On Hiatus

Good morning, my friends. We're heading out on our camping trip today. It's a short trip. You can expect to hear from me again by Sunday, if not sooner. I won't be blogging while I'm away, but I should have plenty to tell you when I get back.

There was still a lot to do in preparation, but I took some time to stitch up Tiny Treasure #67. This one has stem stitch, running stitch, lazy daisies, and French knots.

It was a hot day yesterday. We had the A/C turned on by 10:00 a.m. In the kitchen, I made the filling for the Blueberry Hand Pies. It needed to cool completely before I could continue on, and so I did that first. There was a little filling left over. We spooned that over some vanilla ice cream for dessert last night, and that was mmm, mmm, mmm good. 

For the hand pies. I needed to roll out the dough, and cut it into sixteen 3-1/2-inch squares. For that, I used a pizza cutter and one of my quilting rulers. (I have one with a broken corner that I use for unconventional jobs like this). It was like cutting pieces for a quilt. When they were baked off, they looked like this.

It was a scary job because, with the heat, the dough got so soft it was hard to work with it. We got 'er done, though, and these will be nice for our camping trip.

Also, I was squeezing in baking these cookies during my wait times. These are Iced Espresso Oatmeal Crunch Cookies. I'd share the link for the recipe, but it was a test recipe for America's Test Kitchens. I've checked their website, and it doesn't appear there, which leads me to believe it hasn't been published yet. In any case, please feel free to email me if you want the recipe, and I'll be happy to share it. Keep it on the down-low, though, okay? I'm not supposed to share the test recipes. It's a good cookie, and Mike requested them for our camping trip.

Okay, and then I packed the rest of the food for our trip. There wasn't a lot to pack. Erik has some restaurants scoped out where we'll eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He's making breakfast one morning, and we're providing dinner one evening. The rest of the time, we'll be eating in restaurants. 

While I was in the camper, I could hear some nestlings cheeping from one of our bird houses. This is a western bluebird, and she's been skittish about allowing me to photograph her. Finally, I just sat quietly on the steps of the camper and waited for her to return. She watched me, and decided I was not a threat.

Eventually, she started feeding her hungry babies. This little family has been here for more than a week. I expect they'll fledge soon.

Back inside, I had some lunch, then a nap, and eventually made my way to the sewing room where I found Sadie had already claimed the Shop Hop 3.0 quilt. Kitties like quilts. Any questions? Also, she would like you to know that she's been to all of the towns featured in these quilt blocks.

Eventually, I coaxed her into her little bed, and then squared up the quilt.

From there I could sew on the binding.

And then I spent the rest of the afternoon on the hand stitching. The first corner is finished, and I'm approaching the second corner. Probably this won't get any more work done on it until this weekend when we're back home.

Okay, and here's our morning's sunrise. 

It's going to be another hot day today. Probably, it's a happy accident that we're heading for the Oregon coast, where it will be cooler. We'll be heading out around lunch time and spending a couple of days at Slow Boat Farm. Slow Boat Farm is on Puget Island in the Columbia River near where it dumps into the Pacific Ocean. Erik and Mae have camped there before, but this will be our first time. It's a relatively short drive. We have plans to do some sight-seeing at Cape Disappointment in Washington, and Astoria in Oregon, and whatever else we can make time for. It should be fun, and what could be better than camping with our kiddos?

So I'm signing off for a few days. Look for me to return no later than Sunday morning.

Quiet Day

Good morning, my friends. Except for grocery shopping, it was a stay-at-home-and-be-lazy kind of day. Before anything could happen, though, I needed to spend some time with my slow-stitching. I took the first stitches for Block #6.

From there, we headed out. Our list was relatively short, and so we were home before lunch time. After lunch and naps, I baked a Skillet Cherry Cobbler for Two. This is made from cherries from our trees, canned in simple syrup a couple of years ago.

Later in the day, we decided to make our way over to the winery associated with the RV park, Charleston Peak Winery. 

We'd heard it was possible to get a glass of wine and "snacks," but we weren't sure how that worked. And so we headed over to get the lay of the land, so to speak. They have light meals and charcuterie boards. Along the way, I took pictures of every blooming thing in their flower pots. These flowers I'm about to show you were all tiny...about the size of a nickel.

