The day of the Feast

 This fotos cracks me up!

I was not going to upload it, but then

I just had to, it is so good of Natassia

posing as a hostess!

Silas is predominantly responsible for

 EVERYTHING on this table foodwise.

I made one batch of crackers and some fermented/pickled garlic.

He went over-the-top!

We didn't need dinner after this!

 Here is the keezer.

We always have to buck the trend.

Most people have a "keggerator"

We have a 'keezer'.

This is our contribution to recycling.

We are basically unable to recycle glass here,

and we used to generate plenty.

Like when I would take our glass to the "recycle" center

{they save it in a special area to mine it later}

the attendant would ask if we owned a bar!

EEeek!

{We do take the glass of others who are typically willing

to just toss it, so it wasn't ALL ours~ but mostly}

Now we just have to wash glassware.

And Mike takes a growler to places he would usually take bottles.

The party!

It was very festive.

It was extremely delicious.

It was mostly organic.

We are all grateful and feel exceedingly fortunate.

Basement: Before and After

The "Great Room" before

& After, foto taken from the same angle.

Behind the glass is the freezer and the jelly cupboard

and the pantry.

We are still working on decorating and such.

One step at a time!

Enterepol, before and as the underlayment of hte flooring is being laid.

I didn't get a shot of this room in all of its horrible glory with the concrete floor and the sawdust

and everything tossed about willy~nilly.

But here it is now, with things on shelves and a new plywood floor.

The plywood is so that we can do projects in here without worrying about ruining the flooring.

This is a shot of the Great room from the doorway of the entrepol looking toward the

stairs and sliding glass doors leading out to the woodshed ghetto.

And here it is after organization and purging.

There is still a small pile of lumber that needs a new home

 and a few other loose ends to tie up.

 The TV area. Still some flooring that needs a new home,

but right now it serves as a coffee table of sorts!

White weekend

I couldn't bring myself to toss the jack O' lantern in the compost

so I perched here on this stump

Now I see I should have carved a face into it so

it would have this snowy stocking hat!

Weekend walk to the paper box

2/3 mile round trip.

An old apple tree in the meadow.

Porcupine Creek.

The town shovels

Snow fell during the night,

blanketing NW Montana in white.

 I started shovelling as soon as I arrived at work,

and soon I was joined by people up and down the block.

There were many trucks with plows on the front,

but quite a gaggle of hand shovellers too.

 The above 3 fotos are of my handiwork at my office.

 above is the library shoveller lady,

and below, in shorts, year round, is 'Twig' from the laboratory out back.

 And here is Tony!

We all love Tony!

And here is also a fine example of why you need all season radials on your lawnmower!

He has chains for it.

Morning Moonlight

My morning yoga practice takes place here,

when I lie on my mat I look through this HUGE jade plant out the window.

The last several mornings the moon is still fairly high on the horizon

sending this filtered light through the jade plant.

With my point&shoot camera, this is the best I can do,

and nothing captures the feeling, the magic of this scene!

This morning the temp. was 11° and somehow the light changes at that temp.

It was stunning!

11~11~11

 Natassia and I took a little road trip to the Flathead for 11~11~11.

We met up with some friends and went to ladies night out in Whitefish.

But first we went with my friend, Helen, of hooping fame &

walked around this lovely property that is full of stone circles and mandalas

and huge crystals and other delightful things.

 The property is roughly 300 acres and the Whitefish River runs through it.

It was an old mill site.

Now it is something like a "StarGate" or portal.

We are not sure what the owner is calling it.

But it was a lovely outing and a lovely day for a walk,

and all the goodness and adventure carried on late into the night.

The full moon and 11~11~11!

My Drive Home

Wednesday.

I stopped to get milk from the local cow after work.

And this is my view when I rounded the bend.

It was really much more spectacular than this.

I am suprised this looks this good.

On the teeny screen it was like, " I stopped the car for this"?!

What's Cookin'?

Pumpkin & Sesame Seed Crackers

1 cup pumpkin seeds ( I used raw ones from the store)
1 cup sesame seeds
3 cloves garlic
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1 egg
1 Tablespoon maple syrup ( I didn't use a full T of this, didn't want sweetness in my crackers)
1 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons water.
Preheat the oven to 350°
In the food processor mix the pumpkin seeds and garlic and whirl.
Then add salt and oil and syrup and egg and whirl then, if you think you need it,
add some water a teeny bit at at time (I didn't use a full 3 T)
Then add the sesame seeds and whirl some more.

Roll thin (like cracker thin...what is that in milimetres? and how would you measure that? Use your judgement!, think of wheat thins) between two sheets of parchment and then cup into desired size with pizza cutter (ingenious! but I don't have one so I used a knife) bake on a cooky sheet on the lower piece of parchment.

I, personally, think they ought to have salted tops and will do that next time for sure.

Bake until browned to perfection. The recipe says 15 to 20 minutes....
My crackers always seem to need to bake longer than the recipe says.....why?
So I broke off the ones around the edges that were getting really crisp and baked the center ones longer.
These are SO good! Yum!
I got some fancy cheese from Costco (sheeps milk) and a thin slice of it upon these is just dreamy!

I cooked a LOT yesterday!
I am not sure why. It was fun and I did it in streaks, rather than cooking all day.

I made bread, then custard (I had to use up the milk before milk day) and crackers and apple gallette (for the Monday Night Football boys~glad they ain't at my house!), and biscotti and squash soup
and toasted squash seeds I think that might be it.
But it sure was grand this morning when I went to put together my breakfast and lunch for work!

I did all this cookin' while I was alternately: cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming, knitting breaks, general art puttering and even a walk in the break in the snowstorms....
It was a good day!

Hamer Acres

Natassia and Silas bought this beautiful property north of Sandpoint.

10 acres.

It has a hay field, lots of timber land,

and little meadows tucked away here and there.

This is a huge old stump from days gone by

serving as a 'nurse tree'.

You can get a better idea of the size of the stump in the first foto

with Natassia and Silas standing beside it.

The Turning

 It is trying really hard to be winter in the high country.

We took advantage of still having access up high and drove up to

check snow depths and take in the view.

We saw two moose.

Gettin' Ready for Winter

Mike has been on the roof a lot lately.

He replaced screws that last winters snow load removed.

He fiddled around with the chimney, cleaned the stovepipe and such

and he added 'snow-brakes' to the dormers to hold the snow on the roof

for insulation and mostly because when the snow builds up on the dormers

it holds there a long time and then when it comes off it damages the lower roof

And feels like an earthquake.

This way, perhaps it will just melt.

The fun thing is that Fajoul, the kitty, loves to join him on the roof!

She climbs that ladder and gets onto the roof and then climbs the roof ladder and walks about.

He tries to keep her off, but she just loves it.

The Gold of Autumn

 Larch tree near the BBQ, this thing is covering our back deck with gold needles.

The pond is covered with a special breathable mesh so that it doesn't fill with needles and then freeze before we can fish them all out. The sides of the driveway are lined with gold!

 This oak is like the larch trees in that it changes colors all the time, from chartreuse in the spring to green to yellowy green to golden, to russet to nearly scarlet.....