Dog Paws

Dakota and Lenny have had so many 'irritated paws' that I don't even need to go to the vet anymore. Love the savings.

In my arsenal of remedies you'll find Epson salt, canine prescription antibiotic cream, dog socks and if things get really bad - a dog cone. Can you hear them screaming noooooooo, not the cone?

This week Dakota is the recipient of Epson salt soaks, antibiotic cream and dog booties. Oddly enough he hasn't chewed off the booties yet. Oh my...why did I say that?

Should have gone to the beach

We talked about going to the beach this weekend. We decided yes. Then we decided no. Our bad. Should have gone to the beach on this gorgeous October weekend.

Stove-top Pot Roast

Stove-top Pot Roast with Mushroom, Rosemary and Sage Gravy. Mmmmm good. I had to share. Nothing in this recipe is set in stone. You can substitute your favorite herbs, liquids and veggies to customize it to your taste buds. I love a recipe like that!

You need a heavy Dutch Oven (or similar type pot) to make this on top of the stove. I created it by adapting a recipe I found at KalynsKitchen.com.

This is a comfort meal that is perfect for the chilly nights of fall that are coming our way. It is easy to make ahead and sure to please even the picky pallets in your household. Add mashed potatoes and your favorite vegetable side-dish to the menu and you'll have a meal fit for a king (or at least the king of your household :))

INGREDIENTS

• 3 lb bone-in blade roast (or any roast of choice)
• Low sodium Montreal Steak Seasoning (or steak seasoning of choice)
• Olive oil for browning
• 2 or 3 large carrots
• 2 onions, peeled and cut in fourths
• 2 T chopped fresh sage
• 2 sprigs fresh rosemary cut into large pieces
• 2 T Better than Bouillon Base - beef, vegetable or mushroom flavor
• 1/2 - 1 C water, canned broth or homemade stock
• 1.5  lb mushrooms cleaned and cut in half (more if serving on the side; see note below)
• 1 C dry red wine (can substitute water, broth or stock)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 T white whole wheat flour and 2 T water (if needed)

DIRECTIONS

• Trim all visible fat from the roast including inside pockets. This may leave the roast in multiple pieces but that is okay. If you would prefer to cook the roast whole with the fat you will need to separate the fat before making gravy.
• Generously rub all sides of the roast with steak rub of your choice.
• Heat olive oil in a cast iron skillet to medium-high heat. Brown all sides of roast until well seared. If using a non-stick pan, you may need to add a little butter to achieve desired searing. Do not let oil or butter smoke or burn.
• Create a single layer of carrots on bottom of Dutch Oven by cutting the carrots in 1/2 or 1/3; whichever will fit best.
• Place browned meat on top of carrots.
• Add quartered onions, chopped sage and cut sprigs of rosemary to Dutch Oven.
• Mix Better Than Bouillon Base into water. Use mixture to de-glaze skillet then add all liquid and tasty bits from the skillet to the Dutch Oven.
• Add additional water, broth or homemade stock to Dutch Oven if needed. There should be enough liquid so the carrots are covered and meat is just barely sitting in the liquid.
• Let roast cook at the lowest possible simmer for 3-6 hours (stay closer to 3 hours if you like your roast slightly chewy  and closer to 6 hours if you like it fall-apart stringy).
• Add mushrooms and cook for at least 1 hour. If your meat still needs more time you can continue cooking everything in the pot for up to 3 more hours.
• At this point you can let the food cool slightly and put the Dutch Oven into the refrigerator to process at a later time. When removing from the refrigerator skim fat from surface as needed.
• If continuing: remove roast, carrots, mushrooms and onions from pot. Discard onions and set aside mushrooms, carrots and meat.
• If you cooked your roast with the fat left on, use a fat separater on the liquid in the Dutch Oven. If you thoroughly trimmed the fat from the roast you can skip this step.
• In a blender puree liquid from Dutch Oven, carrots, mushrooms and 1 C red wine (or substitute) until smooth. Depending on amount of liquid and size of blender you may need to do this in batches. 
• Return pureed liquid to Dutch Oven. Taste for flavor. If flavor is too heavy add up to 1 C water. If flavor is too light add up to 1 C beef stock. Add salt and pepper to taste.
• Simmer on low with the lid ajar for about 1 hour. Taste for flavor and adjust as needed.
• If gravy is too thin you can thicken with 1 part flour to 2 parts water. Whisk slowly into gravy and simmer for 10 more minutes or until gravy thickens.
• To serve, cut roast into serving-sized pieces and spoon gravy over meat.

Note: If you would like to serve mushrooms on the side increase amount of mushrooms added to Dutch Oven. When pureeing gravy, set this desired amount of mushrooms aside with the beef.

It's was an OooLaLa kind of Weekend

Last weekend we decided to attack the problem of Lake Kathleen by digging a French drain.

