Pumpkin Getting Day

"Hey Koby, you want to go get pumpkins?" "Yes, I'm ready, let's go! I'll wait right here!" D.Butler's pumpkin patch (that's who we make our check out to every year, so we named it)
Me on a big blue tractor!Biggies are in hereI think I'll be a scarecrow for Halloween sometimeLooking at Cinderella pumpkins, very pretty! I like the different kinds of pumpkins!After we picked out our 2 perfect carving pumpkins, one white one for my special project, a corn stalk, and some gourds, we went on a hike to see the fall colors in Chapin Forest.

"I love hiking and Pumpkin Getting Day!" =very smily happy dog

From the illegal ledges at Chapin Forest we could see all the way to Lake Erie, and also our pewny downtown. We are mad at Chapin Forest because they have blocked off the only view of this with a stupid fence. All they really need is a sign that says, hike at your own risk, and really if you are stupid enough to get to the edge and fall off, well there's a perfect example of natural selection at it's finest. We break the law and go look anyhow. This is why...

Nice view of the lake

We're good at raffles!

So a few Saturday's ago, we went with Robb's friend Joe and his girlfriend to a benefit party for a little girl. They had all kinds of raffles and prizes to help this kid, so we played just about every game. One of the games was to buy these tickets and put them in little boxes that were matched with a fun prize basket. All we had to do was wait for our number to be pulled out of the box and we won the prize! We all were especially amazed by these cookie baskets from Cheryl and Co., and each put a few tickets in, laughing about how cool it would be if we won... Well, in case you don't know, Robb and I are good at raffles. That's about the only game of chance that we actually seem to win at. Several times, we've won really cool prizes. Just like this time! Our number was called for one of the cookie baskets! Robb went up to get them and while he was walking back, they called one of our other numbers!!! I had them written down, and checked the sequence, and said, "Oh my gosh! I think we just won again!" I glanced at Robb while he was walking back with our giant basket of cookies! Sure enough, he knew it too, and we did a quick hand off of the tickets on my way up to get our second giant basket of cookies! We cleaned house!!! (and donated to a good cause :o) These are just half the cookies we won, cause we shared them with Joe. Still, I have to say, the other prizes may have been nicer, like a massage, or fancy dinner, but I've always wanted to try these cookies, and with this, really sampled every one! Now, I know.

Patio is done!

Yeah! We finally finished our neighbors' patio! After all the digging, tamping, shoveling, and laying endless bricks, the patio is in! We're so happy it came out so nice...Beautiful arched entry way!Me... The Bricklayer! Totally sounds like a wrestling nickname! Ha, ha!
At the end of the first day of laying bricks. I was the most sore from this day. Lots of up and down, hand tamping, and schlepping bricks will do that!Almost finished!!!
Ta da! Our beautiful patio is complete!! We hope our neighbors enjoy their patio as much as we enjoy our driveway!!

Step 2: A Very Tiring Thing to do

A few weeks ago (see Patio Digging), we began our neighbors' patio. For the next little while, all it did was rain and rain and rain! Finally we had a nice (dry but not at all warm), Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday all in a row. We knew this would be our last chance this fall to have a stream of nice days, so we got to work! This is step 2:

This is a tamper... it is a very heavy machine with a plate on the bottom which jiggles up and down to compact the ground underneath.

We needed this machine because we had to pack down two giant loads of gravel as a base. We got one load of big stones, recycled concrete actually, and limestone screening which is little pebbles. Here's the first layers of big stone.

You can see in this really packs the stone into smooth ground. While Robb and Koby were stamping down the ground, I was shoveling wheel barrels full of gravel and bringing them to our pit. (You can see my shovel leaning up against the fence).

We had to go in about 1 inch layers and keep it all level as we went.

Once all the big gravel was down (probably about 6-7 inches) we worked constantly late into the night on the screening.

The screening is much finer than the gravel, it almost looked like kitty litter.

I took over tamping and Robb shoveled and raked...with Koby's help of course!The best part of all this really hard labor was the fire! We love campfires, and our neighbors let us burn one the whole time! We could take little breaks and warm up by the fire. It really did help to keep the area warm, strangely enough!

Taco Pizza Friday

A few Friday's ago we made a scrumptious taco pizza! We put taco sauce on our pizza dough, sprinkled it with four mexican cheeses, jalepenos, onions, tomatoes, and olives. Once it came out of the oven we ate it with some sour cream (well I did, Robb hates it), fresh guacamole (ditto), and salsa! What a good Pizza Friday! Mmmmm, the pictures make me hungry...