My phone tells me this is a Flaming Katy.

This is a Madagascar Periwinkle.

This one is a Texas Barometer Bush. 

And this one is an African Daisy, or Dimorphotheca ecklonis, if you want to get all technical about it.

Okay, and if you traveled with us to Alaska, you might remember the candy store we visited in Anchorage, Aurora Chocolates. They had all kinds of fancy chocolates...real works of art, inspired by the Northern Lights.

Well, the winery has some little gift boxes that reminded us of those. We might have to get some of these, but we resisted for this visit.

We wandered around a little bit, taking note of all the wine barrels in the employees-only section.

So, we've decided to head over there this evening for some wine and something else. (I'm leaning toward charcuterie, which I love.)

Back at the RV, we took advantage of our new wide-open spaces. We're at the end of a row, and the four spaces between us and the next RV are open. Feeling brave, Smitty consented to a walk lasting approximately three minutes. We saw a dog, and that put us off.

Open the door, wouldja, Sadie? I'll share my treats of valor with you.

And that was pretty much our whole afternoon. We enjoyed our cobbler with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and called it a day.

There isn't much on today's agenda. I'm thinking about doing some more sewing. Or maybe doing some more walking. I haven't made any decisions yet. We have four more days here in Pahrump before we move on to Death Valley National Park. Yesterday, I took a look at the roads between here and home. An awful lot of snow has fallen in the Eastern Sierras. We were hoping to go home that way since we're told it's a good place to see wildflowers. That's still about ten days off, however, and so maybe conditions will improve. If not, we can always head that way through Nevada. Time and weather will tell.

And speaking of weather, I hope y'all have survived the blizzard back east. Stay safe, warm, and dry, my friends.

Itching to Stitch

Good morning, my friends. We getting into the relaxation groove here at the Traveling Three Cats Ranch. Sadie spent her yesterday morning snoozing on her window hammock.

Later she decided to chase the sunshine across the back of the couch.

Having missed a couple of days of slow-stitching when we were driving south, I as in the mood for some slow-stitching. I spent some extra time on it and filled what remained in my hoop.

Smitty kept watch over my shoulder, making certain my needle didn't stray outside the lines.

When I moved my hoop to encompass the last of it, I could see that I had an impending stitching emergency. I had more to stitch than I had floss to stitch with.

Happily, we found an oasis in the desert...

And I was able to refill my stitching coffers. I really only needed one skein, but one can never be too careful when it comes to matters of stitching. Wouldn't you agree?

Our drive pretty well demonstrated the state of the weather since we arrived in Escondido. Periods of blue sky and puffy white clouds, overshadowed by dark gray and threatening ones.

As we drove back to the RV, we decided to drive a little farther north and check on the status of our favorite farm stand. HALLELUJAH! THEY'RE OPEN!!!

We spent some time chatting with them about our concerns. They weren't worried about ICE for themselves, but they said it had hurt their business some. They explained that many people here are afraid to leave their homes. It's very sad. They didn't have any of the Hass avocados, and that was the reason for the closure. As you might have noticed in a picture I posted a few days ago about the avocado groves, many of them are grown on the hillsides. With the recent rains, it's been too slippery to pick.

That was okay. We had the beautiful Fuertes at the RV, and we were motivated to make lunch of one of them. This is our easiest way to consume avocados. Remove the pit, add some Catalina (or Russian, or French) dressing, scoop it out with a spoon. Dee-lish.

Freshly flush with embroidery floss, I sat and stitched, and stitched, and stitched, until I'd finished it.

As I'm writing, I'm rinsing the Sticky-Fabri-Solvy out of it, and I should have a pressed and finished piece to show you in tomorrow's post. Here's the wrinkly version.

We had leftovers for dinner last night, but we also imbibed in our favorite way to eat avocados. Hear me out, now. This is canned grapefruit, chunked up avocado, and Catalina dressing. Mmm, mmm, mmm.

I learned this from Mike's mom. When Mike's dad was still alive, he used to send us avocados from his own trees. I'd make my workday brown bag lunch from a can of grapefruit, an avocado, and some dressing. The grapefruit kept the avocado from turning brown before I could have it for my lunch. Canned grapefruit is best. I once tried to make this with fresh grapefruit when we couldn't find canned in the grocery store. It wasn't the same. And, for this trip, I bought three cans of grapefruit before we left home. We won't be denied this time.

