Picnic at Long Draw Reservoir, moose sightings and daily stuff

We have been really enjoying our fresh fruit in the mornings, either as an accompaniment to our egg breakfast or on top of our granola. I'd almost feel guilty gorging on these treats. Most days we have peaches, strawberries, plums, banana, and cherries - YUM! 😋 During the winter months we eat quite a bit of citrus, but summertime is the time for the exotics, lol.

So thankful for such bounty.

A few days ago we packed up a lunch and headed west "up" the Poudre Canyon with the idea of turning south on Long Draw Road to check that out.  The first stop was up by the Chambers Lake Campground, it's a large area with several nooks and crannies and it's very popular. It was a nice leg-stretcher stop, and pretty as well.

Picnic area next door to Chambers Lake.

A couple of local fellows were talking and one was joking about the  Colorado paint job on his car, later I discreetly took this photo since I mentioned hail in the prior post.

Ouch! So sad, but the reality of weather mayhem.

Anyway, Long Draw Road is a fairly good dirt road, that ends up just past Long Draw Reservoir, at La Poudre Pass, which terminates quite near the Continental Divide, @ 10,200'. 

Shortly after starting out we passed by this rivulet and flowers that was just so pretty.

Lots of rain lately has made this one "fresh".

There's a lot of beetle kill around which is sad to see, but still some views where things look pretty special. We saw several moose browsing around. My neighbor reported someone seeing 14 on that road once!

With these 2 and 1 napping in the shade,
plus 3 down the road, it was a busy day for moose

We carried on and came to this view.

And then this view of the reservoir with the mountains in the background.

This was late in the week and the disbursed campers were coming out to find a spot. At this elevation the air is cool and downright brisk overnight, perfect for camping out comfortably.

Setup down the way for some fishing lakeside.

And further up the road the view started to open up into a valley - very nice!

Our car in the foreground - what a view!!

We ate our lunch just down the way at the sign marker for La Poudre Pass then headed back the way we came. The sign welcomes us to the northern edge of Rocky Mtn Natl Park and the nearby headwaters of the Colorado River. Just south east is Rocky Mtn Natl Park proper and Estes Park. What a beautiful drive.

Whew, what a fun journey. The trip took probably 5 hours. Lots of great viewing but tuckered out by the time we got home. Luckily we had chicken alfredo leftovers on tap so that made supper easy.

On our way back east through Poudre Canyon we stopped at one of my favorite roadside creeks (I believe it's the east fork of Roaring Creek) and it was really running.

A shot of the Chicken Alfredo supper to finish. More food and fabric fun in our next post, you've had enough for today. Thanks for riding along and we'll see you next time.

Cool mornings, picnics, flowers and fabrics

 We have no complaints about the weather here lately, sure, we've had a few HOT days that required some A/C but the mornings have typically been cool to chilly with low's in the high 40's to 50's. Aahhh. Many of our family, friends and neighbors are singing the summertime blues - hang in there guys.

We've taken some time to get the yard and flower garden fixed up but have also made it on 1 auto-touring picnic lunch up towards Dowdy Lake and some of the surrounding areas. When we leave the Resort, we turn right then immediately turn left onto route 69 which, while a dirt road, isn't too bad and goes through some pretty spots.

Overview looking south towards the Poudre Canyon

I'm always on the lookout for some pretty flowers and good photo ops. There is one variety of yellow flowers, very prolific I might add, that retain their color after being dried. I cut a small bunch from a roadside a few years back that still looks wonderful. BTW, I definitely don't make that a habit!

Found a patch, lol.

Here's how they look in situ - zillions of them around.

One of the places we passed by was the reflecting pond - I had a pic of it from a season or two ago and it's much fuller this year - lots of rain and snow melt.

The area is now being used for cattle grazing, they are just off camera, lol.

One limited picture doesn't always tell the story.

Lots of pretty rock outcroppings. Some are steep and tricky looking and some look so inviting for climbing.

A great place to wander - just watch out for snakes sunning themselves.

