Friday Food: Plan Bs All Over the Place

Friday

Short version: Swiss steak, rice, frozen green beans

Long version: I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between Swiss steak and grillades, but I'm guessing it's the roux. That is, with the roux, it's grillades. Without the roux, I'm calling it Swiss steak. These days, I'm usually too lazy and pressed for time to make a roux, so I guess I make Swiss steak with my cube steak now.

I added some bell pepper this time, too. Is that still Swiss steak? Hell if I know. I'm gonna just call it Kristin steak, okay?

Saturday

Short version: Buckwheat pancakes, bacon, still-frozen peas

Long version: This was not my plan for dinner. I had taken out two big arm roasts to make pot roast, but they didn't thaw in time. Plan B was pancakes. The kids were very happy with this plan.

This right here is a griddle pan full of my children's dreams coming true.

I gave them the peas, still frozen in a bowl, to eat while I was cooking pancakes. I considered this their vegetable. It would have been too weird to serve a salad with pancakes, anyway.

Sunday

Short version: Pot roast, potatoes, carrots, leftover rice, green peas

Long version: I found when I went to peel potatoes that I only had two left. Okay, then! Potatoes for the adults; leftover rice for the children. Happiness all around.

The greatest happiness was thanks to A. replacing my broken kitchen sink faucet with a spare faucet he found on the (non-functioning) sink in his shop. It was a perfect fit, and has the benefit of being made of metal rather than the dreaded plastic.

Okay, so it's maybe a little crooked, but it was free and it's metal and I will take it, thank you.

Monday

Short version: Tacos, pinto beans

Long version: Yes, I made the corn tortillas myself again. You may recall my prediction that this would happen if I once tried making homemade tortillas. It did.

When I made the pot roast, I purposely didn't use any particular seasonings--just onion, garlic, a can of tomatoes, and a bay leaf--so that I could re-purpose the inevitable leftovers. Thus, to make the taco filling, I just fried some cumin and chili powder in oil, added the diced leftover meat and the remaining sauce, plus a little water, and simmered until thick.

I didn't have a potato for the pinto beans this time (sorry, Miss Amelia), so it was literally just beans, water, and salt. They were still good.

I had both sour cream and avocado this time, so those with the beans and the homemade tortillas made me very happy.

And that is why I do crazy things like make my own tortillas.

I sneaked away to make the tortillas while this was happening:

Hooray for literacy. And pretend literacy.

Tuesday

Short version: Beef and vegetable soup, cheese, garlic bread, cheese omelet

Long version: Once again, this was not my plan for dinner. Once again, my plan was derailed by the incredibly slow defrosting of meat here.

I don't know what it is about this climate--lack of humidity? altitude?--but frozen stuff takes FOREVER to thaw here. If it's something easily thaw-able like ground beef, I can take it out in the morning and get it defrosted in time to cook it by completely unwrapping the meat and putting it in our oven, which has a pilot light that makes a tiny bit of heat. But a lot of stuff just won't thaw if I don't take it out the night before. Like the arm roast from Saturday. Or the stew meat this day.

Anyway.

I still had some of the pot roast left, so I used that to make a beef and vegetable soup. The only unusual vegetable addition this time was the lamb's quarters I asked A. to grab from our excessively weedy back pasture. Might as well get some benefit from that terrible mess.

The omelet was to supplement A.'s soup and also provide something other than soup for the one soup-averse child. That child had still-frozen green beans to fulfill his vegetable requirement. And this made him happy.

Wednesday

Short version: Pork chunks, roasted potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes/onion/bell pepper, green salad

Long version: No stew again this day because we spent the morning at a friend's ranch watching calves get branded (and vaccinated, tagged, castrated, and de-horned).

It was a very Western scene.

The cows and calves weren't having much fun, but my kids sure were.

Better than a playground.

We stayed for lunch and didn't get home until early afternoon, at which point I was kind of exhausted and definitely in no mood to prepare stew.

So instead I thawed some pork steaks, chunked 'em up, and fried them in bacon grease with paprika, diced onion, and some of A.'s garlic that he pulled up.

Thursday

Short version: Leftover pork and fried potatoes, frozen peas

Long version: The stew meat once again stayed unloved and unprepared in the refrigerator, this time because we took the boys to the dentist 90 miles away. This of course turned into an all-day excursion that involved a stop at a nursery where I was planning on getting some annuals for the front flower bed. I was most definitely NOT going to get any more tomato plants. 

I got four Juliet tomato plants. A. got a fig tree. We cannot be trusted at nurseries.

