It's Wine-Thirty!

Two special days in one weekend!

On Friday, DH and I celebrated out 11th wedding anniversary.  It rained on our wedding day and it rained on Friday.  In fact, Friday's weather was very similar to that on our wedding day.  We didn't really celebrate (we aren't the types that go all out for things like Valentines day, our anniversary or things like that), but we did have a nice pizza dinner because I wound up working late Friday night, and DH had to study anyway.  :)

Today is Dale's 46th birthday.  One of his goals before we were married was to be married before he turned 35 (we met that by 2 days, and even had to renew his driver's license down on Cape Cod on our honeymoon).  His other goal was to own a house before he turned 35.  We met that 61 days before he turned 35 too.

Now his goal is to finish up his associates degree in December.  He has made the dean's list at the college, and I'm extremely proud of him.   :)

Tonight we plan to go out to Eastside Grill in Northampton for dinner, and we'll toast to his birthday and 11 years together.  :D

I hope all of you that made it to Rhinebeck had a great time!  Linda Diak and I commiserated on not being there, but we both had obligations which prevented us from being there physically, we were there mentally.   ;-)

BTW, for those of you who are knitters, check out Linda's fabulous Darn Pretty Needles and her newly done website.  The needles are INCREDIBLE and I love the look of the site too!

Nature trails

Do you know how good it feels to be back doing fiber work?  I can't begin to explain how happy it makes me, plus knowing that there are some fiber festivals coming up that I will be able to attend as a consumer rather than a vendor.  It means I get to hang out with people that I rarely get a change to hang out with, which is an exciting prospect.

But this week was difficult at work, since I was in school for two days, which meant combining 40 hours of work into 24.  Doable, but difficult.  It left little time for knitting, and I only was able to get two short rows done on my next set of socks during a break in one of my classes.

So yesterday, as a treat for the kids, we drove through the Quabbin Reservoir, which is a favorite destination of ours.  Imagine our surprise, when we saw water going over the Windsor Dam spillway.  That warranted a stop, to hike a short way down the hill to see the water going under the arched bridge and over the falls.   

The sound of the water crashing on the rocks was deafening, but beautiful at the same time.  This is the second time in less than a year that we've seen this happening, which is highly unusual, as it has only happened 5 times since 1997.

And here are my guys.  Nathaniel is showing off the loss of his front top tooth!

Who's that Girl?

In case you've been wondering what I've been up to lately, the answer is........

Baking.

Yes, I've become a regular Betty Crocker here at BCF.  While my desire to do anything fiber related is nil, I'm working with flour instead.

Normally, I'm not at all baking inspired.  In fact, that has always been one of the last cooking related things I wanted to do, but in the past month, I've whipped up some rather tasty recipes. 

My favorite so far has been Philadelphia German Butter Cake, also known as Butterkuchen in our family.  My love for butterkuchen goes back to when I was a very little girl.  My grandmother would always make sure she bought at least one butterkuchen for breakfast from the local bakery when ever we were down in NJ visiting her.  And as the bakeries started to close due to competition from the grocery stores, it became very difficult to find butterkuchen.  The one place we've always known we could find it was while on vacation down in Sea Isle City, NJ at Mary Anne's bakery.  But, this means that I only get to eat it once a year, when we are on vacation. 

So I started searching the web, and finally found some recipes for them.  So far, I've tried 2, and I'm posting the one I like best.  I think you'll find that you like it too.

Philadelphia German Butter Cake

1/4 cup granulated sugar 1/4 cup shortening 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 large egg 1 envelope active dry yeast 1/2 cup warm milk 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon vanilla Butter Cake Topping, recipe follows Prepare dough by mixing sugar with shortening and salt. Add egg and beat with mixer one minute until well blended. Dissolve yeast in warm milk. Add flour, then milk-yeast mixture and vanilla to dough batter. Mix three minutes with dough hook or by hand. Turn dough onto floured board; knead one minute. Place in a lightly greased bowl, cover with a towel and set in a warm place to rise for one hour or until doubled. Meanwhile, prepare topping; set aside. Divide dough in two pieces. Roll or pat to fit two well-greased 8" square pans or one 9x13X2" pan. Crimp edges halfway up sides of pan to hold topping in. When dough is spread, prick dough with fork to prevent bubbling. Divide topping; spread over dough. Let cakes stand 20 minutes. Bake at 375°F for 30 minutes or until done. Do not over bake. Topping should be crusty, but gooey. Let cool before cutting. Butter Cake Topping 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter NO SUBSTITUTES 2/3 cup flour 2 cups EXTRA FINE sugar 2 extra large eggs 4 to 5 tablespoons milk Cream butter. Stir together flour and sugar. Gradually beat sugar mixture in butter. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. By the teaspoonful, add just enough milk to bring mixture to a consistency for easy spreading over the cake, being careful not to make it too runny. Use as directed in recipe for Butter Cake.

