The Dad Goes to Ruidoso!

The Dad had his Annual Pool and Insurance Board Retreat at the Inn of the Mountain Gods in Ruidoso this week.  He was gone for four days.  When he left on Tuesday, he left an hour or so early so he could get checked in, etc., before the meetings started.  When he was just outside San Antonio, NM, he called and said that the road would be closed for the next hour due to missile test-launchings in the White Sands area, so he wound up having to sit in the car and wait that hour.

This is the forest fire burnout area from the big fire in 2011.  It was like this for five to six miles along the road.

This is the dad doing a selfie in front of his hotel--The Inn of the Mountain Gods.

This is the same spot the other direction overlooking Mescalero Lake.

This is the front of the hotel.

This is as far as he could go on his walk.

This is over-looking Mescalero Lake.  There were some other folks out walking then, too.  They reciprocated in taking pictures for each other.

This was right outside his window looking at the ducks.

This is the view outside Dad's window of Mescalero Lake.

The Dad got home Friday night, and then he came right over to school to help with Fall Fest!  We were so busy I forgot to take pictures.

The Great Potato Project

This year, Tim Kelly, who manages the Community Pantry, the Dad about a "No Till" method of planting potatoes that they were trying in the Pantry Garden this year.  We went out and looked at their garden, and decided to give it a try.  The instructions:  Put seed potatoes on the ground and cover them with six inches of hay.  Water them.  At the end of the season, rake the hay away and pick up the potatoes.

Well, we tried it.  Our results were not amazing.   Did half of the garden that is in the alley way with potatoes.  We also did the area under the grape vines with potatoes.  We did it under  the grapes because we had some volunteer potato plants had started coming up under the leaves we left for mulch during the winter.  We buried potato peelings that sprouted, so we went ahead and planted that area.

As it turns out, the potatoes in the alley pretty much rotted and died.  We had just a couple of babies that made it.  We don't know if we had too much hay or too much water.

The potatoes that were under the grapes did pretty well, actually.  Don't know if we'll do it again, but it was fun this time.

If you look closely, you can see a few tiny potatoes in Susan's hand.  That's the entire harvest from the alley side of the house.

These are the potatoes that grew under the grapevines.

Susan brought home some blue seed potatoes from work for us to plant.  They didn't grow.  Neither did the ones at work.  We went to Sprouts in Albuquerque, and they had some blue potatoes, so we got some to try.  Susan was uber-excited about the whole blue potato thing!  Here they are washed and ready to bake!

Susan's blue potato is ready to eat!

And it tastes just like.....   a potato!

Gallup Family History Fair

On Saturday, we had our annual Gallup Family History Fair.  Since we are now Family History Consultants, we got to help out with the fair this time.  Last time we were just participants.  We're still new at this, so we learned a lot along the way, as well.

Dad taught the, "It Starts With A Story," class.  It was on the importance of keeping family stories alive, and how to add them to Family Tree.  It also showed folks how to add pictures to Family Tree.  He taught the class twice.  (Notice he's wearing two bolo ties--that was a "story.")

My job was preparing and serving the lunch.  We had Taco Salad.  I think if I had to decide if I were more like Mary or Martha, it would definitely be Martha.



We did a display table at the fair.  On the table is that picture of all your grandparents and great-grandparents that we hang in the hallway, along with a few other things.  On the board, we put up headstone rubbings.  We also draped one of my grandma's quilts over one end, but that didn't make it to the picture.

Susan and Ashley Haws were in charge of the Registration Table.  After the initial rush, they spent most of the day sitting and talking about Benedict Cumberbatch and Dr. Who.  (You can see my grandma's quilt in the background right behind Susan's head.)

Prickly Pear Jelly!

We've been trying to decide whether or not to make Prickly Pear Jelly again this year.  We tried it last year, and it was a lot of work, and it made the house stink for a week.  Prickly pears cooking is not a pleasant smell, that's for sure.  And the wild prickly pears in Gallup are pretty small, so last year we had to pick (and de-prickle) about a jillion of those babies.

We had just about given up on the idea when we happened upon some really big prickly pears while we were on a walk to the cemetery in Albuquerque from our hotel room when we went to the balloon festival last week.  We decided right then and there that we would make the jelly after all.  With the big fruit (called tunas), and the lessons we learned last year, it wound up not being bad at all.  The jelly tastes much better this year, too.  Last year we made the juice much to thick.  This year, it is thinner and tastier.

It was dark when we were walking back to the hotel, and we went through a Community Center parking lot.  We spotted several plants with big fruit, so we decided to scrounge around to see what we could find to pick and carry the fruit.  Dad found an old dilapidated box.  We held it together and put the fruit in it, but not until after Dad ripped off the flaps of the box to make fruit pickers.  They actually worked much better than the tongs we used last year.

The tunas were a little bigger than golf balls.  The ones we gathered last year were probably about a third of the size.

This picture is out of order, and apparently it doesn't want to move.  After we got home, Dad set up the chile roasting set-up and scorched the thousands of pricklies off of each tuna.



I should have turned the picture before I added it.  I guess it's too late now.  When we got back to the car, we dumped the tunas in the cooler that lives in the trunk.
 

We cooked the pulp down outside.  Last year, it stunk the house up for a week.  Then we didn't want to eat the jelly until the memory of the stink was gone--that took months.

A couple of days later, we turned the juice into jelly. 

We got about 16 half-pints out of our adventure.

