Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Attack of the Plums!

On Sunday a lady brought a huge bowl of tomatoes she picked from her garden to share with everybody, and I was starving after church, so I decided to go grab a bag of them for a snack before choir practice. While I was there another lady saw me and asked if I'd like to come over and pick a few plums. On Monday night, Greg and I went to their house with a couple little grocery bags, and left an hour later with a big box of sugar plums (those are small and purple like grapes) and three grocery bags full of regular purple plums and yellow plums! We actually gathered three boxes of plums--which we were strongly encouraged to take with us, but we knew we couldn't handle that many. I didn't even realize at the time just how much was in that one box alone!



The next day I went out and got some jars and canning supplies so I could get to work. I started by washing a bunch of the little sugar plums outside with the garden hose and sticking them in a big pot. (there were lots of spiders and ladybugs mixed in) Then I added 2 cups of water and started squishing them over high heat on the stove. The pot needs to boil for about 10 minutes once they're all squished. Then I strained the juice out (which is dark purple from the skins--but the fruit is actually bright yellow inside). I boiled the juice again while mixing in a packet of pectin, and 7.5 cups of sugar! (I thought that was a lot!) When that was all dissolved, I poured the mixture into the hot jars, and put them in a big stew pot with boiling water (you have to cover the jars with two inches of water). I put the lid on the pot and let it boil for a good 10 minutes, then took it off the heat and let everything cool down. Later when the water was a little cooler, I took the jars out and set them on a towel. I did this process four times in row, and ended up with 18 jars of sugar plum jelly! And I still have a fourth of the box of plums left over! I canned the normal purple plums whole in a light sugar syrup, and cut all the yellow plums in half and took out the pits. I put some of the yellows in our dehydrator, for about 6 hours....but they ended up being gross. The others we're just eating raw, and that's pretty good.

The plum people want us to come over again and pick more yellows as they ripen. I think I will be a little more careful about how many we take. I shared a couple jars of jelly with some friends, and gave a jar and bag of plums to two of our neighbors. I can't wait til we can have a big garden, and I can can a lot more things. I'm doing some work for a friend who is building their new dream home, and she offered to let me use some of her land for a garden next summer. She also loves to can, and has a pressure cooker and hot-water canner. We're planning to have a couple of big canning days next summer when we harvest the food from our gardens and turn it into food storage! Isn't that exciting? I feel like a pioneer. And the song, "The prophet said to plant a garden, so that's what we'll do!" keeps playing through my head. Hahhaha!

(Thanks to the Relief Society in Summer's ward in La Grande who inspired me with their canning activity!)

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Bike, Camp, Raft Trip!

Last August, Greg and I decided to go on a little weekend trip for fun. We borrowed a friend's kid trailer that goes on the bike, and packed it full of camping gear and our two rafts. We drove up to the Couer d'alene trail and found a good spot to park near Snake Pit. The trail used to be train tracks, but since the trains don't use it anymore, they paved the whole thing to make a wonderful car-wide smooth trail that goes for miles through beautiful countryside. We left our car behind and rode our bikes upstream on the trail for about 5 miles to our campsite. We paid a couple bucks to the manager of the campsite, who also served as the bartender. This was about the only business in the little town. Well, the bar and campsite was the town, period.

Our camping area consisted of a large grassy area splattered with sour green apple trees and other unknown bushes. After exploring down at the riverbank, we set to work pitching our tent and getting dinner going. We used our tiny campstove to heat a can of chili, since there was a burn ban and we couldn't have a full-blown campfire. Evening came quickly and brought with it the bugs and eerie sounds of the dark. Of course we forgot the bug spray, so we wrapped up in blankets to hide from the ferocious bloodsucking mosquitos. Just as we finished packing up the food, we heard an unnerving clomping noise somewhere beyond the reach of our campstove's light. We both sat up straight and strained to see into the darkness, hoping to see perhaps a friendly hooved animal like a dear, but afraid of what else it might be. We both shone our dim flashlights at the suspected source of noise, but saw nothing. A flashback of a previous camping trip that went horribly wrong prompted me to quickly put away our things and jump in the tent. As we lay in the darkness, my body would stiffen with every sound outside the tent. I thought I heard another frightening sound, but later realized it was the large American flag oustide flapping in the wind.