Anyway.

By the time we got home at 3:30 p.m. and A. and I had prepared a couple of troughs to plant the tomatoes and a dozen sweet pepper plants that unexpectedly germinated from seeds I took out of grocery-store mini bell peppers and stuck in a random container of potting soil, it was almost 5 p.m. 

I hadn't thawed any meat, but there was quite a bit of pork left from the night before. So I peeled and diced several potatoes, fried those in some bacon fat and butter until they were soft, then added the leftover pork and more paprika, salt, and garlic powder.

Then I went out and planted all the seedlings. I am going to have a shitload of bell peppers if those plants all produce.

I don't have to go anywhere tomorrow, so tomorrow is Stew Day. As it is promised, so shall it be done.

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

Race Day

Okay! The Big 5K!

Excitement ran high on Friday in anticipation of the big race. I had our registration confirmation printed out; a plan for snacks to pack that night; a good idea of what the weather was going to be (cloudy, 45 degrees, and a slight chance of rain--lovely); and a scheduled wake-up time of 4 a.m. so we could be there to register by 7:45 a.m.

And then A. got sick.

He insisted he could still go, but there was no way I was going to be waking him up 4 a.m. to drive two and a half hours and wrangle children in a crowd. Also no way I could take all four children with me to run three miles. Also no way I was going to leave the two youngest with their sick father.

So we didn't go. It was disappointing.

Well, Cubby and I were disappointed. I'm not sure anyone else really cared very much.

In any case, A. slept 14 hours on Friday night, rested all day Saturday, and was mostly recovered by Sunday.

And so, on Sunday, we had our very own 5K race.

I made a sign.

"1st Annual" might be ambitious, as it seems unlikely there will be more, but you never know. Anyway, it sounds more official.

I printed out numbers for the participants. I promised that everyone who completed the race would get hot cocoa with marshmallows and a bacon and egg sandwich.

After church, everyone got their numbers pinned on, lined up at the starting line--our gate--and I got one picture before I started the stopwatch feature on my cell phone.

Game faces: ON.

There are no pictures after that because I didn't want to interrupt the all-important race clock to switch to camera mode.

A. did a half-mile loop with Jack and Poppy in the pack, so they could complete their promised 1K race. I ran one of the mile loops with Cubby and Charlie--or rather, behind Cubby and Charlie--before we came up on A. with the other two. Jack had decided he wanted to do the longer loop. I had to send A. back to the house to check the time for Cubby and Charlie when they finished. I told him I would look out for Jack.

Jack ran about another quarter mile with me and Cubby--Charlie was way ahead of us--before falling, scraping his hand, and wailing he wanted to go home and get an ice cube. Cubby went on ahead and I hauled a crying Jack the remaining half-mile home to get him his ice cube.

So I officially scratched on the race.

That's okay, though, because that meant I was on hand to put up the finish-line ribbon. Which was a roll of paper towels stretched out across the road for Cubby and Charlie to run through at their big finish. The wind kept trying the rip the paper towels before they got to them, but Jack and I managed to have at least a short length intact for the exciting moment.

And that was it. Everyone came in and had their cocoa and sandwiches. It was, admittedly, definitely lacking in the excitement of a real race with the cheering crowds and official clock and everything, but on the other hand, we didn't have to drive five hours or get up insanely early.

We have a tentative plan to try to do a 5K when we're in New York this summer, but if that doesn't happen, we did run a 5K with the kids as promised. Just not exactly the way it was promised.

Friday Food: End-of-School Shenanigans

Friday

Short version: Pork chunks in barbecue sauce, roasted potatoes, green beans

Long version: It had been awhile since I'd made roasted potatoes. They sure are good.

Saturday

Short version: Creamy green chili beef and potato stew, carrot sticks

Long version: Miss Amelia gave me some of the green chilies that she buys during the season, roasts herself, and then freezes. I had some stew meat out for dinner, so I browned that, added onion and garlic, then the green chilies, and simmered until the meat was tender. Then I added potato chunks and, at the end, sour cream. I served it with grated cheddar cheese for the top and fresh lime to squeeze in it. Plus some diced green garlic because the gophers have been eating some of A.'s garlic.

Yes, garlic. I didn't think anything ate garlic. It's even used as a natural deterrent for most animals. But apparently those wretched rodents will bite it right off underground. A. is pissed. Those gophers are going to rue the day they targeted his garlic.

Don't worry. He still has 460 plants left. I counted.

