Remember Whensday

 

In 1992, after FabGrandpa was injured in an auto accident, we were given this puppy. We named her Newt, after Newt Gingrich. (Can you see the resemblance?)  She was a just a ball of white fur when she came to live with us, but she kept FabGrandpa entertained and happy during his long recovery.  She was smart, and learned lots of tricks. Whenever she heard the sound of a bottle of beer being opened, she would run to get her bowl, and would dance on her hind legs with the bowl in her mouth, begging for a sip of beer. 

Her life came to a very tragic end, though, as someone  poisoned her.  We did not get her to the vet in time to save her life. FabGrandpa buried her in our backyard and mourned her passing for days. Although she was with us for less than a year, she will never be forgotten.

For more Remember Whensday posts, click here.

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A Road Trip To Mesquite

We usually don't travel at night. If we leave home to go somewhere, it is usually early in the morning. So, when we decided to go on a road trip to Mesquite, Nevada on Friday after work, we knew we would be doing part of the driving for that trip in the late evening and after dark. 

  

You can tell from the long shadows that the day was ending. We have never seen the desert of Northern Arizona and Southern Utah in this light before. 

 

 

I love the bigness of the sky out here. It seems like you can see for a hundred miles.  This is looking east towards the Vermillion Cliffs. It is another place where I just can't see it enough.

 

This was taken on Arizona Hwy 89A going north towards Fredonia, Arizona. It is a pretty good photo, but it still does not capture all the color that was there on Friday afternoon.

 

 

Along about sunset, we were driving through Colorado City, Arizona.  Colorado City is a fundamentalist Mormon settlement just to the east of the Utah border.  The colors of the cliffs at sunset are gorgeous!

 

That sunset was awesome! Like I said, the sky just seems bigger out here. 

Our destination for the weekend was the Casa Blanca Casino. We stayed two nights, and had a fun time. Besides the obvious reason for going, the restaurant there was really good, and really cheap. Can you believe a 16 oz porterhouse steak, baked potato, salad, and steamed green beans for $10.99? Or a humongous fresh fruit platter with cantaloupe, honeydew melon, strawberries, grapes, pineapple, and cottage cheese, for $6.99? So much that I could not eat it all. 

But OMG! Did you know it was over 110 degrees in Nevada yesterday???  I'm just glad we didn't have to go outside for anything.

 

 
 

 

Chicken Corn Chowder Revisited

Back in 2007, I found a recipe for Chicken Corn Chowder, that I thought was pretty good.  However, it was a somewhat complicated recipe, and I have never made it again.

Tonight when I came home from work, I realized I had not set anything out of the fridge for dinner, so I needed something I could throw together quickly, with things I already had on hand. One of the things I had on had was 3 ears of corn, that needed to be used today.  After poking around in the cupboard, I found enough things to make a pot of Chicken Corn Chowder that is just as good as if not better than the previous one and was way easier to make.  And that canned chicken made it a snap to prepare.

This version of corn chowder has these ingredients:

3 ears of corn, scraped from the cob

3 medium potatoes

1 large red pepper, chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, chopped

3-4 cloves garlic, minced

1 small onion, diced

1 12.5 oz can of chicken, with juice

2 cups 2% milk (or rice milk

2-3 tablespoons corn starch

salt and pepper to taste

3 tablespoons olive oil

Peel, dice and cook the potatoes in a small boiler until soft, drain.  IN a dutch oven, heat the olive oil, then saute the peppers, onion, and garlic until soft. Drain the chicken, but save the juice. Add the chicken to the dutch oven, and continue to saute for a few more minutes. Add milk, chicken juice, salt and pepper,potatoes,  and corn to the pot. Cook on medium low heat until thickened. Add 2-3 tablespoons of corn starch if needed to thicken the soup.   Serve with buttered toast or cheese toast. Mmmmm, goood!

Homemade Bagels From The RV? Yes...

Before I found out I have to eat a gluten free diet, I really enjoyed a good bagel with my coffee for breakfast. Now that I can't have a "real" bagel, I really miss them. I have found some good frozen ready made ones, but since I live 85 miles from the nearest place to buy them, I don't always have them on hand.

