We went for a hike in the Badlands. One of the trails we went on was named Ancient Juniper trail. I wonder why:
We went a little later in the day than we would normally. Our shadows got long.
And the light and sky became amazing.
I am, what some may call, Christmas Man. When I decorated the aloe plant, The Bigs knew it was time to get a tree!
Here we are with our perfect tree. You’ll notice something very wrong with this picture. There is NO SNOW. The Bigs have NEVER gone for a Christmas tree and had NO SNOW.
I refer to myself as self-efficient (not sure why this makes The Bigs laugh). Here I am displaying my self-efficiency cutting down the tree.
Pop was here this week. We tired each other out. We went rock climbing:
played tennis:
and built bird houses:
Not to mention, went to the library, went to the playground, played soccer and basketball, and more. Of course, with all that activity, we worked up quite a hunger. So, we ate Mexican food:
donuts:
and gelato:
For Thanksgiving dinner, we brined, spatchcocked, and grilled a heritage breed Narragansett turkey, and had an apple tart for desert:
As soon as Thanksgiving is over I bust out my Christmas shirts, decorate my room, and start the holiday season. We hung our lights on the porch:
Well, here it is. My kindergarten school picture. I thought we were going outside for snack, not pictures, so I took of my sport coat (to keep it clean) and they took my picture. At least I had a collared shirt on!
The Mother finally brought out her Galileo thermometer (it was away to avoid toddler carnage). It always reads 64, so I thought I’d warm it up a bit and see what happens.
Will you look at The Mother? Copying my turtleneck and camo pants?
I guess they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
We, and the rest of Oregon, hiked Black Butte this weekend. We could see all the mountains.
You may think I just get dressed up for picture day. No way. I roll like this all the time:
We didn’t do much this week. Mainly yard work and listening to The Bigs whine about how bad they feel due to their booster shots.
Mom read somewhere that if you plant garlic, you can keep aphids away. We had a major aphid problem this summer, so we planted THIRTY garlic plants. It won’t work, but I humored her.
Guess what came in the mail this week? This year’s Hess Truck. I think the folks at Hess may be confused because it is a cargo plane, not a truck, but either way it’s awesome. Thanks, Pop!
The weather is cooling off, so I’ve been trying out different hot drinks. This week – herbal tea. It pretty much tastes like water.
I leave The Bigs reading challenges now. I make up sentences and see if they can read them. Sometimes I add a picture to give them a clue.
The other day I came home with a button I had sewn to a piece of cloth at school. The Bigs were impressed. When I told them I wanted to sew a stocking and wanted to know if I should use a running or blanket stitch, they were amazed.
I made pumpkin cookies, reading the recipe myself.
I also made bread for dinner. The Bigs have started whispering words like self-sufficient and saying things about going away for the weekend, and he’d be ok on his own, right?
Mom picked up some beer to celebrate this year’s Halloween costume:
This ill-tempered gnome had Halloween day at school on Tuesday:
Why Tuesday? Because we had parent-teacher conferences this week, so no school Wednesday-Friday. That meant I had to entertain the Bigs, while making sure they did very little work. Here I am helping rake the leaves in the back yard:
I carved two jack-o-lanterns. Posing with pumpkin #1 before heading to my swim lesson:
Prepping pumpkin #2 for carving:
It was not all hard work. We also made time for some fun and games. Tiddlywinks is AWESOME!
It was a pretty big mail week. Along with the Tiddlywinks and cookies from Nana, there was a FUNNY card from G. Auntie Cheryl, and Cars, Trucks, and Things That Go PJs from Nan. I am one lucky dude. Thank you!
I took the Bigs for a hike up Tumalo Mountain on Saturday:
It was cold and foggy:
Snowballs!
On Halloween, I led the Bigs in some crafts:
I prepped craft kits to make things easy for them:
They are not the most artistic, but I was able to guide them in the creation of pumpkins:
spooky caves:
and, of course, garden gnomes:
Heading out to trick-or-treat:
Food from the week. Sunshine bowl:
Banh mi noodle bowl (bun chay):
Lentil salad with winter squash:
Roasted squash with brown butter and roasted hazelnuts:
Chimichurri cauliflower bowl:
Kimchi:
Pumpkin spice cookies with hazelnuts and chocolate chips:
Leaving school on Thursday we discovered a screw in our tire! By the time we had a new tire there was no time to make dinner, so we headed to the Yacht Club for dinner. Thanks, Nan & Pop!
As you can see from the fires at the Yacht Club, it’s getting cool here. That means it’s pumpkin recipe time! Check out these pumpkin streusel muffins dad made!
Due to much complaining by The Mother about our tent being too small, we bought a new one. So we had to try it out of course. We went to Christmas Valley and Dad took us on the Crack in the Ground hike…
Whoa! This is a crack in the ground.
In some places, it was pretty tight, but not too tight to monkey around.
Here’s our new tent. Spacious. Or so it seems.
Here is the view from the Green Mountain Campground. We had it to ourselves.
It got dark pretty early so I checked out some planets and stars with my telescope.
In the morning it was quite obvious to The Mother that no tent would be big enough if said tent was infested with a snuggle bug.
After breakfast we headed to the sand dunes. It was very cool but so windy that we all are now partly blind.
We stopped at Fort Rock State Park for lunch on the way home.
It was a pretty cool rock formation. I climbed up lots of it, with little regard as to how I would get down.
We had picture day at school this week. I dressed appropriately:
I make my own lunch everyday for school now:
On Saturday, we went to Maston for a desert mountain bike ride:
On the way home, we stopped at DD Ranch to pick a pumpkin. The Bigs said ‘no way’ to this one:
Though this one was not too bad either:
I also went for a pony ride at the ranch. I have to say, I was pretty disappointed. Not nearly as exciting as I had imagined. I thought I’d feel a bit more cowboy.
Sunday, we went for a hike along Tumalo Creek.
A bit of bouldering along the way:
Starry Night (Thanks, Great Uncle Jim!):
Pumpkin blueberry waffles. Who is this Pac Man guy the Bigs keep talking about?
This week’s bread creation: Pane di Lino, golden flaxseed bread. Great for toast:
And, finally, my latest plum creation, plum and strawberry crisp:
Monday was my last day of quarantine. We made the most of it.
Nan and Pop bought me a kite for my birthday, but I haven’t been able to fly it until now. Why? Who knows. The Bigs and their excuses…not enough wind, too much wind. It was worth the wait!
We also picked all the plums from the plum tree in our front yard. We harvested 25 pounds of fruit. Mom and I used some of the plums to make an Austrian plum cake.
I’ve taken to dressing like the karate kid and doing strange moves in the living room.
On Saturday we went biking. The Bigs rode on a trail called Duodenum. Strange name. I guess because it curved around over and over again like the eponymous small intestine.
On Sunday we hiked the very popular Tam McArthur Rim trail. The views were terrific. From the ‘End of Trail’:
we saw: North and Middle Sister,
Broken Top,
and Mt. Bachelor. (Not to mention Mt. Washington, Mt. Jefferson, Three-Fingered Jack, Mt. Hood, and even Mt. Adams all the way up in Washington.)
I’ve been putting my starter and biga to good use. My latest creation, a whole-wheat sourdough boule:
