Living Room

The living room is finally put together! (Of course, I had to clean it before I could take a picture...)

Now, the last two rooms to finish are the mud room and "my" crafting room. Soon I'll have a lamp, small table for my sewing machine, chair, and *hopefully* a recliner so I can read or do my cross stitching. It's funny, whenever I'm in that room, the cat is there with me, either inspecting everything I've got in my hand, sitting in the window or sleeping.

I have to finish the 3rd bookshelf before I can use it and get more of the books put away...it's made to fit in a corner but it needs hosed off and painted. I'll probably use the rest of the camo-colored spray paint I bought for Dave that he never used. The other one ended up looking really good--it's flat dark green. I didn't know what it was going to look like when I started, but since I got it at the thrift store and it was really ugly, I decided no matter what I did, it wasn't going to look worse!

Chicken Noodle Soup

Last week when I wasn't feeling good I decided to make chicken noodle soup. I went to the store, got two packages of chicken stock (without salt), carrots, and chicken breast. I heated the stock, cooked the breast, cut it up and added the veggies--garlic, onion, carrots and peas. I also decided to make egg noodles...
2 C flour
2 egg yolks
1 whole egg
2 tsp salt
Enough water for a firm dough

You mix the flour with the egg yolks and salt, then keep adding water a little at a time to make a dough. Knead for 10 min, roll it out thin and cut into strips. The recipe says to let the noodles dry out for 2 hours, but I didn't do that and they turned out great! Boil them for 15-20 min in the soup and eat! (I  added a whole jalapeno to simmer with the soup and it turned out amazing!).

Sunrise

I love sunrises....when I'm awake enough to appreciate them!

Sunrise at Fort Churchill

Update

Well, I caught my first cold in almost two years (or more). I left work on Wednesday feeling achy and sore, then I woke up Thursday morning with a cold. I called it a mini-cold, which Dave says doesn't exist, because I'm not really feeling sick, but I have a sore throat and I keep sneezing. Hopefully it goes away before I work on Sunday because I work two days alone this week! (I seem to get more work done that way anyway...haha)

Dave was promoted to assistant manager of the wildlife management area here. He has to start probation over again and he had to drive to Reno to be drug tested right away to get all that over with. Now he goes to management training with his boss and he's pretty excited about it.  He will be in charge of seasonals, the mechanic and the tech who replaces him.

I only have one day off for Christmas--Christmas Day--so I'm hoping we'll go to Carson to spend it with his family. I really like his mom and his sisters...and cousins....and more cousins...and aunts! He's got one aunt who is 4 years older than he is and she just had a baby. I made a cross-stitched bib for her. Theresa, his aunt, loves dragonflies and I happened to have a pink and purple dragonfly design in one of my cross-stitching books. It's probably the easiest design I've ever done and it was really fast.

Other than that, that's about it. Work's going fine...we're finally replacing some of the mannequins in the museum and getting them new Civil War uniforms. The old ones are old and faded, and they look pretty bad. One of them is missing a few fingers, and one is missing a whole hand! I want it to look like we take care of the museum...since it's the first thing the visitors see when they come in to the park!

Nothing Much...

Lately there hasn't been much going on to post about. When I get pictures on the computer, I'll post about my trip back to Utah to visit my family and friends. I got to see almost everyone I wanted to see, but I didn't make it up to Dead Horse Point, which I really wanted to do, but I only had one night in Moa. Dave had made an eye doctor appointment for the next morning in Provo, so I just ran out of time. We did have fun, especially with my nieces and family, and visiting friends in Moab.

Coming back from Utah was HARD!It had been over a year since I've seen my family and most of my friends (I did get a visit from Stacy and from my mom this summer/fall). Dave was really popular with my nieces--one is four and one is seven. He kept talking about how cute they were, even for a week after we'd left!

I didn't want to decorate at work by myself like I did last year, so I called our volunteers, they came in, and we got Buckland Station decorated for Christmas.....so at least that was a fun day. It was fun hanging out with two other women, decorating and eating cookies, listening to Christmas music and calling it work :) I'll have to get pictures of that too, but I haven't actually remembered to take any yet! Our Christmas weekend is Dec. 15-16. We're going to have make-your-own ornaments, Christmas movies and Santa will be there for parents to take pictures of their kids with him. I'm looking forward to it, but it'll be a lot of work getting ready for that weekend!

Halloween at Work

This was my 2nd Halloween at work and we do a safe house trick-or-treating event for kids and show Halloween cartoons. This time it was "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" I love it...

This is the group of candy givers, minus the werewolf. I LOVE the costume on the far right!

 

Here's a close-up...LaDonna on the right, Fallon on the left.

 

Nichole and Mae! Nichole is a volunteer and Mae works at the park next door.