I decided today to try making some at home. Yes, Linda, I did burn them a bit, but you have to remember, 1. I live in an RV and the oven is quite tiny and the thermostat on it is not exact and 2. I live at an elevation of almost 9000 feet. Baking anything is trial and error. For the baking conditions I have, this first attempt at homemade bagels turned out pretty good. To see more, click here.

Scenic Sunday

I love this view! The photo was taken last Tuesday, on our way home from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon, on Highway 89 north towards Page, Arizona.

For more Scenic Sunday photos, click here.

Fire!

The photo above is from the Aspen Fire on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. It was started on July 29 by a lightening strike. It has burned more than 4,000 acres to date. If you click over there to read more about it, look at the map. I live about where the little circle is where it says North Rim on that map.


And this photo shows the smoke in Flagstaff last Sunday night, coming from the Taylor Fire, 13 miles away in the Coconino National Forest. The cause of this fire is still under investigation.

Both of the fires above have burned large areas, one in a national park, the other in a national forest. The fire crews have worked hard to keep them contained and under control.

When I was a little girl in the late 50's and early 60's, my parents left me and my brothers at home unattended while they worked. In summer, we had the run of the woods and the neighborhood, which was very rural back then. My father raised pigs for sale at the stockyard in Atlanta. He picked up the garbage from several restaurants about three times a week to feed his small herd (is that what a group of pigs is called???) of pigs.

The Agriculture Inspector from the state of Georgia came around, and inspected the feed about once a month. Sometime in the early 60's, he instructed my father to "cook" the slop to a certain temperature before feeding to the hogs. So, my father had a cooker made. This cooker was made from two 55 gallon barrells, sliced in two pieces lengthwise, and welded together end to end. One half was attached to the other with hinges, to make a large kettle with a lid. This was on legs about two feet off the ground.

While our parents worked, my brothers and I had the chore of building a fire under this contraption, and keeping the fire burning for two days each time. We used old tires for the fuel, which gave off huge billows of black smoke. As you might know, we didn't pay very close attention to that fire. We were kids, after all.

My oldest brother was about 11, I was 9, my younger brother was 8. We were so busy playing, that we did not notice that the fire had spread from under the cooker into the woods. We did not know what to do. I don't think any of us even knew how to use the telephone, or who to call. I ran up to the road, trying to figure out what to do. The first vehicle that came by was a van. I don't know what the man driving it was selling, but he had lots of burlap bags in the back of that van.

He ran into our house and called the fire department, then got a handful of those burlap bags out of the van. He wet them all down with the hose, and went with us to the fire. We all used those wet bags, slapping them at the flames to put the fire out. I don't know how many acres we burned, or how long it took to get the fire out, but I can remember how mad my father was at us for letting the fire get out of control. I can not imagine something like that happening today, with just a bunch of kids in charge.

Oh the 4th of July, I met Smokey the Bear when he came to the Grand Canyon for the open house at our Emergency Services building. He gave me a can cozy with his picture on it:


It says: "Never leave your campfire unattended! Extinguish your fire using these three steps:

DROWN! STIR! FEEL!"

If you would like to win this cozy, leave a comment or send me an email (fabgrandma at gmail dot com), telling me your fire story. Whether it is a campfire, a kitchen fire, or a forest fire, tell me about it. I'll pick a winner at random on September 1. You'll get this cute cozy as the prize.

And remember, Only YOU can prevent wildfires!

Self Portrait Day

I wore my hair short like this for more than 26 years:



Before that, I wore it very long, almost to my waist at times, and loved it. I had it all cut off the first time when I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, about three days before she was born. I just didn't want to have to fool with hair that long while I was in the hospital, and I thought it would be easier to take care of after the baby was born. However, I hated it short and let it grow out long again.


When I turned 30, I thought that women over 30 shouldn't have such long hair, so I had it cut short, like in the photo above, and wore it short like that until last year. In fact, my husband and a lot of my friends have never seen me with long hair.



While I don't particularly like these photos I took today, they do show somewhat what my hair looks like now. Last year, when I started working for the park service, and having to wear the Smokey the Bear stetson hat:


I discovered that those of us who had short hair had atrocious "hat hair" at the end of the work day. Those of us who had long hair, not so much. So, I decided to grow my hair out long again. It is about half way to where I would like it to be. I know I need a trim, to give it more shape and take care of some loose ends, but it pretty much looks how I expected it to look.




