Snowsuits, Texas cooking and other odds and ends

This is my newest cookbook, given to me by sister-in-law Penny. She picked it up while she was in Sheridan for hockey games with nephew Kyle and mother-in-law Shirley. There are many tasty recipes and great old photos in it, and I need to make a grocery list and make a Texas meal one of these days.

This is Scott with his new chainsaw, which he had to clarify, for my mom's benefit, was 'rancher tough' and not 'farm tough' like the bar says.

And this is the Columbia snowsuit that will keep our baby warm through the bitter cold months next winter.

It's an up to six months size, so it should work for all of the winter months. Penny and Shirley also picked this up for us. On the day in February that we went snowshoeing they went shopping and found it on sale at Sportsmen's Warehouse.

It even has a zip-out fleece liner that looks so cozy that I want a snowsuit like this. Thanks so much to Penny and Shirley, and I'm really looking forward to using it next winter.

And this is the glass cylinder that my mom gave me. My table had still been set for Valentine's so last weekend I changed it up a little, using a bed sheet and the wrap that Emily gave me to wear at her wedding. I also have a few more things to add to the cylinder - they include twigs, birds and nests - but for now it's a simple and fresh table centerpiece.

just to make a note of it

scott keeps mentioning how i haven't mentioned how great of a housekeeper he was while i was away in laramie last week.

these are the things he accomplished - although i'm sure i'll probably forget something and hear about it!

 - clean the downstairs bathroom, including clearing the shower drain of (my) accumulated hair. it's great to have a bathtub that drains!

 - load two pickup boxes full of wood, stacking one neatly in the patio. we unloaded the second one together a few nights ago.

 - laundry. it'd been procrastinated long enough!

 - maybe that completes the list... i can't remember now. but at least it's been officially noted on the blog. :-)

walk in the woods

tonight after work scott and i loaded the pups and went up on the mountain for an evening walk. it was a wonderful evening, especially for oct. 20. we brought one of their dog toys to play fetch as we walked on the trails that serve as cross country ski paths in the winter.

we got our wedding party invites in the mail yesterday! i'm very pleased with the printing job, and we handed out/sent the first of them today.

yesterday i also called on our real wedding rings which we ordered mid-august, and they should be done right before scott's birthday in a month.

i also scheduled the chimney sweep/inspection appointment for the wood stove, and he can't come for two weeks.

and, i found out that i don't need a birth certificate to get my social security card changed, and therefore all my other records - bank account, drivers license, mortgage, etc. i'd already sent off for a new birth certificate, but i suppose it's best to have one on hand, and one that i can find.

the new look

well, folks, i mentioned that scott and i purchased a new tv the other evening. yes, the one where we were supposed to go to dinner date and a movie, but i worked too late at the office and it ruined the movie plans. instead we went tv shopping. :-)

so here it is, in the tv area, and scott kicked up and obviously enjoying himself watching the pbr performance on sunday afternoon. we also got a blueray player and an antenna, so it's really a luxury for us. up to now, i haven't even had local channels available, and i have to note that i've never bought a tv in my life. the last two were freebies, and as good of quality as freebie tvs will be. i still can't bear to cough up the money for any cable or satellite - i just don't watch tv enough to justify the expense. scott mentioned perhaps this winter, when it's dark and cold, he would pay for some sort of tv service.

lucy likes the new rug, and it even looks like it's her natural environment. :-) actually, she was just really tired from running around up at the ranch and coming back in with scott.

and fox is so tough, she doesn't need a rug.

and she's nuts. she likes to sleep upside down, and she enjoys her sleep more than any other pup i've seen, with frequent stretches and grunts and groans and contented sighs.

you can see a small rubber tire on the floor there beyond her. i made a trip to ross over the weekend, as the dogs were getting low on chew toys, and i found them five new things - and none with stuffing! that's what they get when i get tired of picking up all the fluff balls. and, ross is an ideal place to get dog toys, because they're cheap, and when one set gets worn out i can just go pick up a new variety.