I would normally have cooked carrots in the stew, but Charlie still dislikes cooked carrots and I didn't feel like watching him pick through them, so I left them out and just plopped some carrot sticks on everyone's napkins.

Classy.

Sunday

Short version: Mom wants tacos, Mom gets tacos. Plus, frozen cookies.

Long version: I didn't plan my Mother's Day dinner very well. Or, um, at all.

I had some vague idea of having A. make hamburgers, so I took out ground beef. But then I realized I could also have A. make tortillas, which sounded much better. So I made the ground beef into taco meat, and A. and I made more corn tortillas to go with them.

I didn't have any avocados or sour cream, more's the pity, but I did have a little more fresh lime for squeezing. And honestly, the fresh tortillas are all that really matters.

I froze half of one this time to test if freezing will change its texture. (Update: It didn't. Full speed ahead with tortillas making!) My dad is going to make me a wooden tortilla press, so we may shortly become a small-scale tortilla factory here.

I had some no-bake cookies on hand (I used this recipe but added a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder to them and reduced the sugar slightly--they were still too sweet) because I made them for Cubby and Charlie to take on their 6-hour bus ride for their field trip. Inexplicably, they did not eat them, and the cookies returned to me definitely the worse for having been tumbling around in backpacks all day. That is, they weren't so much cookies anymore as small chunks somewhat resembling granola. I tossed the baggies of chunks into the freezer along with the extra whole cookies.

Sunday morning it occurred to me that those chocolate-peanut-butter-oat chunks would be fantastic on vanilla ice cream. I asked A. to pick some up at the tiny store in the village when he went for church, but alas, the store's freezer stopped working and there was no ice cream.

So we ate just the whole cookies instead. They're better frozen. Better texture. I still think they would have been best with ice cream, though. But then, what isn't?

Monday

Short version: T-bone steaks, rice, roasted bell peppers/onion/sweet potato, green salad

Long version: Still my lettuce. Still thrilled about it. Oh! And also some arugula that I thinned. Man, I love arugula. I can't imagine it will last long here before it bolts, but I'm going to enjoy it while it does.

Jack's preschool teacher dropped off a big bag of clothes for Poppy and of course, they must be tried on right away. Very stylish, I'm sure you'll agree. 

Tuesday

Short version: A skillet meal comprised of leftover taco meat, leftover rice, and some grated cheese. And steamed broccoli.

Long version: It's meals like these that really make me confident that my children will credit their sophisticated palates to their mother's cooking when they write their foodie memoirs. Ahem.

Wednesday

Short version: Bunless hamburgers, boiled potato chunks, green salad

Long version: Last day of school for Jack! Track and field day for the boys (and me and Poppy as spectators)! 4-H meeting with a bonus origami demonstration by Cubby!

By the time I got home at 5:15 p.m. with four very tired children who were stuffed full of popsicles, cookies, Rice Krispie treats, and more popsicles, I was reeeeeally not into the whole "making of dinner" thing.

Luckily, I had already peeled and cut up the potatoes and left them in a pot of water, plus washed the lettuce (MY LETTUCE STILL, HOORAY), and thawed the meat. So all I had to do was turn on the pot of potatoes to boil, spin the lettuce and make a vinaigrette, and fry the hamburgers.

It's a measure of my fatigue that I didn't even bother with cheese on top of the burgers. Not that anyone wanted to eat actual food anyway, after all the popsicles.

Just as a matter of interest, if you are not aware of the sheer quantity of crap that children haul home from school at the end of the year, please enjoy this graphic visual of the crap times three that got spewed all over our entryway as soon as we walked in the door:

Scattering papers to the four corners of the entryway did keep Poppy entertained while I made dinner, so there's the bright side to this horrific mess.

Thursday

Short version: Disappointing pizza, steak, random things for me, plus peas

Long version: Last day of school for the bigger boys! I had told them they could have school lunch on the last day, because it was pizza. But then they switched it around and had pizza the second-to-last day of school and ham and cheese sandwiches the last day.

Thanks for messing up my attempt to be fun and celebratory, school lunch people.

A. bought asadero cheese for me on Tuesday when he had to venture to a Big City (13,000 people--everything's relative) and I did have a ball of dough in the freezer, that I had put in there last time I made pizza, along with a small bag of extra pizza sauce. So I pulled those out for a celebratory pizza dinner.

This was the first time I had frozen the dough raw--as opposed to par-baked--and I was surprised at how easily it stretched into the pan. Usually I have to make sourdough pizza a thick-crust sort of thing, but this stretched right out into a very thin crust.