I can't decide if I want to cut bangs or not. I did have some cut back in April, but they are way too long now so I am trying to keep them neatly out of my face until my step-daughter, Becky, gets here to visit next month. She is a hair professional---I hope she will have some scissors with her when she comes. For now, I am trying to use some pretty combs I found at the mall, but my hair is too fine to hold them in.



My goal is to have hair long enough to pull back in a swishy ponytail while I am at work, wearing my hat, and be able to wear in a variety of styles on my off time. What do you think? (Oh, and I already know I need some make-up.)

Remember Whensday

This is a picture of me, around Thanksgiving, 1971 at my home in Neunkirken, Germany with a vase our neighbors gave me for Christmas. My first husband was in the Army, and I had gone over to Germany to live with him and await the birth of our first child. My son was born in Wuerzburg on November 14, 1971. Shortly after his birth, we found out that my husband was going to get an early release from the Army. So, we opened our Christmas presents early, then immediately packed them up for shipping home. I flew out of Frankfurt, on my way to Atlanta, the day before Christmas Eve. My son was one day short of being six weeks old.

After my husband dropped me off at the airport in Frankfurt, there was a flight delay that lasted about six hours. The delay caused me to miss my connecting flight from JFK in New York, so I sat in the airport in New York for another 12 hours, waiting for a standby flight. I finally got on a flight to Atlanta because my son was the youngest baby waiting, and I was running out of supplies of formula for him. I was so happy to finally arrive in Atlanta at Hartsfield Airport, way beyond exhausted. And when my mother picked me up? The first words out of her mouth were "Be careful with the baby."

For more Remember Whensday photos, click here.

Black Bart's Steak House, Saloon, and RV Park

We escaped the North Rim today and headed down to Flagstaff for a doctor's appointment on Tuesday. We decided to make it a mini vacation, and treat ourselves to a dinner out. We asked at the front desk of the motel for the name of a good steak house, and they referred us to Black Bart's. We haven't been eating much beef in the last few years, but occasionally we do like a good steak. And boy, I have to tell you, if you want a good steak in Flagstaff, Black Bart's is the place to go!



From the outside, it doesn't look like much. It is at the rear of an RV park, which by the way, has some nice, level sites, and can accommodate long rigs. We were wondering if we were in the right place, because it didn't look like your every day steak house. But, we went inside anyway and took a seat in the corner of the dining room.



The cover of the menu says it is a Steakhouse, Saloon, & Musical Revue. It didn't take long to figure out they meant what they said, as the wait staff doubles as entertainment. Our waitress, Rae, said they all attend Northern Arizona University there in Flagstaff, and have to audition for their jobs at Black Bart's. She is pursuing a minor in music while she sings and waits tables to earn her keep.




A first look at the menu let us know it is a high dollar place, but what the heck, we were out on the town for the first time in months. FabGrandpa ordered the 24 oz Porterhouse, while I opted for the 12 oz prime rib. We started out with a tossed salad and some potato skins. When my salad came, I realized immediately that I forgot to say "no crouton, please" when I ordered, but Rae was very pleasant and brought me a new one quickly. And OMG, those potato skins were delish! They were soft, and had just the right amount of cheese and real bacon on them, along with some green stuff that was probably chilies, and mmmm, mmmmm, mmmm.





The dining room is decorated in an old west motif, and has trophy animal heads hanging on the walls. Wooden tables have no tablecloths, which is fine because I would have just made a mess of it. The place was pretty crowded for a Sunday night.




The kids did a great job of singing a variety of broadway tunes, some of which I recognized, and some I didn't. I especially enjoyed "Be Our Guest" and "All That Jazz."

When dinner was served, Rae brought out a pan of sourdough biscuits with cinnamon honey butter. My mouth was watering from the smell of them, but of course I was not able to eat them, because they were made with the enemy, wheat! FabGrandpa said they were heavenly, and the honey butter divine!



My prime rib was perfectly pink, just the way I asked for it, and barely needed a knife. The horseradish sauce could have had a bit more heat, the au jous was just right. Looking at the picutre makes me hungry all over again.



FabGrandpa's porterhouse was almost as big as his plate. He said it was delicious. His came with fries, which I tasted and wished I had ordered them instead of my baked potato. He said whoever the cook was has cooked a steak or two in his day, because his was perfect.




