Trip home from California

"Well??? Let's get going! I wanna go home!"

"All right, all right, I'll go potty before we leave! Now shut the door!"

We were given most of a case of bananas that weren't going to keep much longer. I sliced some of them to start drying on the way home. I was lucky this drying tray was still in the uhaul-camper.

The first couple miles were over the Mojave desert, and we were GLAD to get past that and into the Sierra mountains of eastern California. It was close to 100 degrees crossing the desert, and for this time of year it wasn't all that hot. WE felt hot, though!

Really beautiful mountains, rugged and snowy.

More views of the Sierras.

Gas was REALLY high in eastern California. The highest we saw it was $6.00/gallon.

I like the steep, rocky slopes of the eastern Sierra mountains.

Reno, Nevada, through the windshield. Gas was much cheaper in Nevada. We rolled into Reno on fumes, not wanting to pay any more high California gas prices.

This picture makes me think of the opening shot on the TV show "Little House on the Prairie"

The Humbolt river flowed alongside the freeway east of Reno.

No trees in this land! I like how the freeway snakes through the hills.

A railroad bridge makes a nice prop in this picture in western Nevada.

We spent the night north of Wells, Nevada at a wayside pull-off almost in sight of the Idaho state line, NE Nevada. This was taken the next morning. I stood on top of the uhaul to see over the trees.

Steven plays with Odie in the parking lot.

"What do you mean they're out of sausage biscuits?"

At a gas station in Twin Falls this dog was in the truck at the next pump!

I love that face!

Scenery north of Twin Falls, just before the fork where we angled NW toward Ketchum.

The Sawtooth mountains, from the top of the pass.

Coming in to Salmon, Idaho, just south of Montana and the Bitterroot Valley.

Me with a snowball!

At the top of Lost Trail Pass, on the Idaho-Montana state line, there was still pile of snow around the edge of the parking lot.

Scenery in the Bitterroot Valley.

We drove on through and got home around 2 in the morning.

Dehydrating & canning, and swimming

My beautiful daughter Barbara!


White Clover heads can be picked, dried, and ground into powder, which can be added to flour as an extender. A good thing to know if times get really tough.

Purple clover is sweet and can also be eaten. There's a drop of a honey-like substance at the base of the flowers. The kids used to pluck them and suck the sweetness from them.

At the end of the camp-out we were given a bunch of the leftover food, which included 3 huge bags of chopped red onions. We were also given two more coolers, which we transported the 'cold' food home in.

It took all five dehydrator trays and five large screened sheets to spread out all the red onions to dry. The five large sheets were dried out on the porch.

There were three large bags of frozen corn, which I spread and dried. The flies kept landing on them so I covered the trays of corn with sheer curtains.

There was a case of bananas and they were mottled brown. No room to freeze them, so I looked online and got directions for canning them. They came out great. Later on I can use them for banana bread, cakes, muffins, pies, etc.

It was around 90 degrees the week after the 4th of July, so we went for a swim at Glen Lake on our way home from Eureka one afternoon.

Left to right: Steven, Barbara, Victor.
I like the shimmery,sparkly water in this picture.

Motorboats were making waves, which were fun to bob up and down in!

Here's a view showing the tree-lined shore behind the lake.

Trip to Kalispell, burning brush.

This was actually the last picture of the day, on the way home from Kalispell, but I like it and wanted to put it at the top of the post!

When we drove out this morning Kathleen's horse and foal posed for the camera!

A gopher stood up on the stump to the right and posed!


Becky!

Emily

While we were gone to California the garden produced a huge crop of weeds. I startedweeding the garlic and took a picture to show some 'before' and 'after' while I was weeding.

The kitten has apparently taken up yoga!

The moon between some trees in the backyard.

A fawn in the grass near our house.

We got some thunderstorms with heavy rain, so we were able to get a one-day burn permit from the forest service. Barbara and Victor had been doing some tree thinning and had a pile of limbs and small trees to burn. Barbara took a break to pet the cat!

Steven throws some sticks on the fire. It was hard to get it started because everything was soaked from the downpour.

Barbara throws sticks on the fire.

Canning odds & ends, Victor's b-day, Water tower, etc.

I got some flowers and Stevia plants on clearance at Wal-mart and Lowes for .50

Barbara started a batch of soap. She measured powdered lye using a postal scale.

She said you always add the lye to the water and not the other way around or it can explode. The way you remember it is "The snow goes on the lake"! When you stir it the temperature rises within seconds up to about 200 degrees. Then she has to let it sit quietly and cool down to around 110 degrees.

Here she's measuring oil. This batch had crisco, coconut oil, peanut oil, olive oil, and jojoba oil in it. She scented it with Japanese Cherry blossom fragrance oil.

Now she's adding the lye/water mixture to the fats/oil mixture, stirring as she does.

She has to stir it until it "traces", which means it leaves tracks as she picks up the wisk and the way it leaves a trace as the drops land back in the pot.

Does this porch railing make my hips look fat?

Wednesday the 13th was Victor's birthday. Barbara made a birthday cake for him, spending hours making and decorating it to look like an Intellevision game unit.

Steven and I gave him a Christmas train set for his birthday. It's one of those wooden ones. He seemed to enjoy it. He loves anything "Christmas", and he has such joy and enthusiasm for trains and toys!

The cake was red velvet. She mixed marshmallow creme and powdered sugar to make the clay-like frosting that she divided, dyed, and molded on top of the cake.

Steven is very happy because he killed a mosquito. Fly Swatters: Not just for flies!

We had a case of oranges and we weren't eating them fast enough, so I canned seven quarts of oranges. It took 48 of those small oranges to fill the 7 jars. My fingertips are achy from peeling all those oranges!

Steven has been working on our water tower. He had Victor and I hold the end frames while he put a couple temporary cross braces on it so he could finish building the supports and cross-bracing. In this picture they're measuring to be sure it's squared up.

Now he's nailing on the front temporary brace while Victor holds it in place.

It's starting to look pretty cool! Won't be long until the tank is up there! Then I'll have 300 gallons at a time in an overhead tank for watering the garden! Yay, life gets better and better!