The thawed sauce was thin, too. Watery, actually, which I discovered when I was about to put it on the pizza. So I had to quickly reduce that in a skillet on the stove, because watery pizza sauce is no good.

The crust turned out tough and kind of greasy and not very appealing. Charlie agreed. Everyone else had seconds, though, so it wasn't a total waste.

I only had enough for one somewhat small pizza, so I fried an extra steak for A. that wouldn't fit on the pan on Monday. I made a random mixture of leftover hamburger, the last bit of pizza sauce, peas, and cheese for me.

Today is the first day of summer break. Tomorrow is our 5K race. I could use prayers/positive vibes for both of those things, please and thank you.

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

A Mother's Day sans Photos

It's a good thing I don't have an Instagram account. I would be the worst Instagrammer in the (brief) history of that photo-sharing site.

Here it is, Mother's Day, which Hallmark tries to elevate to Major Religious Holiday status for us females charged with keeping small humans alive. And what precious photos do I have of my adorable gap-toothed* children showering me with gifts and cards and breakfast in bed and whatever other cliches are hawked by the advertising industry?

None.

I could have taken a photo of the adorable baby when she woke up at 5:30 this morning, but  I didn't. (A. got up with her, and anyway, I don't want to do anything at 5:30 a.m. except suck coffee.)

I could have taken a photo of the adorable four-year-old who made this tea towel for me at school, but I didn't.

I've already used this to cover my bread dough and freshly-made tortillas. Way to go, preschool teacher, for coming up with a very practical Mother's Day gift.

I could have taken a picture of the nine-year-old who is currently running at the nose, coughing like a habitual smoker, and plastered to the couch, but I didn't. (I did stay home with him from church, though.)

I could have taken a picture of the six-year-old who remarked out of the blue yesterday, "It seems like you're always able to find fault with us," but I didn't. (I also should have replied that that is a mom's special super power, but I didn't do that, either.)

So what did I do? Well, I tried to hide away in the bedroom to read for a little bit while A. had all four kids outside, but they started to trickle in one by one and I hadn't actually locked the door, so pretty soon I had three of the four children rolling around on the bed with me. A. came in to haul them all out and Cubby told me cheerily, "Well, at least you're never lonely."

No. No, I am not. And for that, I am extremely grateful. 

But I still locked the door after that.

Happy Mother's Day to my sisters-in-arms. I hope your day was exactly as you wished it to be.

* Charlie is the only one with a gap at the moment, actually, as he lost his first tooth last week. The second tooth is even now loose and will create an even bigger gap shortly. 

Friday Food: Creative Bread Things, Much Mexican, and Fun with Cast Iron

Friday

Short version: Ribeye steaks, rice, green salad, A.'s stew

Long version: The steaks were pretty small and wouldn't have been enough without the stew. Good thing we still had two big containers of it in the freezer. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

Saturday

Short version: Creative flatbreads with bacon and cheese, roasted sweet potatoes/bell pepper/onion, salad

Long version: When I made pizza for my sister, I made a double recipe as usual, but only needed half of it. But I still pre-baked both half-sheet pans full of dough. Then I cut one into quarters--the only way I can fit it into a big zip-top bag--and put it in the freezer.

I would've made a regular pizza, except I didn't have any mozzarella. Or rather, asadero, which is what we use now in place of mozzarella. So instead I just put diced, cooked bacon and grated cheddar on the crust and baked that. It was good.

But then, when is anything with bacon and cheese ever NOT good?

I'm sure you've noted there was nothing even vaguely Mexican about this meal to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, contrary to my usual practice. Ah, just you wait.

Sunday

Short version: Creative tuna stuff, green peas

Long version: I was baking bread--again--so I made the usual round loaf of garlic bread. But then, when I decided to make something with tuna for dinner, I had the idea of making tuna salad--tuna, diced onion and celery, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, dill, and pepper--and mixing in grated cheese and then stuffing the bread with this mixture. So I baked the bread until the center was done, then cut the top off, pulled some of the bread out of the middle, and packed the tuna mixture in there, replaced the top and baked it again until it was all melted.

When it was done, I sliced it into long sandwich fingers, and of course the filling squished out all over the place, but whatever. Everyone liked it.

I added some leftover rice to the rest of the tuna and cheese mixture and baked that in a cast-iron skillet as a kind of casserole. That was also good.

This also happened this day:

Not so good, though my fault for leaving the big package of paper towels on the floor of the dining room until I figured out where to store it.