 

...and I came up with a real costume this year too. It's mostly from stuff I already had in my closet. The gold earrings came from the dollar store and the boots came from the thrift store in Yerington for $2! At least it's better than the footie pjs I wore last year!

 

Out of Pumpkins (Fall Cooking Part 2)

Well... I finished my 2nd batch of pumpkin-chocolate chip muffins and they worked! The first batch I don't think I added enough cinnamon (and pumpkin pie spice) but for the 2nd one I added a little more cinnamon and ginger.

 

I still have some cooked pumpkin left so I'm going to look for a pumpkin bread recipe to use up the rest of the pumpkin and the chocolate chips. Then I can go buy another pumpkin or two, and start over!

I'm sure I posted this link somewhere on here but I couldn't find it. Here it is again: the BEST (healthy) muffin recipe I've ever used. The recipe is for carrot-spice muffins but I've used the same basic recipe (wet and dry ingredients) to make different kinds of muffins including apple/pecan, cranberry-orange and pumpkin! I even used it once to make blueberry muffins for Dave...but his review was: "These would be great with chocolate chips instead of blueberries!" This time I subsituted pumpkin for applesauce and the yogurt. I ended up having to add 1/4 C of milk for more moisture but it worked great otherwise.

If you try these let me know what you think!

Fall Cooking

Today was my last of 3 days off this week so instead of moving...like I was supposed to be doing...I ended up cooking ALL day! I keep buying squash and pumpkins because it's fall and I like them, but I decided I should actually do something with them instead of letting them just go bad!

This is butternut squash soup. I would normally cook everything together and just puree it, but Dave likes "chunks" in his soup, so I baked the squash and pureed it. I roasted an onion, potatoes and sweet potatoe in the oven, then decided roasted garlic would be good too. I roasted four cloves of garlic for about 10 minutes and took them out of the oven. One clove decided to explode, so I had garlic all over me. I'm not sure where the rest of it went!

 

 I added the garlic, then added roasted potatoes, onion and sweet potato. I also added parsley, more garlic, salt, pepper and paprika...and half a jalapeno just for a little spice. I liked it a lot but it seems like it needed something else. I'd bought frozen rolls to go with it, but then discovered (when we were almost ready to eat) that it takes 1 1/2 hours to bake the rolls. I think those will be for tomorrow night.

 

I had bought a small pie pumpkin so today I decided to make pumpkin pie(s). I found a recipe here for how to make pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin instead of a can. I used this same recipe last year and it worked great. Once, I made pie from a butternut squash just to try it out and it was pretty good. I don't think anyone knew the difference!

 

I cooked a pumpkin a while ago and froze it so I could use it later (what I really wanted from it was the seeds...). I thawed it out today, planning to make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins but I left the muffin tin at the other house (6 miles away). I decided it was worth it to make the trip for the pan, got home to make the muffins and discovered the flour and other ingredients were still at the other house. At that point I gave up and decided to make them tomorrow night after work!

 

I love Fall! I even bought pumpkin beer to go with everything.

 

Settled?

Not yet! ...but hopefully soon. Dave has a full time job with the Nevada Department of Wildlife. My probation is over. I will be moving soon to a (hopefully) permanent house and I will finally be able to unpack all of my stuff that's been sitting in boxes in a shed since December.

October 3 was my first day on the job last year. September 20 (last Thursday) last year was my last day at Dead Horse Point State Park. I'd been there for 9 years and Moab was home. Leaving was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do...but I also think it was a good move for me and obviously for Dave.

Work's been going good. New supervisor (finally) and winter is coming, so that means more time to learn about the park and its history, and to plan programs for next year.

So hopefully soon I will be able to post that I'm finally SETTLED here in Nevada! I will have my own room with my craft stuff...so I won't have to dig through boxes to find a needle and a cross-stitch design. I'm probably most excited about that...and the fact that I'll have a couple bookshelves and I will be able to unpack all my books! ...yes, even the Garfield ones.

Wish me luck :)

My new home!!

Virginia City, NV

I was off today and had the day to myself so I decided to go up to Virginia City again to walk around.

The boardwalk on Main St. Lots of shops, "saloons," restaurants and museums.

View of Virginia City

I decided to take a tour of the Best & Belcher Mine under the Ponderosa Saloon. The family that was also on the tour was from Logan, UT.

Tour guide.

The Silver Queen hotel and wedding chapel. Each dot is a silver dollar.

The winding staircase at the Old Washoe Club. Doesn't look sturdy enough...haha.

The chandelier at the Old Washoe Club.

I've heard people call it a tourist trap but it's a great place to go walk around and sight-see. I like pretending I'm a tourist! And there's a lot I haven't seen up there yet. This is the first time I've made it up there with a real camera though, instead of my cell phone "camera." I'm happy with the pictures I got! It's up in the mountains so it's a little cooler than the valleys below.