yes, still sitting in my meeting in buffalo. i think they're just about done, talking about some changes to the weed and pest control legislation right now, but nothing i'd write about for the newspaper. one more topic to go after this, and then it's back home i go.

just a break for lunch

well, here it is friday and i haven't posted since monday! really, all i've been doing is working, and being sick, this week.

so, for lack of any recently downloaded photos from my little red camera, here's the cover of the paper this week. yesterday it was decided that we needed to add four pages to it, so that meant i spent yesterday afternoon writing three more articles to fill it. thank goodness for leftover notes from meetings past! i pulled one article from the stock growers' meeting last june, and another from a wyoming business council workshop in august. never throw away notes!

the cover photo for this week is the one i took coming over powder river pass last saturday, when publisher dennis and i were on our way back from coworker jody's mother's funeral services. otherwise, i usually like to put at least two other secondary photos on the cover, but this week i was just too busy to put much thought into it, and i figured the bright gold trees were strong enough to carry it this week.

today is deadline for fall cattlemen's, so that's what i'm in the middle of. right now i took a quick break to walk the two blocks down to first street bakers for a lunch sandwich. the conveniences of working near downtown! i have most all the files in for cattlemen's, just waiting for a few odd photos and one more article yet from sister melissa - the one i set her on last-minute.

at least i feel pretty much over my cold. if my head still hurt today like it did the last two days, i'd really be having a tough time of it. i would have loved a nap yesterday afternoon, but alas, the blank holes in the weekly paper were calling my name.

tonight, when all this work is done, i am headed out for dinner at outback and a movie with my sweet husband, who asked at the week's beginning if i'd go on a date with him this evening. we've also accumulated a bit of funding as wedding gifts, and i think we're going to go look at a new tv - one of the previously decided items on our 'wedding wish list.' nothing big or fancy, just an upgrade from my freebie that has a discolored corner. :-) and perhaps an upgrade dvd player that can play netflix, as the one my brother gave me four years makes grinding and rubbing noises that sometimes rival the volume of the movie.... it's a wonder it still works!

first hunting success

well, friday evening scott and i went out to look for an antelope, and found that one, and we went back out to look for him yesterday. we didn't really ever see him again for sure, but found another nice one after driving around looking at all the goats in the highway pasture for several hours. in the process of trying to get him, we crawled on hands and knees, bounced across sage brush, hopped out and took a shot, went careening down a two-track and bounced over more sagebrush. to no avail, and by that time all the antelope in that area were so stirred up we headed for the house.

after a quick snack we headed out again, this time north of the ranch house, in the north fish creek pasture. we saw one that was ok, but he and his does were pretty skittish and left the country, so then we drove back around by a place called eagle's gap, where there's a reservoir, and there was a whole herd back there, mostly does. (eagle's gap is the same area we went through the evening scott proposed to me out at the ranch several weeks ago).

so we got out our field glasses and looked them over, and this guy i've got here in the photo was the best of the lot, so i decided i might as well take a shot at him. after the blantant miss on the first one at 10 yards - practically - i had taken a few shots at a rock and hit it consistently, so i figured i'd try another shot at a buck.

i hit him with my first shot, but he didn't go down. the next went to high, and the third too low. :-) thankfully i had hit him well enough that he didn't run off in that process. and the process of a bullet getting jammed in the gun and scott saying from inside the pickup 'calm down. don't break my gun!' he came out and helped me get it straightened out, i loaded it again, and took my time with the last shot and he went down.

and, i might add, this was all from a lot farther away than the one at the water tank!

i shot him up on a side hill, so we put scott's new little white mazda 'snowflake' through is paces and got up to him for the cleaning process. it was pretty hot out, esp for the end of september, so scott was anxious to get him cleaned as soon as possible.

this is the side view of him. antelope are scored for their size based on how tall their horns are, and how long the cutters are - the smaller hooks that stick out the front. mine measures 13.5 inches tall, with four inch cutters, which is pretty average. what makes them pretty, i think, is if the horns curve clear out in a wide arc, and if they curl over a lot at the top. mine isn't very wide, but he does curl over pretty nicely.