A small bit of snow left on the mountains near us, but I'll bet there's plenty more south of us in Rocky Mtn Natl Park.

I'm always on the lookout for horses, and spotted a small herd which included 3 foals - I made all the brrrrrpp noises/clicks to try to get their attention but they weren't interested in me.

A dramatic sky means the rain's falling somewhere - some of our neighbors who live in Ft. Collins or parts east have told us some horror stories about hail this spring. I mean like hail punching holes in the roof! Holy hail-bombs, Batman! Luckily only pea-sized up here so far.

Looks like a storm's brewing.

We made it up to the lakes area and stopped in for a gander.

Lunch in the car by Letitia Lake

Below is a shot of Bellaire Lake, just off 69 and a local favorite for fishing. They have a paved path around part of it for handicapped access and it seems quite popular.

Bellaire Lake Picnic Area

This bird (swallow?) made it's nest right over the door of a vault toilet, I'll spare you the shot of the door handle - haha.

On the cooking front, since fruit is so prolific right now, I made a small batch of strawberry/cherry jam. No pectin handy, and not a ton of sugar either (by choice), so it ended up being medium jell, in other words it could do passable duty as a syrup on french toast or pancakes. It's sure tasty though.

Strawberry/cherry jam. One jar for the freezer and one for the table.

I also have been taking the leftover bananas and peaches and making half batches of the banana bread recipe (on the Dreamtime website) in the Ninja Foodi on the bake setting. With it being handy on our outside table, I can use it and it doesn't heat up the RV. So far we've had banana/peach and peach/cherry - what's next I wonder? Meatloaf. It turned out I baked 2 mini meatloafs in it later in the week.

On the craft front, I've been doing some triveting (is that a word?) while watching the Tour de France. We love watching the Tour and have been for many, many years. Some really spectacular scenery over in Basque, France, & Switzerland and some amazing athletes getting out on that grueling course for 3 weeks! Kudos.

Thanks google

Here are the completed trivets, a couple of smaller ones and a larger one with flourishes.

Love the way the swirly one came out.

Well, that's about it for now, thanks for visiting.

And it's off to Rocky we go - yay!

 We had been watching the weather for our little northeastern corner of Colorado since the end of May and it was pretty consistently cold, chilly and quite rainy, so the decision was made to wait for fairer weather. Finally, by the 3rd week of June it looked like it was coming around for us. The Boss was fairly chomping at the bit by this time, so after making a last minute push to finalize things at home, we headed out.

Applying an old strategy we hadn't used in a long while, we sourced a large Omaha Steaks Styrofoam cooler from a neighbor and loaded it up with some of our frozen meats and ready-made meals. This not only helped clear out the freezers but also ensured we wouldn't have to shop immediately upon arrival, and would have a few easy "heat-n-eat" meals on tap. On the way out of town we stopped to pick up 2 slabs of dry ice, 10x10x2", loaded everything up, (it was full!), and duct taped it shut. It either would or would not last the whole trip - I was sure praying it would! 🙏🥺️ (PS. It made it with a little dry ice left!!)

Driving through Georgia we saw plenty of very green & healthy-looking pecan orchards. Some were large, old, established trees and some were young trees, but they were all very healthy looking. So pretty, wonder who owns them.. Bill Gates? the Chinese? Who knows.

A young Pecan Orchard in Georgia

We stopped for the night in Gadsden, AL, right by the Coosa river, and had a small stroll along the waterfront and a take-out bite for dinner.

I'm lagging behind with my torn meniscus but what a pretty evening.

After crossing the Mississippi @ Dyersburg, we headed further north and stopped in New Madrid, MO, a place the Boss has always wondered about. Sleepy little town on the Mississippi river now, but before the railroad came along it was hopping with river traffic and even carried some of the Native Americans westward on the Trail of Tears. It's main claim to fame is the New Madrid Tectonic Fault Line which in 1811-12 produced 4 of the largest earthquakes ever recorded in North America, along with hundreds of smaller aftershock quakes that year. We stopped at their museum and spent an hour or so there.  They had a couple of short movie clips describing the town at the time and how the earthquakes changed things including the course of the river, they had to move the town back more than once. Very interesting little museum with locally dug artifacts from early Mississippian Culture (600CE to 1600CE), the Civil War, WWI/WWII, plus an authentic 1800's kitchen - fascinating. I should have taken more pics.