These portions were way too big--we wound up getting a "to go" box. It is the first time since I have known my husband that he has asked for one. He said he couldn't eat it all, and it would be a crime to leave any of it behind. The leftovers will make a good breakfast for two days!



Our bill was not too bad, considering that we ordered an appetizer, we each received huge portions, and there was fabulous entertainment all throughout the meal. Rae was very attentive, and made sure we had everything we needed and wanted.

(me and Rae at Black Bart's)

Scenic Sunday

The North Rim of the Grand Canyon from the Walhalla Overlook. You can see the bend of the Colorado River from there. This was taken on Monday, August 10, 2009. There was still smoke in the air from the Aspen Fire.

For more Scenic Sunday photos, click here.

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In The Mail Today

I'm sure you remember the sad, sad story of my Big White Bowl. I was really missing it, because I didn't have another bowl big enough for mixing things like that gluten free brownie mix. I bought the mix about three weeks ago--it has been sitting there in the cupboard since then.

This morning, I received a package in the mail from my sister. I have to say, I am so happy first that she thought of me, and second that she sent me this bowl. I live in a very remote area, and have been to all the stores and thrift shops in town and there was just no bowl to buy, anywhere. Now I can make those brownies, probably tomorrow. Thank you, my seester!

Remember Whensday

This week's rememberance is not from long ago--it is a memory made just yesterday. My cousin Susan and her husband came to visit me. It was the first time we met, I think, but she says she remembers me and my family coming to Detroit when I was seven, and going to the Detroit Zoo with her family. I don't remember much about that trip, and certainly don't remember Susan or the zoo. I wish I did, because she told me a funny story about my Mom and Dad wearing straw hats that looked like Chinese coolie hats. That would be a funny site to me, for sure.

Before they got here, I was worried that we wouldn't have anything to talk about, or that it would be awkard, since we are both, ahem, in our late 50's. But, I have to say, it was like I had known her all my life, and had just seen her a week or so ago. We talked all afternoon! We have a lot in common, and enjoy a lot of the same things. I was showing her my quilting project, and she showed me her rug hooking project, which was gorgeous! And as you can see from the photo above, we have the same idea of F-U-N! I think we could have been close like sisters if we had grown up together.

And because I want to remember yesterday for a very long time, I am sharing two pictures instead of one. I hope we can get together again soon!

For more Remember Whensday photos, click here.

In The Company Of Friends and Relatives

This weekend the only thing I had planned to do was a dinner party for about 10 people. Yeah, I'm sorta crazy like that, who in their right mind would plan a dinner for 10 when they live in a travel trailer??? The menu included Mexican Seafood Soup, avocado slices, corn tortillas, and cantaloupe and honey dew melon. My friend, Kathie, brought home cooked mini bread loaves for those who eat wheat.

(ready to go outside to the picnic table)

I spent the day on Saturday doing nothing, and I do mean nothing. I laid on the sofa and read a book, one by Debbie Macomber, which is like junk food for the brain. Chatted with some friends on Facebook. Went out to sit by the campfire with my neighbors for a bit right before dark.

(a huge pot of soup)

This morning, I got up, wrote down my recipe (it's on my hard drive but I didn't feel like messing with my printer). It is a wireless and sometimes it won't talk to my computer, so writing down the recipe was faster. After that, I gathered up all the indredients and put them on the counter, ready to go. Chopped jalapenos, celery, onions, garlic. Peeled carrots and potatoes. Everything was ready. I made a HUGE pot of soup.

(mmmm, smell that soup!)

In between the gathering and chopping, I went out to do laundry. Got everything washed, dried, folded and hung up, in less than two hours. When I got back to the trailer, the phone rang, and it was my cousin, Susan. I have never met her, but I have talked to her on the phone several times. She is coming to visit me tomorrow. I am very excited about that! Susan's mother, my mother's sister, died when Susan was 12 and she was sent to live with her paternal grandparents in Oklahoma. She never saw her mother's family again until the last year.


In December of 2007, I was invited to be a guest blogger on a blog that is no longer in existence. During the time that I was trying to figure out what to write, I went to my mother's 80th birthday party. So, I decided to write about my mother's life. I started out talking about my mother's parents, and mentioned her maiden name in the article.

That maiden name is not a common name, and my grandfather's last name was the only last name Susan knew to search for after so many years. She and her husband had googled and searched for that last name many times over the years, with no results at all. The weekend after I posted my blog post at that other site, they googled again, and were very surprised and excited to finally get a hit on that last name.