back in the ranch yard bob and becky came out to look him over, and becky took this photo of me and my wonderful guide. the goat looks like he's not feeling too well, with his mouth hanging open and tongue out. foxy and lucy were very curious as to what we had brought back for them.

then we backed the truck in the shed so we could hanging him from the rafters to finish the cleaning process. i did save the head to be mounted as my first success in hunting, and we took the meat to friend jamie's, who has a friend that wants it. scott absolutely refuses to eat antelope. i've never tasted it, but judging from the smell of them, i don't really want to. a buck antelope smells worse than a buck barnyard goat.

so that was pretty much my sunday, now back to work as usual in the office today.

good things in the mail

my rug came yesterday! while i was in pendleton i found this one at a rug vendor for less than half of regular price, so i bought it, after assurances that it can stand up to dog traffic.

lucy approved. she immediately sat on it and started bringing dog bones over to enjoy. now the rug is downstairs so it'll hopefully uncurl and lie flat before i replace the green one in front of the couch.

the green one has served its purpose well, for the price of it - less than $20 at big lots here in town. before it's completely worn out i'll move it somewhere else and use the heavier bucking horse one in front of the couch.

i took this pictures late in the evening after we got back to town from the ranch. we were supposed to go antelope hunting, but *someone* forgot their license at the house and didn't realize it until we were halfway to the ranch.

fox loves to kick her back legs out behind her when she's focusing hard on chewing things up.

yesterday my necklace with my brand in it also came in the mail, which scott ordered for me at pendleton, and we also got a wedding card from my grandma. it was one of those good mail days. :-)

now i'm waiting for one more package of things i ordered in pendleton, and then i think that's it. i shopped more there than i have everywhere in the last year.

hello there!

sorry, it's been a busy few days, and i haven't taken the time to post anything on here. currently i'm back in the denver airport, waiting with scott for our flight back to casper, which was delayed about an hour.

on friday we got married! as you can imagine, it was a simple ceremony, and we were only accompanied by our meeteetse friends buck and shelly.

this photo is in mckay park in pendleton. we thought it would be neat to be married in pendleton, oregon at the 100th anniversary of the pendleton roundup, and that's what led to this idea that's been ongoing since the end of july, when it was hatched as a very tentative plan. following that, we contacted the umatilla county courthouse in pendleton, exchanged some letters back and forth, including a waiver of the three-day waiting period for a marriage license in oregon, and scott's speaking to my dad about marriage when my parents were in wyoming on their visit - that was a big component.

the tuesday night after i got to pendleton i went and visited with the minister and his wife to go over the ceremony and pick out our vows, so that's exactly what took place on friday afternoon. it was a nice little affair, in a pretty park under a willow in the sunshine. buck took photos for us afterward, and there was this neat bridge going over mckay creek.

following the ceremony scott and i went back to the courthouse to finish up the paperwork. we'd gone there first thing in the morning - during the parade featuring 1,500-plus horses - to get the initial paperwork done. buck and shelly went to the rodeo with the media passes that afternoon while we finished up our business, then scott and i went a few places like the pendleton woolen mill outlet store. christmas shopping! :-)

saturday we went back to pendleton in the morning after eating breakfast with buck and shelly before they left to drive back to wyoming. in pendleton we went to an old saddle shop outside of town, then went back in for the rodeo performance - the short go that determined the champions. kelly timberman of mills, which is connected to casper, tied for champion in bareback riding. after the rodeo we headed back to pasco instead of walla walla so we could be right next door to the airport this morning. we returned the rental car, went through security, flew over several states, and here we are, still hoping to get on the plane. initially they had told us take-off at 4:44, but it looks doubtful, if not impossible, that will happen....

why i love photoshop

this original photo came from heather, of double h photo. she was the official photographer at pathfinder days 2010, and she passed along a few of our little group as we competed throughout the day, and i'm really hoping to get a few more. (hint, hint ;-) )

anyway, so this one is scott and myself on my mare april competing in the rescue race. scott ran down to pick me up at the opposite end of the arena, and i managed to get on, and i also managed to not get completely centered before we took off, but this is when we still had the illusion of everything pulled together. i really liked the photo, so i took it into photoshop and did this a few weeks ago:

a little bit of a crop to make it more facebook profile picture-friendly, a little bit of lighten, a little bit of sharpen, a little bit of color boost, thanks to a few of pioneer woman's free photoshop actions. take them, download them, install them and use them. they're wonderful.