Were you expecting a more exciting topic? Shame on you with your mind in the gutter :)

When it rains really hard - or when it rains for hours at a time without a break - the back patio fills with water. I'm not talking a little water. I'm talking about a few inches of water covering the concrete slab all the way to the porch steps. Enough water that little kids can run around splashing and have a ton of fun (I know that first hand). Enough water that little fish could consider it their personal pond (I don't know that first hand but I can see it being true).

Papa was going to have James do this job a couple of years ago but James had other plans for his hands so the job sat on hold.

Phase 1 is complete. Now we will let everything settle and then go back in with a final layer of pea gravel, dirt and grass. Jeesh that pea gravel is expensive - had I known how much it cost I would have grabbed a bucketful every time I went to the beach this summer!

BTW...don't know why Papa named it Lake Kathleen - maybe it was because I had fun splashing in it with the kids :) but nearly 10 rainy winters ago that is what Papa named it and we've called it that ever since.

He makes cutting the concrete with his diamond blade saw look easy but trust me, it wasn't.

 

After using a sledge hammer to separate the concrete along the saw line, he broke it up into manageable pieces with  a long crow bar. This was an enormously difficult job that required a few breaks along the way to give the arms and back a rest.

Ditch is dug end to end.

As it turned out, there actually was drainage in place when the house was built  nearly 30 years ago. It had stopped functioning long ago as it was packed 'tighter than a new memory foam bed-topper in a shrink wrap plastic bag' with dirt.

Oh bother. They installed the water lines for the automatic sprinkler ABOVE the drain. What a pain :/

Of course nothing got done without Supervisor Dakota getting all close-up and personal. 

The new drain is laid. Is it long enough? Does it have enough of a slope? Does it need tweaking in any way before I bury it? Measure twice, cut once is Contractor John's motto!

Trying to find the right fitting for the downspout proved problematic. 

No

Yes!

Time to fill in the French drain.

Bring on the rain...well, no rush really...but you know what I mean :)
All that's left is finish work on the rockery, grass seed, plantings and more pea gravel as it settles over the winter. 

Wednesday is Important

No. I'm not talking about the presidential debates on Wednesday night. We all know how they will sound. "I'm blah, blah, blah, blah. I will blah, blah, blah, blah. He did blah, blah, blah, blah. But I will do blah, blah, blah, blah.Vote for me!"

A bit cynical? Yes, I suppose so. I've been well trained by many years of listening to politicians...that said, I will of course listen again and eagerly hope for something different than blah, blah, blah, blah.

Wednesday is important because Mr. Keurig is back in the house! 

He's new. He's improved. He's making coffee for me after I wake up Wednesday morning. All is right in the universe.

Dief Flashback

Look at those faces from 26 years ago. Twenty-six years! Can you see who they are today in where they came from yesterday?

Gosh, I absolutely love this photo I stumbled upon.

Say it isn't so Joe

Yesterday was a sad day in the Marth household.

After nearly 3 years of daily faithful service our best friend Mr. Keurig went to the great appliance heaven in the sky. I tried to perform CPR. John tried his hand at surgery but alas, it wasn't to be. Appropriate services were held with each family member saying heartfelt words over the remains.

There we sat on a Saturday morning without coffee. There sat a drawerfull of K-cups and nowhere to brew them. It was then that we realized we didn't own a tea kettle or have any regular coffee grounds in the house.

So we did what every normal household would do...we boiled water in the microwave, opened a K-cup, dumped the contents into our old single-serve drip cup and made coffee the old fashioned way.

Man, we miss our Keurig. Talk about being spoiled by easy, instant gratification!

Beach time. Sister time.

Glenna, Lenny, Dakota and I went to the beach for a couple of nights. It was a very quiet weekend. The Gard's weren't even there. Lots of drizzling rain kept us inside for the most part but it wasn't too cold so all was comfortable...as long as you weren't Grandpa, Shannon, Tess or Kristin :)

We brought homemade chili and baked potatoes for the first dinner and homemade pea soup with crusty bread for the second dinner. Tuna on crackers and tuna on salad made two delicious (and healthful) lunches. Doesn't get much easier or tastier than that.

Who knew my sister could compete with Rachael Ray in style and presentation :)

We had a To Do list that I'm pleased to say we completed...except for the things we decided didn't really need to get done LoL!

One thing on our To Do list was cleaning out the junk closet so we could fit sleeping bags in there. We have been looking for a convenient storage solution for the bags for a while now - just got tired of moving them from bed to bed to bed to bathroom depending on who was there when. We love the end result.

OK. What's up with the self cleaning oven instructions?

Something oily, greasy, sticky, nasty got spilled in the oven so there was a lot of smoking going on when we fired her up to bake the potatoes. The next day we decided to turn on the self-clean function so we didn't smoke ourselves out again when we heated the crusty bread.

