The O-Zone

Snow level on the mountains and hills surrounding us is right at 3000′ give or take a few feet, depending entirely on southern exposure.  We have kept a dusting of snow around the house but it won’t last through the morning, once we emerge from the mountain shadow.  When we lived in Alaska, the first snows of winter were called “termination dust.”  It is truly more ominous when you are facing snow on the ground for seven months instead of only four months.

Directly to the west of us, the mountain top has the late fall colors displayed prominently - white, green, golden, against a blue sky.

Around our house all the aspen leaves have fallen.  The very cold temperatures we had in +10F range came at the wrong moment, before the leaves had really turned from summer green to autumn’s pale gold, and so the leaves simply fell off the trees.  The same thing happened with the cottonwood trees along the river; their leaves never turned colors, but simply turned brown and fell with the winds that came a few days after the very cold temperatures.

Deciduous conifer, Larch or Tamarak, depending on how far north you are in latitude.

Unlike the wimpy Aspen and Cottonwood, the below normal cold temperatures had no appreciable affect on the Larch trees.  They didn’t disappoint us.  Their golden needles shine in the sunlight.  In groves such as the one in this picture where Larch dominates, when the needles fall they will carpet the ground with gold.  Then, all you need is a rainbow….

Speaking of gold, the summit of Mount Baldy Ski Resort is hidden in clouds, and they have no doubt received several inches of snow over the past couple of days. The ski resort will be buzzing with anticipation in harvesting gold from skiers' pockets.

We definitely need to get snow tires on the cars, asap.

Mishkin claims there is a real live mouse hiding behind the DVD shelves.  He’s been staking it out since we woke up this morning.  Could be he’s right; the good thing is he is entertained.  He managed to misplace his toy mouse already this morning; he probably punted it under the range in the kitchen, and I will have to remove the bottom pan storage tray to see if it is there.

Managed to get them baked before the first snow melted. Timing is everything!

This is my first attempt at making cinnamon rolls which are both gluten free and lactose free.  Dan has the first one on his plate and I’m awaiting the verdict….

Pretty good, and not bad, but the cinnamon isn’t as strong as in the past.  So, after these are done, and when it snows again, I guess it is back to the drawing board.  Of course it is possible he’s just saying that so I’ll make them again.  He’s clever that way. 🙂

Yesterday the last of our winter supply of firewood was tucked away under cover.  And not a moment too soon!

The first fall snows. Quick, where's the snow shovel and where's the snow rake and where's the.... Oh, wait, it's only October. This will melt!

Preserving absolute calm here now.  It’s sticking though and not slacking off yet.  It will no doubt melt before too long.  Which means I have to be quick.  Family tradition is to make cinnamon rolls during the first snowfall.

Haven’t been doing much the past week except getting ready for winter.  We have a couple of chores left to do.  Put snow tires on the vehicles and change the oil in the Ranger, for plowing the driveway, and clear the grass away on the left side of the driveway going out to the road from the house and make sure that we can push the snow farther that direction this year.  We may have more than one log and/or stump to remove.  This snow is a wake up call that we’re pushing it a bit close!

Play on the computer, make lemon coconut blueberry muffins, play fetch with the cat, and watch wildlife.

This is a very pretty cinnamon Black Bear who was dying to know what was making that horrible noise. But not dying enough to risk dying!

Great focus on the tree in front of the bear.  Sigh.  Stupid camera.  Anyway, Terry let us know this bear was coming up the hill towards the house before it got very close.  This isn’t a little bear either.  She was most upset.  Mish didn’t see the bear as he was up the stairs to his bedroom as fast as his four-wheel drive and positraction would take him.

We went for a walk by the river in the middle of the day and the cottonwoods are starting to turn along the riverbank.  When the colors peak, will take some pictures.

A raspberry band across the sky was our sunset for the evening.

Ever have one of those days when you know you shouldn’t be allowed to handle sharp objects, and you shouldn’t try to do anything more complicated than sit quietly on the couch with a paperback book in your hands as a hard-bound book might be too much to handle?  Well today was one of those days.

My plan was baking things with ginger in them, and I was happily proceeding according to plan when I discovered that I didn’t actually have any ground ginger in my spice cabinet, even though I distinctly remember looking for it and finding it yesterday before going shopping.  Fortunately, one of our neighbors had some and they were willing to part with their little box of the spice.  I also had a severe problem with measuring butter but that’s another story.

Triple Ginger Tea Loaf

This is a recipe out of my cookbook “Gluten-Free Baking Classics” by Annalise G. Roberts.  I’ve made several things from this book so far, not too many though because they are all in the category of “goodies.”  This tea loaf fits into that category of a keeper recipe.