The article included some pictures of my mother when she was young, and in the picture I chose, she looked very much like her sister, Susan's mother. There was a link from that article back here to FabGrandma, which Susan clicked on and found enough information to find my mother's telephone number in Georgia. The rest is history. Susan and her husband travelled from Missouri to Georgia to meet my mother last summer.


So, now, after all these years, I will meet my cousin tomorrow here at the Grand Canyon. I am very much looking forward to getting to know her a little bit. She credits me with finding her family and is very happy that I wrote that article. I'm sure I will have some pictures to post tomorrow.

The party tonight was so much fun, hanging out with the folks I work with, laughing, talking, having a beer or two. We stayed outside at the picnic table until after sunset, just enjoying each other's company. Ahhhhh, isn't life Grand?

Scenic Sunday

This photo was taken at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on the Uncle Jim Trail in June 2008. You can see the charred tree trunks from a forest fire that burned all the way to the edge of the canyon, and the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, Arizona in the distance.

For more photos from Scenic Sunday, click here.

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Remember Whensday

In the summer of 1985, I had major surgery and was out of work on sick leave for 10 and a half weeks. While I was recuperating, I went on a short trip to visit my brother and his family. I lived west of Atlanta, and he lived in south Georgia, out in the country.

I had a wonderful visit with them, just hanging around the house, doing nothing special at all, but it was one of my favorite trips I ever took. One day while we were there, we visited Okeefeenoke Swamp, and took a boat ride along the murky water, with alligators swimming by. That is my sister-in-law, Jean on the left, my daughter Becca in the back, and me on the right, sitting in Jean's kitchen.

For more Remember Whensday photos, click here.

Fire On The North Rim

One of the most frequently asked questions I get from visitors at the entrance station is "How long ago was the fire on Highway 67 a few miles back?" That fire, known as the Warm Fire, was caused by a lightening strike on June 8, 2006, and burned over 58,000 acres before it was contained on July 4.


While the burned area visible to visitors who drive along that section of Highway 67 to get to the North Rim may look devastated, the vegetation is returning. There are lots of young aspens coming up, and plenty of wildflowers and grasses there, too. To us humans, it looks like a terrible loss. But to mother nature, fire is one of her tools of renewal.

The aspens come back first. The shade cover from the aspen slow the growth of the pines and firs. But aspen grow quickly and don't live as long. So when they die the canopy opens up and allows the pines and firs to grow. This is forest succession. Plus the Ponderosa Pine are very fire resistant. The thick bark and self-pruning of the lower dead branches helps protect them from fire. Many have scorched trunks , but are still alive and provide the seed for new pines.

If you click on the picture above to enlarge it, and look closely, you'll see the new growth coming up around the dead, burned trees. You may or may not see the nesting holes of the woodpeckers and flickers who live in the shells of the dead trees, eating the many insects that also occupy the area.

Last week, we had thunderstorms in the area again. Five new fires were ignited by lightening from those storms, in various areas of the North Rim. No, I am not afraid, we'll be evacuated long before we are in any danger, if any of the fires come too close. The fire above is called the Aspen Fire, on the Wallhalla Plateau, near Cape Royal. It is probably north of where my friend and I hiked a few weeks ago. I don't know for sure, because they have closed the road. It is about 3.5 miles or so across the canyon from where I live. So far it has burned about 730 acres.

There is a lot of smoke from this fire. At night, it sinks down into the canyon so that in the morning all you can see is the smoke.

According to the Wildland Fire Policy, “...the role of federal agencies in the wildland/urban interface includes wildland firefighting, hazard fuels reduction, cooperative prevention and education, and technical assistance. Primary responsibility rests at the state and local levels…” "....Finally, agencies and the public must change their expectation that all wildfires can be controlled or suppressed. No organization, technology, or equipment can provide absolute protection when unusual fuel build-ups, extreme weather conditions, multiple ignitions, and extreme fire behavior periodically come together to form catastrophic events..."

(the road to my home)

As this fire continues, I am sure I will be asked lots of questions about it from visitors when I go back to work on Tuesday. I hope I can give the correct answers, and let them know that even though it looks like a bad thing, it really is nature doing what it does.

For more information about fires on the North Rim, see Geogypsy's post here.