Packing It In

Good morning, my friends. Today we'll begin packing in earnest for when the rubber meets the road on Wednesday morning. I have to make a quick trip into town, and then I'll pack my clothes and personal items today. Food will wait until tomorrow, but I'll be cleaning out the refrigerator today in order to mesh with our garbage collection day. I don't want to leave discarded food in the trash can for a month. Ew.

As you might imagine, the kitties are more than put out at being kept inside. Smitty let us know he was thoroughly disgusted.

Sadie tried everything she could think of to get the door to open.

Finally, she gave up and spent the afternoon on her catio.

There wasn't even any sewing to keep a cat busy! There was slow stitching, however. I had just a little bit left to finish on the Joyful Journey block, and so I spent some time on that.

That completes the eighth of 12 blocks. This one is called "Garden Glory." Here are all of the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

My day was spent getting organized for packing. I made up lists and crossed off things already in the RV. Also, I organized tour books and maps. The laptop, cords, mouse, and mouse pad are loaded. I love that it all fits under the table top in the truck camper. Space is at a premium, and so anything that can be loaded without taking up extra space is appreciated. 

In my wanderings, I noticed the maple tree toward the bottom of the field. August of 2022 was the hottest August on record in our area. However, we had the hottest August day on record when the temperature hit 108°F earlier this month. Our maple tree should be green at this time of year, but the leaves began taking on a fall tinge way back in July.

When we planted this tree, Mike wanted it far from the house since we already have lots of leaf-dropping trees up close. He didn't want to plant another one close to the house. That's only pertinent because it means he has to hook up all the hoses we own in order to water it at this distance. We kept it well watered this summer, but the leaves remained the color you see. One evening, I noticed the green leaves on the bottom left were cast in shadow toward the end of the day, and so we can only surmise the rest are sunburned. We've also noticed some trees around town that look the same way. It's nothing to worry about...unless you happen to worry about climate change...and we do.

So, the day seemed busy and out of order somehow. Before I knew it it was time for dinner. We've moved from zucchini to tomatoes and corn in our quest to use vegetables we've grown ourselves. Last night, I made a Tomato Tart. I must have made this recipe at some point in the past, but I don't remember it. I made it because it used tomatoes, but also because it used basil and fontina cheese. I had some basil left from when I made pasta sauce. The fontina cheese was left from one of the zucchini recipes earlier. This was good, and it was easy to make. The recipe suggests making it in a "deep dish" tart pan. Does such a thing even exist? I used a springform pan. My picture wasn't very appetizing, and so I'm borrowing the one from the recipe.

As a side dish, I made something new. It looked good when I saw it online. This is Korean Corn Cheese, and it was a very tasty way to serve corn. 

The corn is sauteed with some onions and seasonings before adding shredded mozzarella cheese. Then it's placed under the broiler to melt the cheese and brown the top. I really hate using the broiler in my oven...no reason...I just decided I hated it at some point during my life. So, my cast iron skillet will fit in my toaster oven...handle out...and that works just fine when I need to brown/melt something like this. 

Also, the recipe calls for a "mustard sauce" right at the beginning. I didn't have any "Chinese mustard" on hand. Reading about it, it seems it's just a hotter mustard than we usually use. I made the sauce using extra of standard mustard. I was suspicious of how this would taste, and so we had it on the side rather than drizzling it over the top. We both thought it added a nice zing, but it wasn't worth the effort to do it that way again. And all of that to say that you can skip that mustard part if you want. It's plenty tasty on its own.

Okay, so we have a couple of busy days ahead before we get on our way. I always dread this packing part of a trip. If you don't hear from me over the next day or two, it'll be because nothing worth sharing has happened. I'll be back if I have something of interest to share. If not, I'll be back no later than Thursday morning. We'll be in La Grande by then. La Grande is our first stop, then Heyburn, Idaho. We'll be reaching Vernal, Utah, by Friday, and we'll stick there for three nights while we visit Dinosaur National Monument. We had to reroute on a previous trip to Colorado and ended up in Vernal. We had just one night, and so no time to explore the national monument. We've regretted that, and so we'll make up for it this trip. 

So, maybe I'll be back tomorrow, and maybe I won't. We'll just have to see if anything happens between now and then. If not, I'll for sure be back no later than Thursday morning.