Random Stuff

I haven't posted in a while because not much has been going on. I'll post soon about my mom's visit but in the meantime....

I met the Governor of Nevada! Governor Sandoval visited the state parks as part of a promotion, to get Nevadans out into their parks. He and his crew were very nice...I did a history talk and let him fire the cannon. I passed around hardtack, then they walked through the ruins...and headed over to Buckland Station where Mike was waiting, dressed up as Samuel Buckland.

I was really, really nervous, but our boss said I only sounded nervous a couple times...ha ha.

 The picture is from my phone, so it's not the best. He toured the museum and I opened the door to the Gaurd Room...hoping to get a picture of him locked inside. He didn't shut the door though, so this is the best I got. I'll have better pictures soon, when the woman from the Nevada Commission on Tourism sends me hers!

In other news...

I was making coffee in the morning when Dave noticed smoke coming out of the outlet! He ran outside the turn off the electricity. We ran around looking for a fire extinguisher. I was just assumed the house had one (oops!) and didn't find one (I am going to buy one this week!). Dave left, I called the landlord and then waited 2 hours without power for the electrician to show up. He said this happens all the time--the outlet got old, the wires came loose and it gets hot. He did say, "the fire stayed inside the box like it was designed to." Hm...to me that sounds like the design could be better, but I also know nothing about what electricians do!

In other news....

Dave interviewed for a full time job at the Mason Valley Wildlife Management Area down the road. He should know next week if he got it or not. I'm REALLY crossing my fingers for him to get a job close by, because if not, he'll look into BLM again and could end up anywhere!

Cross-stitching Projects

I haven't done much cross-stitching lately but I'd been thinking about it a lot. Finally I sat down and finished one project and started another:

I finished this one for Dave's mom, who loves red wine as much as I do!

This is for Dave's younger sister who is expecting a baby boy in July. It's a little off-center but I think I can use the extra space for the baby's name and a little design. The Raccoon's not quite finished but all it needs is the outlining.

I've got another bib planned for his aunt who is also expecting in October and a bookmark for my friend Wendy who likes to read.

New Hair!

My new hair cut and color! I haven't done anything with it since November...so I thought maybe it was time to get something done. I cut off about two inches and had it colored--the color book at the salon said it was only a shade darker than my natural color...but I think it ended up a little darker than I had planned.

I really like it though!

Iris and Random Pictures

These were taken last night during the solar eclipse. Dave was experimenting with his camera:

Interesting lighting...This was around the middle of the eclipse.

The one and only flower in the yard (besides the mustards and heron's bill)

Kind of a cool shot...black and white except for the grass around the campsite. I guess I was looking for bugs in my drink.

Haven't Been Posting...

I haven't been able to post a lot lately because while Dave's gone he takes the internet with him! And I don't want to pay for my own...

Dave was going to be working for the BLM in Vernal so I thought I wouldn't see him at all this summer. Instead, he got a job with the Nevada Department of Wildlife in Ely, which is only about 5 hours away. He works 4 10-hour days, so he's around for 3 days a week. His mom keeps checking on me, which is really sweet.

My boss retired at Fort Churchill, so we've been anxiously waiting for the "new guy" to come in. His name is Scott and he's the supervisor at the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort. Since he's in the Southern Region, I haven't heard much about him. My co-worker met him and was happy, so I guess that's a good sign. I think it's cool he came from an interpretive park.

Mike hasn't been around much the past couple months so I did seasonal interviews and hiring paperwork, deposits and month-end reports. It's all been good for me....even if it's been a little stressful at times because I'm still pretty new to the park.

I did my first guided hikes and full moon hike of the season...and both brought in over 50 people so I think people really like seeing these programs at the park. We'll see if it continues! So far though, there's been a lot of interest and support.

Anyway that's all the excitement so far. Soon (today?) I'll get around to posting some pictures but I wanted to at least write a little about what's been going on!

Learning New Things...

I did it! I learned to French braid my hair!

I've wanted to learn to French braid for years...but it was always something I thought I'd never be able to do. With this new job I've been learning all kinds of new things...including welding, riding a quad, using a chainsaw and even running a backhoe (I should mention most of these were just an introdution...except the quad, which I'm getting better at).

Yes, it's me using the backhoe! A volunteer and I were knocking down stacks of adobe bricks that no one ever did anything with. The were once wrapped in plastic...but in this sun and wind, the plastic disintigrated and the bricks were left exposed...so they're pretty much on their way back to the sand and clay they started as.

I decided one morning that if I could learn all these new things, why shouldn't I be able to French braid? I understood the idea, but could never get it to work. That morning I was determined to make it work! I washed my hair and then braided it into two French braids! I didn't get a picture of the double braid but here is the single, which I also got to work.

It usually ends up being really loose and comes out before the end of the day, but I figure it's a start!

It's the part at the end I have the most trouble with...but it still works for hiking and working!

