Family Photos

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Well, I have wanted to take some photos of the two of us together for some time now, especially because it seems all our families really want are recent, updated photographs of us. Jared's mom was in town and the Sunday before she left was a beautiful day so we figured it was a great photo opp in our backyard. It was nice to have some foliage to add to our pictures rather than leafless trees which is all we see now for the most part with the exception of the live oaks and cedars.
Jared brought out the tripod so we would have some clear pictures and not blurry ones instead. We started out by an oak tree (a branch of the huge tree), moved to a cedar tree in the front of the house, then we posed near the trunk of the huge oak tree in the backyard, and finally to the little red oak that was so vibrant! We were able to pick out one from a few of the options and sent it out to family for Christmas. Here are some of them for you to see (above and below).

Fall 2008

About two weeks ago we actually had some fall foliage which is not much to brag about at all. We do enjoy the bright reds, some dull oranges and yellows. They are not as brilliant as the falls back home. Living in New Hampshire, I really took our gorgeous fall leaves for granted. It was always the norm. It must be all those maple and oak trees! Jared would like to line our driveway with red oaks.
Here it is just rather mediocre in comparison to the Northeast but at least we get some! That's what the very edge of Hill Country will give you! Jared snatched a photo off of the main road that we got to view for about a week or two before all the leaves fell or changed color. So we get to enjoy fall leaves while the north part of the nation is shoveling snow.

World's Hottest Pepper

A guy at work sent out an email advertising some really hot peppers that he wanted to give away. So I grabbed some of the most famous ones. I thought it would be fun to grow some next year. Here is a picture for you to see and a scale to compare them. The guy I got them from ate a very small Chocolate Habanero and it was so hot it made him puke! The one at the top is the current world record holder! over 1,000,000 on the scale when a Jalepeno is about 3,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale

Remember the Alamo

On Black Friday we slept in to miss all the sales and instead decided to visit the Alamo and then attend a session at the San Antonio Temple. When you attend the temple here there is NO cafeteria nor clothing rental place so you have to bring all your clothes. Linda was needing a new dress so she picked out a really nice one (I would have bought that one if I needed a new dress). She looked great in it too.
At the Alamo, we gave the "quicky" tour. We first went to go see the short film put out by the History Channel. Afterward we looked at some cool rifles and other neat artifacts. Then we went to the little chapel and listened to the guide. Did you know that the hump was not originally there? They add it later. We then proceeded to one of our favorite places where there is a huge oak tree and a little square pool over near some library and posed for a couple of pictures.

Thanksgivin'

Well, first off we wanted to fry our turkey but soon realized after we borrowed the fryer from our bishop that it would be too costly for our budget this year. We didn't have a propane tank nor 3 gallons of peanut oil. We abandoned ship so to say. Instead, Jared found a yummy injection sauce on the internet for our turkey.
Last year it seemed Thanksgiving was a living nightmare so I decided that this year I would make the pies the Wednesday before. Perhaps things would run smoother. I did just that. We were scheduled to make a lemon meringue pie along with some sort of layered pumpkin pie. I made the lemon filling and Jared assisted with the meringue. I was hoping to have lots of it but it ended up being short on top of the pie. It still tasted good. I cannot say it was bad for the first time. I made the pumpkin layered pie and Jared really enjoyed it. I cannot say the same for myself. It tasted weird. I guess I am a traditional girl.
On Thursday all we had to do was make mashed potatoes, candied yams, roast the turkey, throw some Stovetop stuffing on the stove, and nuke some frozen mixed veggies. Oh, and Jared successfully made some really good half white flour and half whole wheat flour flaky rolls. They were absolutely delicious! Perhaps it was all the butter he lathered on there...
So our feast was a bit delayed but it all ran well. Needless to say we didn't eat so much that we were rolling on the floor.

That's Nacho Cheese!

I made cheese. This was my first attempt so it looks kind of funny. It took me all day to get it to curdle and then had to stay up well past my bed time to finish the job. I had to press it for a few days. So I fashioned a press out of a #10 can and weighed it down with 40lbs of water. So the finished product is in the picture below. Now we have to wait a few months for the flavor to enhance.

Liar Pit or Fire Pit

If you live out where we do, you can do pretty much whatever you want. We wanted a Fire Pit, so we dug a hole in the lawn and made one. We were informed by our kind neighbor that around these parts they are called Liar Pits. This is to signify what type of conversations take place around it. The following are some pictures and explanation of how we made our Liar Pit.