Early American Kitchen with all the goodies,
you should have seen that woodstove!

The Mississippi looked low with quite a few sandbars in evidence, and I'm sure making navigation treacherous. 

Sandbars along the edges of the Mighty Mississippi

Traveling a bit further north we stopped in Sikeston, MO for the night and picked up a pizza for dinner.  

The next day we headed further north so as to catch I-80 westward, then stopped just west of Nebraska City, NE @ Lied Lodge, a stately lodge on 260 beautiful acres. This is the birthplace of Arbor Day, and they have all kinds of activities on the property. Maybe we'll stop for a more leisurely stay on the way home. We had a great dinner at Timbers, their fancy restaurant.

Entryway of Lied Lodge
(pronounced LEED) 

From there we travelled through some lush-looking farmland before coming into hills then mountains. Almost there.

Tidy looking farm

Rocky here we come!

One of the tasks the owners of the park were planning to handle in the off season was to replace the existing transformer with a bigger one. The intention being, so that when the RVers all run their A/C's at the same time Forth of July weekend it doesn't trip the circuit. Well, I guess it was a long, cold winter into spring and things just weren't conducive until the week we got here, lol.

The bucket truck in the foreground is handling the transformer
stuff while the guy in the background  behind the fence
is going to pull the old power pole straight up & out.

Whew! All's well that ends well. Here's a shot of the Boss in his happy place, here at Rocky, with his newly washed Explorer.

Well, that's about it for this first report from our summer abode. I'll close with a couple of shots of some columbines in bloom here in the neighborhood.

Thanks for dropping by and sticking with a rather long entry. Comments are great! Comments are welcome! 😄

Long overdue & wrap-up post

This post should have been written about 10 days ago but somehow I never got around to it. In between pulling weeds, working with food to not only use up or give to my neighbors, but also to freeze for our trip out west, plus the normal daily chores, I got really busy working on trivets. It was so much fun. I had to sew quite a few "tubies" with the new fabrics I bought, so that I would have a good stockpile to choose from while out at Rocky. I also got creative and gen'ed-up some trivets to add to my collection.  One of my neighbors wanted to buy a few to give as unique gifts, yay! So, in addition to the 19(!) I already had "in stock", I made 4 more and enjoyed the process very much.  Here are the new ones.

 The crepe myrtles were in full bloom and boy, are they showy. When it's a good year they are bursting with blooms, and it sure seems like a good year.

And this is one in a shopping center parking lot,
you know it's not getting a lot of love.

On the cooking front I baked a banana bread to have something sweet to go along with our evening hot tea, and froze half of it to take with us.

Finally, I made pizza using the store-bought dough I had in the freezer, so easy and so good!

Before baking, and it's enough for dinner for 2 and lunch for 2.

Thanks for reading along, that's all I've got for you, but the next post will be from Colorado.

The wall project, plus routine painting

One of the Boss's spring projects was to beautify our concrete block retainment wall on the dock level. When we first bought our place we pressure-washed the wall and painted it, and that was that. However, years later now, we decided to give it a major face-lift, not for structural reasons but mainly for beautification and ongoing ease of maintenance. 

Pretty ho-hum and needs paint. We can do better!

After some research, (nothing gets done around here without prior research - thank God), the Boss sourced some Tritan BP Faux Stone Panels which nicely mimic a stone façade. He performed a serious pressure washing and did some additional surface maintenance to the  concrete blocks, then began measuring and trimming the panels to properly fit the wall. We opted not to cover the top of the wall, too many possibilities for breakage/damage. The panels were installed without issue and the remaining wall surfaces subsequently painted the same color as the dock. We're super pleased with how nicely it came out & hope our neighbors are pleased as well.