The instructions told us to completely clean up all spills as well as wipe down the sides and oven door before starting the cleaning cycle or the extraordinarily high temperatures could cause this debris to catch on fire. So we did all of that (and by we, I mean she as you can see in the snapshot :)) and once that was done there was no need for the cleaning cycle.

Really? Clean completely before you clean? What is the point of a cleaning cycle?

We spent plenty of time sleeping, playing games and reading our good books. We stayed up till 4:00 in the morning the first night and the dogs were kind enough to let us sleep until nearly 10:00 AM! Having old dogs can be a real advantage over young pups on sleepy mornings like that.

You can just see Glenna's head peaking out of the bag. Neither of them budged an inch when I snapped this shot.

And she didn't want to keep score. Pshaw.
If I had listened to her I wouldn't be able to show you that I finally won a game!

This is another Christmas book from David. I am loving this author.

These bad boys gave Ben's futon mattress the rest test. It passed with flying colors. But don't tell Ben. For some crazy reason he thinks we are putting this awesomely comfortable, supper thick and soft mattress up in the sleeping cabin for him.
Silly Ben. Remember, shhhhhhhh.

The birds spent tons of time hanging out on all the buoys in the bay. Crazy to watch them balance on a round bobbing object. This guy dried his arm pits for hours.

As it always is, all good things must come to an end. Tired tuckered out dogs were loaded into the car and we headed home. Not sure when we will get out next so it was extra special having this great weekend with my favorite sister. Love her bunches!

Pretty Painted Toes

Aunt Jody wanted to look pretty when she arrived back in the desert on Wednesday so off we went to a local nail salon. Not a salon worth visiting again...but at least our toes got some color.

Who's Who?

Labor Day Weekend

This was a picture poor weekend. So sad. You'll just have to believe me when I say it was another great time together!

Pictures may have been scarce but good news was not...Ben and Kristin are getting married! He called his mom to share the good news; we couldn't stop talking about it the rest of the weekend. So, so, so, so happy for them! Her sweet, gentle, confident nature is the perfect compliment to bigger than life Ben. You can see and feel their closeness and compatibly when they visit; makes me smile every time I look at them :)

Sounds like November 2013 I'll be traveling to Kansas. Last time I was there Shannon was about 3 years old; it was hot and humid and the ground was covered with locust that went crunch under our feet when we crossed the parking lot. Eeeww it was gross! I am looking forward to a completely different experience this time!

Love this photo of them.
Thanks to someone (?) for sharing it with me!

What a beautiful ring. Wow.
Thanks goes to Glenna for sharing this snapshot.

Grandma, Grandpa, Favorite Aunt Jody, Glenna, Papa, Lenny, Dakota, Morris and I arrived Friday. Jocelyn, Tyler and Drake joined us on Saturday and so did James and Tess. Yana (Tess' sister) and Tanja (Tess' mom) came on Sunday. Tanja was there for an afternoon visit but Yana stayed the night.

Worked on a few projects: Papa chopped wood for the winter; Joc and Tyler swept the roof of the little cabin; Tess and Yana swept the roof of the big cabin; Papa, James, Tyler and Joc hauled a bunch more dirt out from behind the little cabin and dumped it on the south side of Aunt Dorothy's (just like Ben wanted :)); more ivy got cut; rooms, closets, cupboards, shelves, nooks and crannies (inside and out) got deep cleaned and a big load went to the dump.

Mostly we spent lots of time visiting, reading and playing games. James won all 3 games we played of Catan Expansion; but I came this | | close to winning on the last one :) Days were hot and sunny, nights were chilly; James' big roaring campfires were most welcome before and after dinner.

Speaking of dinner - we tried hard to eat dinner around 7:00. I totally agree with the concept in theory but it is terribly hard to accomplish in reality. We came close most nights :)

One more of the many ways we put duct tape to use in our lives. This keeps the leaves from popping up when someone leans on the edge of the table. Yup, it really does work!

Lenny looking longingly at the point for that deer he just chased around the corner. Think he has found a deer to chase down the beach every weekend this summer; sure am glad the deer are lots faster than Lenny!

Our Favorite Aunt Jody is such a big kid at heart!

It was Shannon's 31st BD. Since her birthday usually falls on Labor Day weekend I think she has celebrated more birthdays at the beach than anywhere else - so it only seemed right that we should celebrate in her honor. She posted tons of great birthday photos to Instagram so I shared with everyone. There were lots of laughs, smiles and reminiscing over past birthdays. Glenna even brought a cake to bake!

Grandma ooohed and aaahed over the spectacular moon rise. I must say, they were breathtaking. Pictures never do it justice (at least my silly camera doesn't).

First night...

Second night...

Two BIG crabs were caught and bushels of blackberries were picked.

All in all a successful weekend in the beautiful Pacific Northwest! Even Mt. Rainier seemed to be saying goodbye to another great summer as we traveled home on the ferry.