It's true, I finished!

As of 9:00 a.m. this morning I am officially finished with school!  The paperwork to prove I finished has been submitted and I'll receive my certificate of completion in about 8 weeks.  Graduation for the BATC is in December, not sure if I will actually participate but we'll see as it gets closer.

Now that I've finished school I'm looking for a job again.  I will continue to freelance and will hopefully be able to pick up a few more clients.  Until then I'll be working on a few projects that I already have and continue to expand my portfolio.

Salsa 2010

I decided to make salsa on Saturday an Joy decided to come up and make some with me. We made seven batches of salsa which equals 70 cups of chopped tomatoes, seven chopped onions, 21 chopped jalapeno peppers, 21 chopped anaheim peppers, 28 cloves of garlic, three bunches of cilantro, two cups of vinegar and a whole lot of time. In all we ended up with 32 pints of salsa. (as seen below).

The finished product

Creating the salsa

Joy brought the kids up and they had a great time entertaining themselves.  Uncle Quent helped entertain them as well, he let them feed the fish and then took them out on a four-wheeler ride to see the cows.  As noted previously on the blog, TJ loves the cows and Saturday they were in the open field across the street.  TJ was in seventh heaven. 

Coloring on the floor.

Sunday morning I got up early and finished the salsa making. I made seven pints of green tomato/tomatillo salsa. It was a quick process thanks to my mom's meat grinder. I won't ever make salsa without it again!

 Six of the seven jars, one is already in the fridge. 

Looking forward:  Quent has the next week off for the deer hunt.  He is going to stay around home this year and hunt in the hills of Mantua.  We're hoping he is as successful as he was last year.

Rooster Update

Quent was over visiting our neighbor, the farmer who owns all the land surrounding the hatchery,  while he was there he noticed the black rooster that had been at our house. After asking the farmer about the rooster we learned than the rooster belonged to the farmer and apparently he is a mean rooster and had attacked a grandchild. The farmer decided to take the rooster to another part of his property and the silly thing wondered all the way back home, not before spending a few days at our house and a few more at our neighbor's house.

Blueberry Pancakes

Quent and I bought some blueberries at the farmers market earlier this summer and I decided it was time to do something with them.  This morning we ate amazing blueberry pancakes, I don't share this with everyone to pat myself on the back about how great of a cook I am but rather to share the recipe.  The recipe for the pancakes I made can be found here on our family's recipe blog.  It was a new recipe and I'm so excited they turned out because they were AWESOME!

Hangin' at the Fair

Joy invited me and (aunt) Melissa to go to the fair with the kids and what an adventure we had.  Due to the obsession TJ currently has with cows, we spent a lot of time in the cattle area of the fair and some time in the Midway so Morgan could have some fun on the rides.

We saw a baby cow that was just one week old, TJ was able to help feed the baby cow as well as pet the cow.  We watched a couple of the cows take a bath and had fun looking at the other animals.  There were bunnies, goats, pigs, chickens, and more.

The kids had a great time in the mini farm experience.  They were able to milk a cow, feed a cow, plant seeds, pick their crops, brush a sheep, pick an apple, ride a tractor and collect eggs.  They took everything they harvested to the market where they received a dollar to spend in the grocery store.  A very cool attraction for the kids.

It was way to hot to be at the fair, who would have thought it would have been over 90 degrees on September 18?  Crazy hot and I got some sun, but hey it was the first time I'd done anything fun since being attacked by my killer cold.

Cursin' Willard Peak

Quent and I went for a drive today up Willard Peak Road. The road begins in Mantua and heads south into the mountain range and up to an elevation of 9764. We drove all 15 miles, (each way) in about 3 hours today. The road is a scenic byway and absolutely beautiful. I would not drive the road in a car, and if you're afraid of heights, it's not recommended. Unfortunately it was a bit overcast/rainy on our drive today so my pictures aren't as bright and fun as I would have liked them to be. However due to the storm I did get some cool pictures of the Great Salt Lake.

Click on each picture to see a larger view.

 Storm over the Great Salt Lake 

Storm over the Great Salt Lake

Storm over the Great Salt Lake

Elevation 9764 feet

Quent at the end of the road, Willard Peak in the background

A view of Willard, UT from Willard Peak 

Storm over Willard, UT

 A view of Pineview Reservoir, (Eden Valley) from Willard Peak Road

Fall leaves, Willard Peak Road

 More leaves from my front door. 

Our mountain is changing

Fall is here, well it was here, we were back in the 80's today but fall is approaching and if there is one thing I like about fall it's the changing leaves. I have a fabulous view out my front window and every day I look out there are more orange leaves on the mountain. I went out and snapped a couple of pictures of my mountain. Not much up sardine canyon has started to change, once they start to change I"ll be posting more pictures.

The view from "my chair"

My mountain is changing...

Quent took me to the doctor today, we decided that after a week of coughing, a sore throat and ear aches that something must be up.  I am now officially fighting a double ear infection and a sinus infection.  Ok so I've been fighting it for a week, but now instead of a cold it has a name. Hopefully I'll be back to normal in a couple of days once the drugs kick in.

Under the Weather

I realized I was getting a cold while I was at my grandma's house and figured if I could just get home, sleep for a couple of days I'd be back on track and ready to go.  If only my plan had worked.  I did sleep, I've slept a ton, some of it NyQuil induced, some of it just plain old dozing off, but I've slept.  I think I've coughed up one lung, and I've started in on the other, by days end I generally don't have a voice and Quent tells me it's painful to listen to me talk, although it's not really painful to talk.

I was hoping to go back to school today, I've got a plan for finishing that too, in fact in my master plan I would have been finished by now but it seems that I'm a little behind. 

Stay tuned, I'm sure something more fun and exciting will happen soon, because there is nothing fun and exciting about a cold over a holiday weekend!

FOUND -- Black Rooster

Found...One Black Rooster...Great alarm clock, set for 5:30 a.m. daily.  If you have lost your roster please contact us ASAP we will gladly return.

Quent told me that we had a new pet this morning.  I luckily was not home for this morning's wake-up call.  The neighbors asked Quent why we got a rooster, he told them that he figured one of the towns people dropped him off down here because they're tired of him waking them up.

I got home about 4:00 p.m. today and the rooster was no where to be found so Quent figured it was a one night deal.  Not to worry, our friend the rooster (yet to be named) came back about 8:00 p.m. and tried to get into the house and has found that he likes sitting on our window seal.  I'll let you know if he wakes me up at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow...

Hangin' with Grandma

Quent and I have been hanging out with Grandma this week and believe you me she's kept us busy.  We've been cleaning, sorting and doing things that haven't been done in a while.

We've washed windows, drapes, curtains, vacuumed, dusted, shopped, got the oil changed in the car and even purchased a new remote for the old TV.  Grandma has been using the old remote for over 8 years now and didn't realize you could buy replacement remotes. Grandma decided that after we had the oil changed in the car today we'd make the trip across town to Walmart and but a new remote, and that's exactly what we did. The new remote is up and running, it not only changes the channel and the volume, you can actually turn the TV off with the remote and use the mute button (two functions that hadn't been working with the old remote).

After a few more projects tomorrow my plan is to drive home on Saturday.  Quent flew home last night and Kerry picked him up and drove him home. He was back at work today and will work through the weekend.