We started by selecting a spot. Then we dug a hole. As expected when we dug we found that fire ants also liked that spot. A quick note here: Fire does not just describe the color of the ant or the sting of the ant it also describes their overall attitude. Digging a hole while avoiding the sting of about 1,000,000 angry fire ants is not a trivial feat. The more I dug the more I found, and they were not to happy about the eviction notice. So after digging the hole to the approximate desired dimensions and disposing of the former tenants we began to lay down the rocks. Where do you find rocks in central Texas? In your lawn. So we dug up the ones that were protruding above the surface. The iceberg principle applied here as the exposed portion of rock was no indiction of the actual size. I am guessing the largest one weighted about 500lbs. How do you get a 500 lb rock across your yard? With a Chevette. (see pictures) Once we got all the needed rocks close to the hole we lined the hole with the rocks. There were plenty of leftover rocks that were too big for the pit so we used them for a table and in the future for benches. I will leave it up to you to figure out how I got the 200lb table top placed by myself with no help. We had to test the Liar Pit, so that night under a star-studded sky I started a fire with flint and steel. Hot dogs and smores were on the menu. They never tasted so good after a hard days work.

Chicken Coop Completed.

So I spent a months worth of Saturdays of my life working on this chicken coop. It is mobile and the chickens seem to like it. It comes with a light and electric fence to keep out chicken poachers.

Texas Wildlife

So everything is actually bigger in Texas, except the deer. They are about the size of a great dane. They pass through our yard from time to time. I caught one one Saturday morning on our back porch. I got a few shots before it hissed at me and ran off. Notice the glowing eyes.

The bugs are bigger. This is a Rhinoceroses Beetle that flew into our garden. This explains why our grubs are so big. The centipedes are nothing to shake a stick at either.

Our Rats are bigger too. On the left we have a white tree rat. Below we have a ground rat-check out the size of this bad boy!


















And even our ant mounds are bigger. This one in our lawn is about 7 feet in diameter.





So as the late crocodile hunter said " you got to have your wits about ya" when in Texas or you might end up getting carried out of bed by some huge Texas bugs.

Chickens added to our Little Farm

I have wanted chickens ever since I was a wee lad. Now that we live far out from any city we can have almost any animal we want. So I got Chickens. 3 Rhode Island Reds and 2 Auracanas that lay blue eggs. When we bought this house we were lucky to have on our property a chicken coop and one small cage. I have them in the cage now and when they get big enough they will live in the coop and eat all our bugs. We decided not to name them because it is harder to eat them when you know their name. If all goes well we will have some fresh blue and brown eggs in 16-22 weeks. Notice thew hungry cat in the first picture. She wants to eat them.

Gardening in Texas

Our garden gives us the chance to enjoy more of what Texas has to offer, good and bad. This includes hot days with singing birds and warm nights with flashing lighting bugs and plenty of mosquitoes. It took a lot of work to get here, compare two pictures one taken in February and the other taken today. Fresh zucchini and cucumbers have already graced our salads. The Tomatoes are well on their way as well as the corn and cantaloupe. We have met some setbacks. Our electric fence cannot keep everything out. The squash vine borer took out 5 Zucchini plants already. I performed surgery to extract them from all our plants, but I obviously missed some. The cabbage worms and corn worms are having their way with their respective victims. But good will overcome. We will see if our sunflowers reach the promised 8 ft height and the watermelons really grow to 250 lbs.

Wheaties come to visit Austin

David and Jenn Wheat came to visit May 3, 2008. The tour of Austin included the capital building, (see picture). The best part of the capital building is the huge open rotunda. We found that if you stand on the star in the middle of the floor and speak you can hear yourself as if you are speaking into a loud speaker. This makes you feel like you are talking loudly but only you can hear it. This is because you are in the center of a round room and your echo returns from every direction at once. We also discovered that if you jump on the
walkways that circle the rotunda the floor shakes on the opposite side. I found this out because a big burly biker was not very happy that his floor was shaking when he was already afraid of heights. I decided to stop jumping. We also went to the Austin botanical gardens. There were plants of all shapes and sizes. The most interesting tree was a thorned tree of some sort. I guess this kind of tree does not like to be climbed.