I was a little too excited about this!

Solar Flares, or Crazy Guy?

Yesterday I was at work in my office at Buckland Station. Sometimes Buckland brings in some "interesting" people because a lot of locals think it's haunted. (I'm in there alone all the time and haven't been bothered yet...) A couple from Yerington came in and the wife said her husband had a gift that he could see orbs and spirits, and he could also witch for water.

Later, Dave told me everyone could witch for water--you take two metal rods and when they cross there is water under you. I thought that was something my "Grammy" taught my sister and I to do to get us outside and get us out of her hair. He said he did it at work when he worked for AT&T, looking for water pipes and buried electrical wires.

Anyway the husband didn't find anything inside, but said there were spirits all over outside and he could see them a lot when he drove by at night. He also got out his St. Christopher medallion necklace and hung it from his hand. It started swinging around, pulling towards me, then pulling towards his wife. That was the coolest thing I saw all day.

He also asked me if he had a broom. I went and got one and he explained that it would stand up straight because of the solar flares that have been hitting the earth in the last day or so. It was a "corn broom" so the bristles are really uneven and it's kind of rounded. It only stood up for a second or so, but I really wanted to see it stand up on its own. No such luck, so I called Dave and told him to try it. It stood up for about 5 minutes before falling down and I tried it myself tonight:

It's been standing up for about 10 minutes now on its own.



Dave thinks it's because the bristles are holding it up. I think the real test will be trying this when there are not solar flares hitting the earth. Verna, my volunteer at Buckland Station, and I tried standing the broom up for a long time after that guy left...we really wanted to test it out, but the other volunteer, Richard, was the only one of us to get it to work.

Has anyone heard of this phenomenon before? Do brooms really stand on end when solar flares hit us? Hmmmm...........

Dave's Internship in Wildlife Management

I thought I'd use this blog post as a shout-out to Dave and what he's studying...

He's doing an internship with the Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW). He's been doing all kinds of new things that actually make me jealous and I have a pretty cool job too! He uses the tractor and backhoe, excavator, and bull dozer to do various "odd jobs" on a daily basis. We have a tractor at work that I told my boss he should teach me to use for smoothing out the dirt roads.

Habitat restoration.

I was off work one day when Dave was working. I was headed for either Carson City or Virginia City and he called me to say they had trapped  a beaver and if I wanted the pelt I had to do it myself. I wanted it, so I went back to the house at the wildlife area, expecting to spend an hour or so skinning a dead beaver. Four hours later we decided we were finally finished and skipped the head, arms and legs. Not an experience I EVER expected to have but like most things I do, not as bad as I thought it would be, but still kind of gross. And sad...it was a dead animal, and a cute one, so that was hard... but it was dead anyway and why shouldn't I use the pelt for programs at work?

Checking the beaver trap...

Anyway, another job NDOW does is burn the cattails from beaches for fishermen and fields for geese habitat. I thought it was a wildlife refuge at first, like Ouray (between Vernal and Roosevelt, UT) but it's actually a wildlife management area, where they manage for hunting and habitat. So at first, the idea of trapping beaver, burning fields and allowing hunting was a shock to me, but then I realized later what they actually do. I don't fully understand it but now I have more appreciation for it.

Husqvarna

New skill: chainsaw. There are two main/good brands of chainsaw: Husqvarna and Stihl. We have Stihls at work...but Dave decided we should get a Husqvarna. I can't get this one started, but once it's started, I can cut firewood with it! I can start the chainsaw at work but it's a lot older than the new one Dave picked out.

(I was proud of myself for starting the chainsaw in front of my boss at work and cutting up some downed trees with it. All three of us, Mike, Paul and I were out on quads on the equestrian trail clearing up downed trees and branches.)

I didn't realize Dave was taking pictures till he yelled out, "Hey, turn around!"

We took turns cutting wood...because that thing's heavy! Especially since it's my left arm that holds it up and I'm right handed. Soon I'll be doing one-armed, left-handed push ups...

So I got rid of the hoodie because even though it was the beginning of February it had to be 60 degrees out. I was spoiled in Southern Utah, but I didn't expect a winter like this in Northern Nevada! (Not complaining by the way!)

Where the firewood goes. I was in love with the house the second I saw this.

Side note: I did not know that 100 gallons of propane costs $318. A cord of firewood costs $10. A cord of firewood is a pile of wood 8 feet long, 4 feet high and 4 feet wide. Should I learn to use a chainsaw? YES!!

(Aside from a sore left arm, it's easier than I thought it would be!)

"Hunting"

A while ago, Dave wanted to go hunting but not alone so I went with him. Of course, we didn't find anything (he was hoping for quail or cottontail) but I got some pictures.

The lighting was great!

As always, I was looking at the ground.

What a pair of hunters!

As always, besides looking at the ground, I found something to explore.