Part way through.. He had an engineered system of
weights and heavy "brace" boards to hold the panels
in place while the adhesive set up and dried.

Sweet! Completed and just some general cleanup of the
palm tree beds and a freshen-up of the flower baskets
and it will be a project well wrapped. (So much better! 🥳)

In the ongoing saga of trying to empty the freezers, I thawed-out, dry brined and spatchcocked a Cornish hen. Nestled on top of some fresh broccoli and carrots and surrounded by some tasty dressing, into the oven it went.  It came out great and we had lots of dressing left over, so since I have 2 more hens in the freezer I sense a repeat coming on in our future.

The hen stayed nice and moist, and surprisingly,
the veggies stayed crisp/tender.

Finally, I've begun to get together my trivet supplies and so I laid-out all the stuffed "tubies" to see what I've got - boy, lots of choices. I also have another bag full of unstuffed tubies of different fabrics. Suffice it to say, I shouldn't have any problem finding something to amuse myself with out west.

Thanks for dropping by, hope you're having a great day.

Time's a truckin' along, fun visit with family, canning & fabric fun.

We've been continuing to prep for our trip out west by doing household chores, routine maintenance on the cars, whittling down freezer contents and getting our dental and doctor visits out of the way.

We also got together with my sister and brother-in-law for a wonderful picnic lunch down in Mt. Dora, FL which is about half way in between, a little over 100 miles. It was a beautiful day for a drive and we made things super easy by agreeing to each pick up sub's for lunch rather than doing a potluck affair. Even though we talk all the time, and email back and forth, this is the first time we've actually been together in a few years. BIG HUGS all around!! 💖🥰

The Elizabeth Evans park was pretty nice, and right by Lake Dora. We were blessed with a shady picnic table and a medium-strong breeze all afternoon which kept temps down and bugs away.

Donna and I each had a goodie bag with several small gifts
for each other to make up for all the missed celebrations. It was also
her Birthday weekend coming up so we didn't want to miss that.

Looking towards the lighthouse, the shoreline is natural with lots of cattails and such.

One of the neat things about the park were all the large trees. There was one cluster that actually had a palm tree growing up out of the middle of it, and you can see how nice and shady it was at our table.

The guys talk car racing and stuff, while Donna digs for
 something in her purse. I'm just being a nuisance taking pics.

Palm tree just growing into the mass.

Lots of hills & small lakes dot the area near Ocala.

The Boss enjoying his new shirt.

In addition to that fantastic visit, I've lately had time to indulge in some canning, some floral work and some sewing fun.

First off, the canning. In the 2 freezers I had a stockpile of ground pork, ground Italian sausage and brats that I decided to can - there was no way to eat it all and it never hurts to have a few things on the pantry shelf.  It requires a hot pack, so browning it first and having some hot beef stock to cover the contents, then pressure canning for 75 minutes.

I've got this huge, deep wok-like pan which is great
for cooking up large quantities. Even so, I worked in batches.

Since meat shrinks when cooked, it ended up only being
enough for 6 pint jars (16oz).  Rainy day goodness.

I was also hit by a need of the Southern cooking variety, which lead to homemade cornbread, black-eyed peas over rice, and fresh spinach (in lieu of collards) to go with our roast pork. Yum, so good!

I fry up some chopped onions & add
minced garlic, then I use an envelope of 
onion soup mix and 1/2C water. 
Let it simmer a while.

More rescued straw baskets with their new and perky flowers. We use these all over, and they're especially nice on the back deck.

A nice pop of color and civility, lol.

Last topic, my purply-squares fabric project turned out to be a bed pillow sham. I liked it so much I made another using pastels and tried utilizing a geometric pattern instead of random like the first one. I like them both, and they didn't take a world of time either - win, win. Which do you like best?

Well, thanks for hanging out with me and catching up on my rather unexciting activities. Hopefully, next month we'll be out west and we should have some new scenery and stuff to talk about. Until then, see you next time.