then, i got to playing around with the same photo again, as it's a favorite of mine, with scott and myself having a good time doing the kind of thing we love to do together. i'm thinking i want to incorporate it somehow into 'save the dates' or something like that for wedding announcements. or maybe just print it and enjoy it. but anyway, i took my time cutting it out, especially on april's tail, and this is what i had at that point, cut out from the first raw image:

but, that in and of itself was a little boring, so i came up with several options, also using pw's photoshop actions to help me along the way. some of the effects were subtle, like the faint blurring of the edges on this one:

and some were not so sublte, like this one. while i wouldn't probably try to print it, except maybe in very high-quality ink and paper, i kinda like the metallic aspect of it. it's pw's 'vintage' action, which shows up a little different on this than most photos because of the nature of my cut-out:

and this was the last one, and the one that has scott's vote:

he likes old-timey looking western photographs, and i think this effect suits the photo perfectly.


find pw's free photoshop actions here.

for a kid or a dog?

'eddie, edna and skippie'

those are the top name choices from friend eddie lowndes.

perhaps we will leave him out of that process.

:-)

it brightened my evening considerably

last night i left work at 5 and headed to the house. i had just sat down on the couch to take a break after finishing up this week's editorial for the paper. i also spend a good part of the afternoon trying to work out a plan for the next two weeks that will cover the few days i'll be on vacation in iowa.

so there i was, eating a piece of cold pizza and looking through a new catalog when scott called and asked if i wanted to join him and trav at the beacon. i figured, why not, because i needed to head that direction to give friend jamie our garage sale stuff (community wide garage sales tomorrow in paradise valley). so i hurried over there after getting all the stuff together, and, already being tired and worn out and stressed about taking time off, was a little miffed that i didn't see his truck in the parking lot when i got there. so i went on in to find trav and ordered my drink, times two (happy hour!).

a few minutes later scott texted: 'can you come outside? i need your help with something.' being a good girlfriend, i was confused but went outside anyway. 'you really need to get all your crap out of my truck' he said. i was still very confused. then he opened the back door of his truck, and there sat the hat box pictured above.

and before i opened it i knew it was the seratelli hat in the new 'dirt' color that's been on my lust list ever since scott and i went into lou tauberts the night he bought my new palm leaf. he'd stopped by to purchase it before heading to the beacon, and there i had been upset that he was late. :-)

this hat makes three that he's given to me, actually all the hats that i have now have been gifts from scott. these photos don't do the color justice. it's a gray/brown shade.

i'm a big fan of bound edges - my other hats also have them - and scott will help me reshape it a little before i wear it, right now the brim is way too narrow, it feels like it looks pointy when i've got it on. but it's pretty classic, and now i have a light-colored felt to add to my black felt and palm leaf. :-)

a surprise

publisher d ordered one of these statues from drysdales a couple weeks ago, and everyone in the office agreed that we really liked it.

i thought about ordering one then, but couldn't justify the cost at that time. the one in the image here is the one i liked, called 'when beef was wild.' the cowboy has roped the calf, the mother cow's coming after both cowboy and horse, and the cowboy is holding a knife in his hand to cut the rope and let the calf go so they can all get out of there.

i wanted to give it to scott, because he and his brothers and friends are all the time talking about all the ranch and cattle wrecks they've been in over the years - although i have a feeling some of them have turned into tall tales...

so i hadn't ordered it, but since i received that check for my rental deposit, and since publisher d ordered the another one, the one i wanted, and i got to see it in person, i decided to go ahead and order it yesterday.

meanwhile, i told scott that i ordered something for him, but won't tell him what, and received incessant texts on the subject yesterday. :-) it should be here tomorrow, and i'll have him open it, and i hope he likes it as much as i do.