The night passed cold and slow, and finally it was morning. We had both been freezing all night. Since the weather had been so warm and we had not thought to bring any warm clothes, so we were very happy to feel the warmth of the rising sun. After cleaning up our raisins and oatmeal breakfast, we packed our things and lugged them all down to the shore. I was uncertain about Greg's plans, but he somehow managed to pack all of our stuff into the tiny raft we used to paddle around in. It is barely big enough for both of us to sit, and only if we hang our arms and legs over the sides, looking like some kind of strange human spider creature. Greg put a rope through everything in the raft and used lots of bungies as well to keep everything strapped down tight. We didn't want to loose anything if it tipped over. To finish it off, he piled our bikes on top of everything, and bungied them down as well. The front tire of his mountain bike dragged through the water a bit, but he thought that would be ok. We hopped in the bigger raft and headed down the river. As we approached a bridge, we heard a lot of whooping and shouting, then saw a skinny teenage boy spring off the bridge and into the water 40 feet below. We passed under the bridge and looked up to see another scared looking boy clinging for his life to the side of the bridge as his fellows hooted and laughed at him. I felt bad, and imagined how he must feel. The guys in the water were all yelling at him to jump. Even from where we were, I could almost see him shaking as he climbed back and forth to jump and then quickly back up to stand on solid ground. He finally let go and fell down to the water landing with a loud and painfully hard "Smack!" We waited to see his head pop back out of the water before we continued down the river.

Some places moved quickly through mini rapids and shallow water, and other places were so slow moving and deep they resembled lakes more than a river. In the slow places I usually would take over the paddles and Greg would hang his body over the back of the raft, using his long diving fins to propel the rafts along. We saw lots of big fish at the bottom, as well as a handful of fisherman on the shore in different places along the river. We had been told the water was unsafe to drink and the fish unfit to eat because of the contamination of metals from the train loads that used to pass by...however, we didn't see any fisherman throwing their fish back into the water. We just got a lot of funny looks as we floated along with our tiny overloaded raft in tow.


Eight long hours later, we reached our destination at the shore of another campsite near the car. Greg unstrapped his bike from the raft and rode off to get the car while I hauled our things from the sandy river up to the field. The sun had gone down and the light just finished fading as we drove away, cold and hungry and sunburned. Two hours of driving brought us to our home in Pullman where we brought the neccesities in, showered, and collapsed into our bed!

Chocolate Muffin Horse

So, for anybody who is wondering why I have such a silly combination of words as the title...it's my nickname. I've been told that when I was little my mom would call me her little "Holly Horse" because I had my hair in a ponytail a lot. Mom and Dad suppose that I thought people get their nicknames because of what they like, because one day when Mom called me, "Holly Horse," I said, "I'm a chocolate muffin horse!" because I really loved those big chocolate muffins from Costco (and still do!). Going with that formula, today you might call me a Chocolate Muffin bike book piano choir horse. Ha ha ha!

Trampoline Slide Show

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Ginger Rose

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During my visit at Summer's she helped me set up my blog. We also worked on getting cute pictures of Ginger for a photo contest. She was so funny, rolling around all over the place! We were trying to get a picture of her on her tummy, but everytime I'd roll her on her tummy, her little legs would just start goin' and she'd roll over before we could get a picture! She likes to throw her feet up into the air and stamp them down hard on the ground, pushing off and spinning in circles on her back. We had to stop and laugh because she was being so silly!
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We took Ginger to the library for story time this morning. It was so cute to watch her sit with the other kids and listen to the stories. The girl in front of her seemed to like sharing her book and it looked like she and Ginger were having their own story time.
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Our Bike Ride

Summer sent me an email and said she wanted Greg and I to come down and go on this really cool bike ride with her. Greg is busy with school, so I drove down to La Grande alone with my bike on the back of the car. When I got here, we were afraid we wouldn't get to go on our bike ride because the weather was cold and looked like it would rain. We spent the next day keeping busy with "Body on the ball" (a class at the gym) canning with the Relief Societ, and watching "Planet Earth" (a cool Discovery Channel show).

Today when we got up we decided to go on our ride since the weather was sunny and warm. We got everything ready and headed up to the mountain driving seperately. We drove for quite awhile before Summer stopped and we put my bike on her car, preparing to leave my car behind. I made sure to get my camel pack, purse, bike gloves, and all the things that are necessary for riding. Then we continued up the mountain in her car to the place where we would park and begin our decent down the mountain on our bikes. Unfortunately, we both had to go potty (And yes, we went and "Tried" before leaving home) so we took turns behind the car since there were no bathrooms around. As I pulled our things out of the car, a little sick feeling started in the pit of my stomach and I soon realized something was missing! We pulled everything out and looked everywhere, but I could not find the seat for my bike! I tried sitting carefully on the frame of the bike with my padded bike shorts, but that was definetly not an option!

Giggling and making fun of ourselves, we packed up our stuff and headed back down the mountain towards my car. We realized from the perspective of someone else, it appeared that we drove to the top of the mountain just so we could stop and pee, then turn around and go home. HAhahahaa!

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

At the Zoo


Greg and I went on a date with Summer and Glen and Ginger to the Point Defiance Zoo this summer. We had a fun playing on the toys and looking at the animals. Posted by Picasa