Monday

Short version: Bunless cheeseburgers, rice, sauteed mushrooms and onion, green beans

Long version: I always use my cast-iron griddle to cook hamburgers, as that's the only way I can cook eight at a time in one pan. The only problem with the griddle is covering the hamburgers when I add cheese, so the cheese melts. My solution to this problem is to squeeze as many cheeseburgers together as I can and cover them with an inverted cast-iron skillet.

Good thing I have such a large collection of cast-iron cookware to choose from.

Tuesday

Short version: Feliz Siete de Mayo! Mexican brisket, pinto beans, homemade corn tortillas. With avocado! And lime!

Long version: Okay! NOW we're ready for our Mexican feast. See, the avocados I bought on Saturday were rock-hard, so I didn't think it was worth it to make the all-out effort for Cinco de Mayo if I didn't even have ripe avocados. So I figured we would celebrate whatever day in May coincided with the ripening avocados.

Thus, Siete de Mayo was the celebratory day.

The brisket was "Mexican" because I dumped salsa verde and tomato salsa over it before I put it in the oven. Very authentic, I'm sure.

This time I made the pinto beans with nothing but salt and a potato. The potato was a small russet, and this is Miss Amelia's trick. It does indeed make the creamiest beans ever. Thank you, Miss Amelia.

And now we come to the tortillas. I have been resisting making my own tortillas for years now. I buy corn tortillas in packs of 60--yes, we eat that many corn tortillas--and I just knew that if I ever made my own I would finally know for sure how inferior the store-bought ones are. Because store food sucks, as I have mentioned before. But I already had the instant masa, so I finally decided I would try it.

I looked at a couple of YouTube videos to see what the texture of the dough should be (this one was the most helpful) and got to it. I used one and a half cups of masa and an equal amount of warm water, plus a teaspoon of salt. I had to add about a tablespoon more masa because it was too sticky, and I could have used a tad less salt, but otherwise it was fine. I kneaded the dough for a couple of minutes in the bowl and then covered the bowl with a wet cloth and let it rest for twenty minutes or so.

I do not have a tortilla press. But I do have a lot of cast-iron skillets. So I put my balls of dough between two pieces of parchment paper and bore down with the bottom of a skillet. It was kind of a pain. At least until I pressed (pun totally intended) A. into service. He has much stronger hands than I, is taller, and has more weight to press down with. He made good tortillas.

I cooked them on my cast-iron griddle pan. There is no fat in the dough and no fat on the griddle. I was certain they would stick like crazy, but they didn't. Not even a little. I did learn that the griddle has to be pretty hot--like about medium-high--for them to get the little brown flecks.

That one in the back left has the proper fleckage.

I also learned that this process will set off half the smoke detectors in the house. At the same time. Even with windows open. So annoying.

Anyway, after we started eating, A. said, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but these are great." And Cubby said, "This was SO WORTH IT."

And what did I say? "Well, I did read they freeze well. So I guess I could just do one really huge batch at once . . ."

I am so crazy.

But they really were so good. Dammit.

Of course there weren't enough and I had to share mine with Jack. But then, I sneaked a couple while I was cooking them, so I guess it all evened out.

Wednesday

Short version: Burritos at the school dinner theater

Long version: The school does this thing every year where the eighth grade students--this year, there are two--pick two of their older family members to interview about their lives and then create a series of highly embellished skits based on their stories. Before this, there's a dinner catered by the (singular) restaurant in the village. So we had flour tortillas with ground beef and pinto beans, plus a variety of toppings, and then both ice cream sandwiches AND cake for dessert.

The boys ate an incredible amount.

The performance was quite impressive, given that it's an entirely original script created every year and that only five students--the entire middle school--play all the parts for a two-hour performance. The problem is the "two-hour" part. It didn't even start until after 7 p.m., which meant it was over at about 9 p.m. This is too late for our early-to-bed family and waaaay too late for poor Poppy, who was up about three hours past her usual bedtime. She made it through, though, and the boys loved watching the skits. They were really funny, actually. And I did not cook or clean up a meal. Win.

Thursday

Short version: Lamb, leftovers, steamed carrots

Long version: Cubby and Charlie went on their school field trip this day, which involved six hours on a bus so they could go to a trampoline park and a museum. They left at 7 a.m. and didn't get home until 6:30 p.m.

They had a wonderful time. Better them than me.

Anyway.