Rugby's Adventure, Mommy's Heart Attack

Last week I had the scare of my life. When I feed everybody in the morning, Rugby didn't come to eat. This is very strange, as he's always the first to eat, and walks around meowing until he's fed. I instantly started freaking out. With my cat experience, if they don't come to eat, they're either, sick, dead, or missing. I searched the whole house, calling his name, looking in drawers, cabinets, closets, and anywhere a cat might hide or get stuck. My heart started beating way too fast! When I still couldn't find him, that's when I got really worried, called Robb crying and went to look for him outside. Now, the chances of finding a cat who got out, especially an indoor cat, is very slim. He doesn't know his way around the neighborhood or how to look for food, so I got really scared. I went in the back woods, calling and crying for my kitty. No Rugby- starting to have a heart attack. So I went to the front of the house, and decided to walk around the streets to see if I could find him. I got as far as my neighbors' driveway when I swore I heard a "meow" that sounded like my Rugby! So I called him again, and there was another meow. It sounded like he was up in a tree between our houses. I'm thinking, "great, how am I going to get him down?" I kept calling, and he kept meowing... then between the two houses out came my rugby, meowing all the way! I was so relieved to see him, picked him up and carried him home! He had been out all night, and must have snuck out when we let Koby out and didn't see him. We are so very happy that he didn't run far away and that I found him. It would be so sad with no Rugby. He was also very relieved to be home, and completely exhausted from his adventurous night outside. He slept ALL day and ALL night, since we figure that he didn't sleep at all outside. He's back to normal now, and we are all so glad he's home. My heartbeat has returned to normal!

Chain Letter

As nominated by Jill... I am a
Here are the rules for the award:
1-Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
2-Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3-Link to the person who nominated you for this award.
4-Name 7 things about yourself that people may not know.
5-Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6-Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7-Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they’ve been nominated.

Ok Jill, THANK YOU for my blog award~ and for the record, this is the only time I'm ever going to do a blog chain letter! And, it would by default end with me, cause I only follow one other blog, and she hasn't put anything on there in 2 months- or maybe nothing else was as exciting as visiting us since then, ha, ha ;O) (You should put your Halloween party on your blog~I wish we were going to be there!) And the other one I follow isn't really a blog, it's a photo gallery~ so put some new pictures of your cute son!!!

I can't believe chain letters made it into the blog world! Here's something that makes me feel old... Before the Internet was even around, I used to get chain letters in the actual mail, handwritten from pen pals! Can you believe it's come as far as writing your life on the Internet and anyone being able to be your "pen pal?" I'm not even that old and so much has changed in the world, I feel like a grandma!

Anyways, here we go with the 7 things about me:


1. I really like to cook, and would love to open up my own sandwich restaurant. It couldn't be in Cleveland or anywhere near, cause I'm stealing someone else's idea. It just is the best restaurant in the whole world, which I already have my own twist on the menu. Ideally it would be in...

2. Maine! After visiting there twice, I really want to move there. I've never been to a more perfect place for me. It has everything that I want in my life! It has lots of pine trees, moss, beaches, ocean, fresh air, outside things to do, log cabins, and a totally different lifestyle and way people are. Best of all, they love their dogs and they are welcome everywhere you go! It is the best environment to grow...


3. Christmas trees! I love Christmas trees. I love to lay under the Christmas tree and look up through it when it's all lit up. One day I would like to have a Christmas tree farm. I would grow blue spruces, white pines (cause their so soft and good for kids), balsam firs (they grow the best in Maine, and are the best spelling pine variety), and probably one other general use kind. Blue spruces don't last long, balsam firs are rather expensive because they take so long to grow, so I'd need a fast growing variety that I can make wreaths out of. By the way I like to...


4. Make wreaths. I've made two wreaths so far for Christmas. One is a lit up with bells, bows, and these little glass Christmas balls. The other is so cool and took me forever, but it's cinnamon scented pine cones hot glued them onto a grapevine. Then I accented it with red sparkly poinsettias....


5. Which I HATE!!! I hate poinsettias. When I worked at the florist, I had to clean the plant, cut and put foil on it, and make bows for literally hundreds of poinsettias. If you don't know about a poinsettia, when you break a stem open, it oozes with a sticky white sap. This sap when it dried, turned brown, and permanently spotted my skin. For like 2 months straight every year, my hands were do disgusting and dirty looking. Therefore, I hate poinsettias for that very reason, and that they kill cats because they are very toxic, and stupid people buy them anyways, and their cat chews it and dies. At Christmas! How horrible that would be... to kill your cat at Christmas...


6. I've had 9 cats throughout my life and 1 dog. Blacky, Purrli Frisky Flash Turkey Gobbler, Buttons, Daisy, Honey, Cala, Rugby, and Chester. 6 girls and 2 boys. I love my cats... But I've only had 1 dog. Kobayashi "Koby". I never knew how fantastic having your "own" dog is. I've watched and played with dogs all my life, but it's so different when he's yours. My whole life everyday is made incredibly better because of him. He's really my little buddy!