Gingersnaps, before and after. They change dramatically after baking.

The other thing I was planning on making with ginger was Gingersnaps.  Never having actually made this cookie before, I wasn’t sure if they should be thin and crisp so I called my Gingersnaps expert and now know that they can be thin and crisp, or soft and puffy.

A cookie-close-up. They sorta match the granite on the counter-top in color, but not in taste or texture. These are really full of taste and texture; you'd never guess they were made without wheat flour.

There is one more thing I wish to bake today, and that is Coconut Macaroons.  It involves using electrical equipment, though, and I’m mindful of the kitchen god’s earlier decree that I can’t measure accurately nor be allowed to use sharp objects.    Incense needs to be burned to appease them so I can finish my baking projects.  Stay tuned for further developments.

The “Bangles” wrote a song about this, “It’s Just Another Muffin Monday,” and so it was my theme song for the day.

Blueberry muffins with a strusel nut topping; there aren't this many muffins left as of the posting of this picture....

I’m baking a loaf of bread as well.  Dan is playing music and entertaining us.  Terry is on bear lookout watch today; she spotted a large cinnamon brown black bear coming up the hill out by the garage.  It didn’t approach any closer than that as it didn’t like the sounds Terry was making.  Mishkin never had a chance of seeing the bear as he runs too quickly up to his bedroom.  We were trying to figure out how many individual bears we’ve seen so far this year, and it must be at least eight of them.  We’ve seen several of those on multiple occasions.

Last week we had to saw our way out of the driveway to go to the post office.  One of our bear neighbors was pulling choke cherry bushes down and across the driveway.  These bushes are a good 20 feet tall and quite heavy, and even after we sawed them up and threw them out into the woods, he dragged them back out again.  A brat bear but then, aren’t they all?

I’ve been working on a new knitting project from a patterns book called “Folk Shawls.”  This is from Norway and is called Box Lace, an adaptation from a weaving project.

One one-third completed, it is starting to progress towards completion fairly quickly.

The variegated yarn is in some of my most favorite shades of blue, and like all lace patterns the final result is still a matter of imagination.  Blocking is where the magic happens.

The pattern is an all-over repeat of little boxes defined by borders.

I have finally managed to learn the pattern and now I just just my chart on the computer to keep track of where I am within the repeat.

We had company over the weekend, a good friend of mine for many years now, approaching 20 years which boggles the mind.  I remember when she was just a baby! 🙂

Such fun to take her around on walks in the woods and show her around in the middle of nowhere.

First day of fall – my favorite season!

I was experimenting today with my bread recipes and made a batch of cinnamon pecan sticky buns.

A successful experiment but more cinnamon won't hurt a thing.

This morning Mishkin told Dan that he had cornered a mouse under the bag that we use to bring firewood into the house.  Dan moved the bag and, oh joy, oh rapture, Mishkin had his mouse to play with.  He took it upstairs to the exercise room and promptly released it.  The mouse took the opportunity to hide into the elliptical exercise machine.  Sigh.  Mish has been up there all day and the mouse won’t come out and play.  Sigh.

Yesterday we went to the building supply store and picked up materials we need to finish the pantry window inside and out, and the sheetrock in the basement.  More remodeling fun and games!  And I think we’ve come up with a plan on a couple other problem areas that needed to be solved.  That will be for next year.

Continuing my search for good breads, I experimented today.  I have a four flour bread mix that I made from my gluten-free baking cookbook, and we don’t really care for it, though I did made a cinnamon raisin bread from it that was good.  As a plain bread… not so much.  I have quite a bit of the mix sitting around waiting for inspiration.

So my experiment.  I wanted dinner rolls, and I thought about using potato flour, not potato starch, as an ingredient or as a starting off spot for dinner rolls.  Then I decided to use the bread mix I already have and just replace some of the mix with potato flour, and add some honey.  This idea was bouncing around in my mind last night as I went to sleep.

Today after I got done with working, I embarked on my experiment.  And…

Can anybody say "yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm"

If I didn’t tell you these weren’t normal wheat and yeast rolls, you wouldn’t know it.  The potato flour made an amazing improvement and I think the honey added as well.  I divided the dough into a muffin tin and let them rise to double in size, and then baked.

As this also was a dough which acted more like a normal wheat dough in terms of how it stuck together, tomorrow or Sunday, depending on exactly which day our last batch of firewood is delivered, I’m going to try it to make cinnamon rolls because I think I will be able to handle the dough in rolling it out.  Exciting if this works.  For years and years I’ve celebrated the first snow of the year with cinnamon rolls.