I wasn't sure if they would be eating dinner at home, so the remaining four of us ate at our usual time of 5 p.m. I made the lamb mostly for A., who ate it with leftover rice and carrots. I made tacos for Poppy and Jack with some of the leftover Mexican brisket, and a salad for myself with the same.

When Cubby and Charlie got home, they requested food and got lamb, carrot sticks, and bread and butter.

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

Our Temporary Houseguests

Cubby and Charlie brought home some chicks from school on Monday.

Surprise!

Well, it wasn't a surprise to us, obviously. The chicks started out as fertilized eggs in incubators at the school, and Cubby in particular was keeping us apprised of their progress every day. I had to sign a permission form for Cubby and Charlie to bring some of the chicks home. So we knew they were coming, we just didn't know how many we would be getting.

We ended up getting four. Their names are Little Man, Little Princess, Buttercup, and one other that I can't remember. They were out in A.'s shop while the weather was warm, but as the weather took an abrupt turn to the very-not-warm yesterday, they are currently residing in the children's bathroom.

Poppy in particular was thrilled that the chicks appeared inside our very house.

They will, however, be going back in the shop as soon as it warms up again, because chicks smell. Yuck.

Our long lead time to this exciting event allowed A. to start repairing the old chicken coop at the back of our property. It's just a wood frame with sheet metal over it, and there were quite a few gaps that a hungry fox would have no trouble climbing through.

This being A., of course, he didn't just buy some more sheet metal to patch it up. Instead he decided to fix it with mud and stones. Because that is what A. does.

The nice thing about a project like this is that it doesn't require any power tools and is thus a good project for the children to help with. And they are more than happy to do so.

Do you know of any child that wouldn't enjoy sanctioned mud play?

Of course, some are more helpful than others.

But all enjoy the splashy fruits of their muddy labors.

A. began by just mixing straight dirt and water together--our dirt has enough clay that it will hold together this way after drying thoroughly--before deciding to add a small amount of Portland cement to the mixture to increase its strength and resistance to moisture. He put in an outer course of stones with space to pack in the soil mixture and will keep building in this way until he reaches the roof, I guess.

This is the first course of stones.

This is very heavy work and is going slowly, but even what they've accomplished so far has gone a long way to securing the coop. There are no predators that are going to get through a foot-thick wall of solid stone and mud.

It'll take awhile to get it all done, but in the meantime, the chicks are luxuriating in their bathroom sauna. 

Now we just cross our fingers that we didn't end up with four roosters.

Sunday Family Fun

Because it's not just for Fridays anymore!

Actually, Sunday used to be our dedicated Family Fun Day, many years ago when there were only four of us, and it looks as if we might be returning to that.

Anyway, yesterday we went to . . . can you guess? Yes, another canyon!

This canyon is the one closest to our house. It's only about two miles away, and the accessible part of it is owned by one of our neighbors in the village. Obviously, we asked him if we could look around there, and he kindly said yes.

We parked at his family's old homestead--no one lives there now--off a dirt road and hiked to the canyon. It was only about half a mile to the edge of the canyon. Poppy, of course, got to ride in the pack.

Charlie said wistfully as we were loading her into it, "I sure miss riding in the pack." It's been at least four years since he's ridden in it, but I guess it really leaves a lasting impression.

Just before the canyon, the dry stream bed we were following widened out into a large flat area of stone that would be a waterfall after a really good rain. We haven't had a good rain in awhile, so at the moment it's just the stone with a few shallow pools in the depressions. And what's in those pools?

Tadpoles. Which of course must be caught.

The canyon itself was bigger and deeper than I expected. There was a pool of water at the bottom that our neighbor told us has wild grapes growing all around it in the fall. His mother used to give him and his brother a 25-pound flour sack to fill with grapes every day during the season when they got home from school. She made jelly from them, of course.

I totally want some of those grapes. Bet our neighbor would be happy to let me pick some in exchange for some jelly.

A. and Poppy did some exploring, trying to find a way down, but nothing looked very promising.

Definitely a skeptical baby.

I was there too.

With no hat or sunglasses, because I gave the former to Poppy and the latter got broken by a certain boy who will remain nameless. I was wearing sunscreen, though.

We followed the rim around for a little ways and found a good flat spot on some rocks to have our admittedly lame picnic of crackers and walnuts. From there we could see a piece of old, rusted farm machinery that turned out to be a whole collection of old, rusted farm machinery.

Rusty junk is even more fun than tadpoles.

We headed back shortly after this because it looked as if it might rain. But we'll be back. Who can resist tadpoles and rusty machines? Certainly not this crew.