Okay, so next up on the embroidery front will be the two designs for Block 10 of Raggedy & Friends.

It's kind of hard to see in that picture. You can see it better in this image from the pattern.

And I've nearly forgotten, but it's time to link up for January's

My goal will be to finish these two embroidery designs before month's end.

On today's agenda, we need to make a quick trip to the grocery store. Friends invited us for dinner on Thursday, but then texted to ask if we could do it tonight instead. Fine and dandy, and the sooner we see them the better. But that means an emergency run to the grocery store because I want to bring a salad to share. I need me some ingredients if I'm going to do that.

So, off I go...not a second to waste. And if you've enjoyed this post, you can thank Sadie for her careful editing and input.

 

Have a good day, Everybody!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Good morning, my friends. We're expecting high winds today. The weatherman is predicting downed trees and power outages. All is calm right now, but we're bracing. I have some baking to do, and so I need the power to stay on. Erik called yesterday with concerns about the weather. After talking it over, we agreed to stay on the side of safety and postponed our family dinner until tomorrow, on Christmas Day. 

Yesterday started with the usual slow stitching. This is Tiny Treasure #35. It has a chain fill, a stem fill, stem stitch, and fly stitch.

There's just one more of these to stitch this morning. I've already decided to start on the nativity stitchery next.

From there, I got busy with my baking. Starting with two loaves of this Cranberry-Orange Bread with Grand Marnier Glaze. (Don't tell anyone, but I substitute triple sec for the Grand Marnier.)

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I've been making this for more decades than I care to think about. It's a family favorite. It can also be made using dried cherries in place of the dried cranberries. In that case, amaretto is substituted for the Grand Marnier. 

While that baked, I went to work making the gods' own Christmas candy, Divinity. My mother made divinity, and I have loved it my entire life. I wish I had her recipe, but I found one online that I like. This is Mrs. Floyd's Divinity. I have no idea who Mrs. Floyd is, but I'm sure I would like her if we met.

Oh, and did I say I didn't know who Mrs. Floyd is? Well...The Google to the rescue. According to AI, Mrs. Floyd is a quintessential Southern grandma figure, not a specific famous person, whose simple, perfect recipe for fluffy, pecan-filled divinity candy became a staple in Southern kitchens and magazines. So there you go.

Okay, and I thought I might bake some cookies, but I'd already dirtied every bowl and measuring device in the kitchen by then, and so I called it a baking day. Instead, I decided to pack up my sewing supplies. Smitty helped me as I sorted through things.

And that's one packing category checked off the list. There's no food to eat, and there are no clothes to wear yet, but by gum and by golly, the sewing supplies are on board. We have our purriorities.

With our schedule changed, I've rearranged my to-do's a little bit. Today I'll bake some cookies, and I'm trying out a new cheesecake recipe. We have a small ham to take along with us and enjoy on New Year's Day. I'll make some baked beans in the slow cooker, and we'll bake up some Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Hot Honey Browned Butter. I've scaled the cheesecake recipe to make it a cheesecake for two (or probably more like six). It's a no-bake cheesecake, but I'll still make it in a 4-inch springform pan. I've read that cheesecake freezes beautifully, and I happen to know that even the Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes are "deeply chilled" on their journey to your plate. I figure this will work out fine. 

It's made with a couple of new-to-me ingredients. First, these Lotus Biscoff cookies. I'd never heard of these before, and I despaired about finding them in the grocery store. They were plainly visible in the bakery section of our store. These will be used to make the crust.

The cheesecake filling uses this related product. It too was plainly visible right next to the cookies. There's also a "crunchy" version, but "creamy" seemed right for a cheesecake.

I'll use the whole of the cookie package (mine is the smaller 4.4 oz. size), but I'll only use about half of the cookie butter. Apparently it's also good as a spread or a dip. I can imagine it might be good spread on slices of apple...like peanut butter, only not.

