Huckleberries and Fish....

Hubby and I went up on the Mtn. again. We went up to meet my Mom and Dad, they are up camping and fishing and picking huckleberries. We went back up to Goose Lake, this time my Dad has a boat. We finally found them, way out on the lake. I zoomed in for this first one.

Here is better perspective as to how far out they were! Its so absolutely quiet up there that I yelled their name and they heard us.

There were 6-8 boats and bellyboats out on the lake.

So they putted over to where we were. No gas motors allowed on this lake, they have a little electric motor that Hubby gave Dad, and he got going again. Works great for that little boat. Needless to say they were bright enough colored to see across the lake! LOL LOL

Hubby and Dad went back out fishing and Mom and I went and picked berries. This is one of the berry "fields".

 Here is my Mom through the trees LOL LOL. if she didnt have orange on, she would be really hard to see!! Thats why Washington has a hunter orange law during hunting season.

These cute tiny white flowers were covering the ground under the bushes.

Huckleberries!!!!!!

 There were a lot of berries, but not super thick. Between the two of us we picked about a half gallon in two hours. Mom gave me what she picked!! Thanks Mom!                    This is a Lupine, hard to see with the background. There are still an abundance of wildflowers up there.

 And Hubby!!!! They caught fisshheeess!! Hubby caught 5, and Dad caught 4, 5 is the limit. Hubby got one really nice Brown trout about 15-16" long!! Most were about 10-12". There were mostly Browns, and a few Cutthroat.

 The beautiful bowl of Huckleberries!!! I will let them dry and then measure 3 cups for a pie and freeze them.

If you have never had Huckleberries, I highly recommend them!!! They are so much more flavorful than Blueberries! They are so worth going up and spending hours picking, in my book!!! Hubby, he likes to eat them, but he hates picking them!!! LOL They have a red/purple juice and stain your fingers purple when you pick them. mmmm mmmmm I love Huckleberries!!!

Apples and Zucchini....

Apples and zucchini, oh my!!! Well I am going to admit it is Summer now!!! We had our first 90 degree day for the year yesterday!!! We reached 96!!! I have a lot of apples right now and the zucchini is coming on, taking up counter space! soon in buckets!! LOL (Dang I missed "National sneak a zucchini onto you neighbors porch day") LOL LOL Hubby and I picked 6 grocery bags of apples off of the tree in the front yard. I think they may be Gravenstines, but I dont remember for sure. Tart like a Granny Smith, but much softer and clearer skin. I put the apple pealer, corer, slicer to good use. Whomever invented this little machine is a Saint!!! LOL LOL

I processed a lot of apples! Still have two bags!!!

Hubby and I canned apple pie filling! Cant wait to see how it turned out. We had one jar break, so only got six quarts. It takes two quarts to make a 9" pie the recipe says.



Hubby had to buy a new water bath canner, as the one we have is older than the hills! LOL

 OH the plethora of zucchini!! LOL I love it in everything, scrambles eggs, zucchini bread, just sliced with blue cheese dressing and sunflower seeds on it is my favorite, at the moment!

I prefer to pick them the size of the smaller one at the bottom, but they have a way of getting away from you! And hiding when you pick! LOL The small size is a perfect single serving, salad size.

Made two Zucchini bread loaves, but that took a meager 2 cups of shredded squash! I really wish Zucchini would can well, I tried it, but its most suitable pureed as a soup base, its so soft.

And I am waiting for the Apple Butter to reduce down! Its almost ready and then I will can it up!

Maybe I will make more when I see how much this batch does. It took 4lbs of apples.
Until next time!!!

Chickens and Dahlias....

We have had a small flock of chickens roaming around, they belong to the next door neighbor. It all started a couple months ago with this guy! One day I was feeding him on the front porch, the next I was chasing him out of the garden with the BB gun, LOL. He was so nice as to scratch the seeds that I had just planted out of the ground.

Him and his Mrs. now have a whole passel of babies! At the most I have counted 13! Today I counted 11, I will see how many I see tonight when I feed the horses.

Thats Mama on the left the third one from the fence post.

The little critters are so fast, that it takes a few times to be able to count them! They just keep moving! LOL

I know Mama is a Bantam, Mr. must be too, he is not a full size rooster, but he is pretty big, at least 3 times her size.

Mama and 5 of the chicks.

Mr. peeking at me through the bushes.

Its so funny to listen to them with the chicks, Mr. or Mrs. find something interesting and they cluck and cluck, and 3 or 4 babies will come running over to see what they found.

 The zucchini plants behind him are the seeds that he so wonderfully scratched out of the ground a few months ago, LOL. He cant hurt them now.

My Dahlias are finally blooming! This one is so much darker than the picture shows!

 This one, the plant is 6 feet tall!!! I love the color! I cant wait for the others to bloom. There are 4 out of 16 that have bloomed so far, I got a late start with all of our rain this Spring, getting them planted.

 Dahlias come in so many colors!

This is my biggest tomato plants. I have two in the pot, a cherry "Black" and a regular "Black" They are similar to the "Cherokee Purple" that is my favorite heirloom tomato. Still waiting for them to ripen! They are putting on the fruit!

These are our hot pepper plants, there is some Rosemary in the first pot, then Tai peppers, Habeneros, Anaheim, Jalepenos, and some more Rosemary.