7. I have like 1 million nail polishes. I don't know why, but I love every different color of nail polish. I've had a lot of nail polishes since I was old enough to have my nails painted. I used to line them up in rainbow order on my dresser until I go so many they filled up the dresser and I had to keep them in a big box.


That was kinda fun! I have to go help Robb make taco pizza now (it's Friday!), so Stacy or Bri, if you want to do the award thing, go ahead! You're the only bloggers I got!

Bark in the Park

Koby heard about this fun thing to do called Bark in the Park, from his neighbors, Roxanne and Bradley. They told him it was a party just for dogs! They would have games, painting, caricatures, demonstrations, food, all for puppies! So we took him! It was super fun! Koby had a lot of snacks, played "musical dogs", got his picture drawn, and hung out with his friends. They had a huge turn out, dogs were having fun everywhere!!!Bark in the ParkKoby's neighbors, Roxanne (with our neighbor Ron), and Bradley (Future Leader Dog Puppy, with our neighbor Linda) playing Musical Dogs.Our neighbor Linda doing a presentation about Leader Dogs for the Blind. She is talking about Leo, their first puppy that she raised, and his mom Lori. They did a demonstration about how Leo helps Lori. Koby getting a caricature drawn! It looks perfect, and as you can see, he captured Koby perfectly!
Back at home playing with his new stuffed animal toy and rope chew I made for him.

Pretzel Update

So making pretzels just taught me the difference between bread flour and regular flour. With the first batch, I actually didn't make it exactly to the recipe. I used 2 c. regular flour and 2 c. bread flour. The pretzels came out puffy and chewy, with lots of air pockets, but definitely still light and fluffy. Last night I made them again because we still had 1 1/2 packets of yeast left. I was out of regular flour so used 4 c of bread flour, and what a difference! These pretzels came out super chewy, had a nice crust on the outside, and were much more dense. When you broke open the pretzel, there were hardly any air pockets. The bread flour has more proteins in it, which makes it more glutenous. Think of it like more rubber bands on a microscopic level. The more the quantity of rubber bands, the harder it is to stretch. So, in theory, the more bread flour that is used, the less the yeast can "breathe" air pockets, resulting in a totally different consistency. Very Alton Brown. I think I need to make with all regular flour and see just how tender and fluffy they get!

Patio Digging

We spent this weekend, removing the last of the dirt and leveling our neighbors soon to be patio. It's hard to make a fist my hands and forearms hurt so much from all that shoveling. Here's the progress so far. Also there's a picture of the front walkway that we put in last fall. This new back patio will go up to the existing patio under the fence. Next weekend will be a big weekend for the patio. Hopefully the weather cooperates and we'll be able to put down all the gravel, which we'll rent a tamper and hopefully get to where we can lay the patio stones. Robb shoveling awayKoby helps with all our projectsRobb taking a breakSoft and level dirtThe patio will connect to the existing patio under the fence This is the first patio we did in the front for them

Bretzel

Pretzel is indeed thought to come from a German word "bretzel" described as referring to a kind of thin bread roll twisted into a knot and salted before baking. This word in turn points back to a Latin "bracellus" also a bakery item.

Friday night, we went to Sears and it dawned on us that we'd really like to have a soft pretzel. We didn't feel like walking halfway through the mall or spend the money for one, so we decided we'd make them at home! We stopped at Giant Eagle and bought bread flour and yeast and went home to our dough fest. (It was also Pizza Friday!)

I remembered on my cooking computer CD that I had a copycat recipe for Auntie Anne's pretzels, so it should do the trick. We were so very glad that we didn't walk down the the pretzel shop in the mall because these pretzels came out way better! Oh my gosh were they good! We made salt and cinnamon sugar ones. Check them out!

Auntie Anne's Pretzels
1 1/2 cup warm water
1 1/8 tsp. active yeast (1 1/2 package)
2 Tbs. brown sugar
1 1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup bread flour
3 cups regular flour
2 cups warm water
2 Tbs. baking soda.
2-4 Tbs. butter (melted)

Sprinkle yeast on lukewarm water in mixing bowl; stir to dissolve. Add sugar, salt, and stir to dissolve; add flour and knead dough until smooth and elastic. Let rise at least 1/2 hour.
While dough is rising, prepare a baking soda water bath with 2 cups warm water and 2 Tbs. baking soda. Be certain to stir often.
After dough has risen, pinch off bits of dough and roll into a long rope (about 1/2 inch or less thick) and shape. Dip pretzel into soda solution and place on greased baking sheet. Allow pretzel to rise again. Bake in a 450 degree oven for about 10 minutes or until golden. Brush with melted butter and enjoy!
Toppings:
After you brush with butter try sprinkling with coarse salt.
Or for Auntie Anne's famous cinnamon sugar, try melting a stick of butter in a shallow bowl( big enough to fit the entire pretzel) and in another bowl, make a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. dip the pretzel into the butter, coating both sides generously. then dip again into the cinnamon mixture.