Also, I'm doing laundry today, and I'll probably start the odious job of cleaning out the refrigerator. I need to sort through what we'll take along and what we'll discard. If I'm feeling really energetic, I might actually clean the refrigerator while I'm at it.

So that's a full day right there. Time to get moving. Stay safe and warm my friends. There's stormy weather in our future. I'm wishing you a day of less-threatening weather.

Sunny and Dry

Good morning, my friends. The warmer, drier weather we've been promised has finally arrived. We have a pretty view of the mountains this morning.

We were able to get out and pull some weeds yesterday, although the day started out pretty chilly. We waited until after lunch to get outside, and then we each picked a bucket full of weeds. It was a pretty good head start. The kitties helped, of course, but they were off busy with other things. There was no rain overnight, and we're not expecting rain before Sunday. Mike has identified some areas he wants to spray today, and I'll get to work on the blueberry and peony beds. If we can get all that done, we can feel pretty good about the weed situation while we're traveling. At least, I hope so. 

While we waited for the day to warm up some, I finished stitching Day 22 of the Tiny Hearts. The day's stitching finished off the one we'd started the day before. This one includes satin stitch, French knots, and fly stitch.

When that was finished, I took the first stitches on Block 7 for the Kittens quilt. I doubt I can finish this before we leave. The kittens are coming with us this trip, and so I'll keep working away at them. 

It was only mid-morning by then, and so I baked off the Jumbo Breakfast Cookies that will be traveling with us. These are made using peanut butter, rolled oats, raisins, and multi-grain Cheerios. They'll be an alternative to Clif bars, but we'll also be taking Clif bars. We like something like this when we don't want to stop for lunch. We each had one with our afternoon cup of espresso, warm from the oven. I saved two for this morning's breakfast snack. The rest were individually wrapped and frozen to take along.

So we had lunch, and we did our weeding, and then we both took naps. Weeding has become a torturous undertaking with our old knees and backs and so much getting up and down. We needed the refurbishment a nap provides.

There was nothing else on the agenda after that, although I'll admit I forgot one housekeeping chore. I wanted to get this last small quilt finished up. I kept it pretty simple with some straight line quilting.

One of the fancy stitches on my sewing machine reminded me of honeycomb, and so I used that.

Here's how it looks from the back.

Binding strips were already cut, and so I sewed those on.

The rest of the afternoon was spent hand-stitching the binding, and TA-DA!!

And lookie there! All my small quilts are quilted and finished!

It's been a long time since any section of my white board has been empty. The Tiny Hearts will take their place here soon enough, but for now...clean slate, my friends. It makes me feel energetic just looking at that wide open space.

Okay, so our trip starts one week from today. We're going to have to get serious about our preparations. I was going to wash clothes yesterday, but then found the hamper only about 2/3 full. I'll put that off for a day or two, and then I won't have to do it again before we leave. Also, we're doing our grocery shopping today. Between the foods from the freezer, foods I cook ahead, and food I have planned, we shouldn't have to go grocery shopping again until we reach Escondido, California, on March 7th. There is one exception to that, however. We can't take certain fresh produce across the state line into California. I'll make a separate list for those things, and we'll make a quick trip once we get into the land down under. 

For whatever reason, the sign reminded me of a cartoon an old sociology professor loved. He taught a class called "Sociology of Deviancy." And how could I resist taking a class with that name? Anyway...he liked to tell about a cartoon he'd seen once of the "Welcome to California" sign. The subtitle was "Resume Deviant Behavior." I'm for that. Who's with me? And when you consider that I was born in California, it makes a whole lotta sense, doesn't it?

Okay, so this seems as good a time as any to say my blogging might be a little more sporadic over the next week. I may not post every day. We're going to be very busy with trip preparations, and I'm not sure how much blog fodder I can generate with all that going on. You understand, don't you? So let's just agree that if I have anything of interest to tell you, I'll write ("of interest" being a relative term). And, if not, you'll hear from me no later than next Thursday. Surely I'll have thought of something to say by then. 

If you're coming with us, you might want to start packing too. We're expecting weather of all kinds. And don't forget your eclipse glasses, for goodness sake. Also, you might want to check your stash. After Paducah, we're going to Missouri Star Quilt Company. And oh, the other sights we will behold! We're going to have a good trip. I hope you'll come along.