 There is a Roma tomato and a Dahlia in this pot.

So far everything but my poor Walla walla onions are doing good. We are supposed to get some heat this weekend, maybe even 90! For the first time this year! Maybe some tomatos will ripen soon!

Thats all for now!

Stanley wins blue ribbon at Skamania fair!!!!!

See Stanley way out in the middle of the picture, they put him up high! He has a good view of everything! LOL

 See his little blue ribbon on his leg! LOL I still cant believe he got a blue ribbon, or is it that my sister in law took him up there!!! LOL LOL

 Near him was this cool Adirondack chair, made out of old skis!! Pretty cool!!!

 Watched part of a goat show, this was Jr. Dairy goats and the two girls on the right, also ride horses in LeAnns barn. ( her and her husband, Hubbys brother, have a boarding and lesson barn.)

 This is the horse barn, sheesh I didnt take many pics. I am tempted to go up again tomorrow, they have a "photo at the Fair" contest every year on Sat. of the fair.

The midway, it was pretty small  this year. If it wasnt for 4-H there really would be no fair up here. I believe that there is a community garden in the foreground of this photo too.

This Fair is in Stevenson, Wa. right in the heart of the Columbia Gorge scenic area. I still think its the prettiest place in the country to have a fair!!!!!

Here are a couple of photos I have taken in past years at the fair.

One of my favorites.

This last one was when Meghan, on the right and Carissa, did their Parelli demonstrations at the fair. The lighting was just so nice in the evening! I love how Meghan and Easy are naturally spotlighted in this photo.
I miss going up to fair with the girls, those were good times!

Fair!

Stanley got a Blue ribbon at the Fair!!! LOL Pictures to come, going up on Friday!!!

Twenty dollar table and chairs from Goodwill....

Hubby and I found a kitchen table at a local Goodwill, for $20! Score!! LOL I have been painting the white table a moss green, although Hubby is telling me its avacado green! LOL

 It has been a lot of work, 3-4 coats of paint. The top had to be sanded down, and refinished too.

 We also got two chairs for the $20! We gave our old set to Meghan for her apartment.

All painted and drying. I am now painting the chairs. 

The table made it in the house and is waiting for its chairs! LOL Alas after it has cured, the top probably wont be seen very often. LOL My house is not a showplace, we live here! LOL LOL

Sitting on the table is my Dahlia schematic, which Hubby teased me about!! LOL But I wanted to know what was going to come up where!

OH! and another Stanley the giraffe update!! LOL LOL He is up at the County fair to be judged!!! LOL My Sis in law actually took him up there!!! LOL

Hay trip....

Went and bought hay yesterday. Waited for over a 1/2 hour for Grandpa Don to get down to the hay barns to load me. It was 9:15am, so he was probably eating breakfast, which is what he was doing Mon. morning when I went down, but all they had was alfalfa, and his son Gary was going to be in that night with a load of grass. They have their own Semi and haul hay from Eastern Oregon and Washington themselves.

It is pretty good looking hay. The girls love this fine orchard grass, there is just a little bit of alfalfa in it. The bales are about 100lbs and were $14 a bale. The stuff that I have been getting is a lot coarser and stemy, hard for Easy to eat, they clean up every blade of this stuff! There is a lot of waste with Easy and the coarse hay, she just cant chew it. The last hay I bought was $11 a bale, so this is worth a couple more dollars. Don also told me that grass may get scarce by the end of Summer, because of exporting to Japan!!! Just what we need. I would love to put up a few ton at a time, but money and man power (lack of) dont allow me to. These pics are taken from where I parked in front of the hay barns, taken from my Iphone. I usually buy 6-8 bales at a time, enough to last 2 weeks. These are 20 bales to the ton, lol easy math when they are 100lbs! LOL We only live a mile from the Dairy so its easier to let them store it! LOL Although the draw back to that is I dont always get the same kind of hay every time.

This is the Dairy. It has been here a long long time. I think Dons Dad started it and Don is 70!! Yes at 70 he still runs the tractor to load the hay. His son Gary has been running the farm for some time now, along with his younger brother. Gary's boys help out now too, they are the 4th generation on the farm!!! They are a great family too! I have been buying hay here for 20 years! I dont know how old the Dairy is exactly but it is well over 100 I am sure!!! Hows that for history!! LOL Both boys have houses on the property too, one behind the main old house in the pic, and one across the road from the hay barns, to the left of this pic.
In this last pic, the big barn on the left is the main Dairy barn, to the left of that is the silage bin. Across the road, yes the road splits the farm in two. is the main house, and more storage barns. You see the tallest barn on the left, years ago from the loft in the top of that barn there used to be a ramp that they would take teams of horses with the loads of loose hay up. The ramp ran from the loft across what is now the road, to where the drive is in front of the house!! I have seen a photo of this, I need to get a pic of the copy that my sis in law has, it was pretty darn impressive!!! I have never taken a tour of the Dairy, I see schools touring every once and awhile, I need to, it would be neat to see.

We made the cover!

Camas Washougal Chamber of Commerce Aug. "11 newsletter


The Float and Stanley and Pete! Made the cover of the local Chamber newsletter! LOL