a blue sky.

Along the way we also had to stop for these beauties, (I love any horses!). It was a fairly big herd of maybe a dozen+, including 3 foals. Some taking advantage of the shade from the trees, and some grazing. I always go to the fence line and "cluck", and use sweet, baby talk to try to engage them for their photoshoot, lol. It was pretty hot, so I only got a few raised heads and glances.

A few of the "shade seekers", including 2 of the foals.

Of the other group, I did get the attention of a foal who came up to visit with me at the fence. Poor thing was somewhat fly-bitten. I always hate that for the critters that live outdoors.

I gave a small head scratch but that's about the size of it.
Check out how hazy it is, you can barely see the mountains.

Dowdy Lakes is north of us, near Red Feather Lakes, not far as the crow flies but the winding dirt road slows things down. It's a popular campground and day use fee area ($9). It's a fairly large area with lots of picnic tables along the shoreline. A favorite of the picnicking crowd and people fishing. Also, always lots of kayakers and paddleboarders around.

We picked our spot and tucked into our grilled chicken sandwiches while checking out the lake and watching the ground squirrels (?). There were plenty of them around, some looking a lot like chipmunks and some larger and more like prairie dogs (?).

The Boss looks out onto the scene - so, so hazy 😢

Down at the other end of the lake/reservoir.

Most of the wildflowers these days tend to be either purples or yellows. I don't mind but I am sorry I missed out on wild columbines I've seen before up at Dadd Gulch. 

One of our favorite trails is Dadd Gulch. It's close by, mostly in the shade for the majority of it, there are wildflowers, and streams to be forded and cool rock formations. Plus you are in a gulch with canyon walls on both sides.

At least I didn't miss out on the Black-eyed Susan's.

A view of the gulch walls up above. The creeks didn't have a lot of water running, a mild winter with less of a snow pack perhaps.

Looking up from the trail at Dadd Gulch

Not much else going on except good living, and good eating. I made yet another batch of the blonde brownies, with lots of coconut, pecans, butterscotch chips and semi-sweet chocolate chips. I cut the 9x13 pan into tiny pieces; somewhere around 64 is what I think I got out of it. The pieces are tiny because these brownies have 1½ sticks of butter in them!

Unfortunately I forgot to take any pics. That's all I've got for you but thanks for dropping by for a visit.