Monday, September 1, 2014

Projects and pickles!

We are spending over half of our time at the cabin, it's just so damn peaceful and calming. I headed down on Friday night with a car load of supplies for projects we wanted to get done. Nothing over the top, no construction, just little things that needed attention.

The weather was cool, actually almost cold. I headed out at 8:15 for some star gazing and wore one of my winter jackets. The wind was blowing moist and I would be out in the elements and for once I decided to dress appropriately. The stars were, as usual, amazing. In Colorado Springs we have a lot of stars but until we started getting away we didn't realize how "ugly" it is at night.

I got up at my usual 6AM on Saturday and started the day by trying to make a tincture for my dill pickle spears. Turmeric and hot water was my choice, I was trying to get the spears to look "not so pale". It worked a little, I simply didn't have a large enough container to stir it up effectively every 5 minutes. Cucumber and zucchini spears.
 Inside the cabin it was 59 degrees and I was worried about the jars cooling down before I dropped them into the hot water canner. I decided to measure everything out to keep the process fast: dill seed, dill weed, mustard seed, garlic.
 3 cheers for pickle spears. I wanted regular pickles, but my choice of cucumbers for the garden once again gave me short fat cucumbers.

I did all kinds of other small projects and then decided to work on myself a little bit and enjoy a bike ride. The wind decided to mess with my plans and I didn't enjoy it so much, the huge headwind put my record time 15 minutes out of reach on my 111 mile route but it was incredible workout.
 After my date with a foam roller and some stretching, I moved onto grapes. They were on sale, for silly cheap, so I decided to go ahead and can them. If you have never washed a lot of grapes you have no idea just how dirty they are.
 A very light syrup was made and into the canner they went.
 Dinner time; sliced potato with olive oil, garlic powder, yellow curry powder and rosemary.
 Amish neighbor dog paid a visit and came inside. She is 17 years old according to her owners and I did have the storm door open so I didn't mind. She was exhausted for some reason and didn't even beg while I was eating. A few hours later she headed out again.
I redid my get home bag and dropped some weight out of it. Technology is amazing in how the weight of technical clothing can reduce your overall load. I then took it out for a hike to star gaze, and while it still has some weight (about 43 pounds) it was very comfortable.

I have more photo's but I'll make a new post.

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