I always feel so virtuous after I've finished a canning project--sort of in touch with the pioneer within.



The final step--tasting.   It's pretty doggone good.  It's still pretty thin.  Often jelly doesn't set up for a couple of weeks.  If it sets up then we'll have delicious prickly pear jelly.  If not, we'll have delicious prickly pear syrup!

Fall Break!

The Gallup McKinley Schools hasn't had a Fall Break for the past many years, but we had one this year!  We had Thursday and Friday off from school, and it really was a welcome break!  Susan's break was at the same time, and Dad took those days off to clean out his system for his colonoscopy, and to get his colonoscopy.  On Thursday, we had a fairly quiet day at home, and we all tinkered around on our own projects.  I needed a day like that.  We all did.  On Friday, Dad got his colonoscopy first thing in the morning, and then after he'd recovered a bit from the anesthesia, we took off for Albuquerque.  We took Grandpa out to dinner that night, and then spent the rest of the evening in and around our hotel.

On Saturday, we went to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.  I realized the week before when we watched the Mass Ascension on television before General Conference, that Susan had never been to that before.  She's been to the Gallup Balloon Rally, but not a world-known event that is practically on her own doorstep.  It was definitely time.

We made the Halloween Window.  I was outside in the dark on the front porch taking pictures of it when Dad stuck his face in the picture.  I didn't see him sneak in because it was dark in the green room, so when the flash went off, I screamed.  It took me totally by surprise.

Susan did the same thing.  Again, I screamed when I saw her there when the flash went off.

We had an abundant crop of jalapenos this year, so we made a couple of batches of jalapeno jelly, which we discovered we really enjoy.

Susan is an avid sewing hater, but we found some cute fabric with the Avengers on it, so she decided to make herself a pair of Avengers pajama bottoms.  Hawkeye is her favorite Avenger, so she chose this particular fabric, even though there were others she thought were cuter, because it was the only one that had Hawkeye on it. 

Our Kabocha harvest.  They aren't very big this year, but they sure are tasty!

Susan in her Avenger jammies.  (The sad irony to this whole story is that after she finished her pajama bottoms, she found that she didn't get any whole pictures of Hawkeye on them anywhere.)

Dad waiting to get his colonoscopy.  The doctor found a polyp, so he removed it, and it will get biopsied.

We went to Albuquerque and took Grandpa out to dinner.  I forgot to take a picture of him.  We went to our hotel, and decided to walk over to the cemetery to visit Grandma's grave.  Her headstone was all covered with dirt from a gopher hole, so we cleaned it the best we could without rags or cleaners.

 

On the way back to the hotel, we found some prickly pears that had huge fruit on them compared to the fruit on Gallup prickly pears, so we hunted around, found a box, and harvested a few fruit to make jelly.

Prickly pear fruit has lots and lots of little teeny pokey spines in it, so we had to use cardboard to pluck the fruit off.

 

We got arepas and breakfast burritos for breakfast at the Balloon Park.

There was a little surface wind that morning, so not all of the balloons went up.

Even though not all the balloons went up, there were still hundreds that did.

This one was my personal favorite.  You cant see it, but there is a Zia Sun symbol on the sides.

I finally finished this quilt I have been working on for quite awhile...  Just in time.  Quilt Club is tonight!

General Conference Weekend!

What an amazing General Conference we were able to participate in yet again!  I felt like each of the speakers was speaking directly to  me or to our family's situation in some way.  I found myself thinking of Bob and hoping that he was listening to some of the great messages of hope, love and forgiveness, and then as I thought and listened more, I realized that those messages are for me. 

I'm grateful to live in a day and time when we have a living prophet at the head of the Church, and that we have the capability to go back and read and listen to those messages again and again.  I haven't checked lds.org yet to see if this Conference is up and running yet, but I doubt it will be long.

We had a fun weekend as well.  Brian and Chelsea came over.  I'm glad they don't have TV at their apartment.  It gives them added incentive to come visit us!  Steve called between Sunday sessions.  That was great, as well.

On Friday night, we met Brian and Chelsea in Grants.  We all went to the Grants Quilting Guild Quilt Show.  (They were all humoring me.)  This was a photo moment booth that was there.  The theme of the show was "Postcards from New Mexico."  I didn't take any pictures of quilts, so this picture is the token "Quilt Show Picture."

We ate dinner at "El Cafecita" in Grants.  Dad is sneaking a bite of MY dinner.

On Saturday morning, Dad made the first fire of the season!  It was pretty nippy in the house, so the fire was very welcome!

Chelsea is pinning a quilt that she pieced.  It's a Batman quilt.  It will be Brian's ear blankie.

Brian and Dad made crepes for breakfast.  It's been a long time since we've made crepes.


 

Chelsea quilted for her Conference Project.

Brian worked on fixing videos in their blog.

Thank heavens for Conference!  We get our knives sharpened twice a year!

Of course, my project was quilting!

Surprise!  Susan is quilting, too!

My idea of heaven!  Quilting during General Conference!

Dad polished all his bolo ties.

Dad and Brian cooking the corn dogs for dinner.  We had the missionaries (Elders and Sisters) over for the feast!

We made the annual Christmas Ornament during Sunday morning's session!

Brian made his ornament.

Chelsea's birthday is next weekend, so Susan made her a birthday cake!  It was an ice cream bar cake.  She found the instructions on Pinterest!  It was delicious!