I hope you enjoy this as much as we have.  I gave a pan of it to my brother to take back home to NJ last weekend, and he said that I'm officially nominated to bake for the family next year on vacation, and my husband no longer needs to go to the bakery in the mornings.   ;-)

And, as an FYI, I'm taking the knife skills class at the Lamson Kitchen Store on November 4th if anyone wants to join me. 

Next post, I'll talk about cupcakes.

Lots of Sky Watching going on!

Oh yeah, we were watching the sky a lot last night.  I'll take you through it with photos.

Looking down towards Gate E

The big Coca-Cola Bottles 

The Prudential Center

Gate E

Getting read to play!

 

The John Hancock Scoreboard

The Pressboxes

Uh oh.  Here comes the rain tarp for the field!

Here comes the rain!

The field is covered, but those poor grounds guys!

How the wind blew!

Our game delay

   

The storm almost over and look at the beautiful sunset against the clouds.

Can you see the rainbow?

Get that tarp off the field!  We want to see a ball game!

Our seats right next to Manny!

Big Papi up to bat!

   

Manny is up!

Jason Veritek at the plate!

Can you see all the dents in the Green Monster from home runs?

We did have to leave at the top of the 5th.  With the two hour rain delay, and the fact the DH had to get up at 5 this morning to go to work, we couldn't stay later, but we had a great time!

And finally, my Saturday sky.     Today we are off to take the kids to the town fair, and then tomorrow the beach.  It looks like it is going to be a great weekend!

Meet Milo, out new INDOOR cat

Yes, Milo has graduated from barn cat to indoor cat.     This mostly happened because every time we let him out of his "adjustment cage" (this according to our shelter's guidelines for getting him used to being in a barn), he would take off, and then reappear a week or two later.  So finally, after a 13 day absence on Wednesday, I found Milo again in our yard.  So back into the adjustment cage, which he does not like.

On Thursday morning, I took pity on him and brought him inside.  During his inside time, I found him to be a cat who LOVES to be held and pet, have his tummy rubbed (which his previous owner had told the shelter NOT to do that because he hated it), and he has a lot of personality.  AND he is using the litter box (something his previous owner had also told the shelter that he refused to do at her house which is why she gave him up).   Anyway, DH wasn't happy about this latest indoor cat news (which brings us up to 4 indoor cats) when he got home on Thursday night, but that quickly changed when Milo cozied up to him as soon as we had finished dinner.  I secretly knew that DH really liked Milo anyway, so I didn't think we'd have a problem.  DH and Milo are now best friends and Milo follows him all over.    :)

Yesterday, we took a drive over to the Quabbin Reservoir in Ware because I had seen on New England Cable News that there was water going over the spillway.  This rarely happens, because when it does, it means that the Quabbin is past full.  I've only seen this a hand full of times in my entire life, and I'm a native of the area.  Here are some pictures that I took of this amazing and beautiful event.

If you look at this last picture, you can see two tiny people on top of the bridge looking down on the spillway.  That gives you some perspective on the size of this. 

If you click on the link for the Quabbin, and then click on the The Valley link on their website, you can see some pictures of the towns that were dismantled to make the Quabbin.  Those of us that live in this area find the story of the Quabbin to be really sad.  And when you read books like The Lost Towns of the Quabbin Valley and Quabbin Valley: People and Places (Images of America) you get a sense of what was lost. 

The beauty of Quabbin is just going there and feeling a sense of peace as you drive or hike through the park.  It is really a beautiful place to go and you can sense the history there.

A Craft Fairing we will go!

Today my mom and I took a trip up to the Old Deerfield Craft Fair Summer show.  I have to say that we were disappointed with the quantity of vendors there; many of the regulars from previous years were not there, including Edmund Johnson, my favorite watercolor artist.  We did see a few vendors that we purchased things from, including Slate Expectations (a "welcome" sign painted with violets) and I purchased a really cool indigo dyed handbag from True Blue TC for weekend use.  Isn't that beautiful?  I also ordered a 72" round table cloth from them for our kitchen.   

The next craft fair I'll be attending will be Crafts on the Common, on the Amherst Town Common on July 8th.  This fair benefits that Big Brothers/Big Sisters group of Hampshire County.  This show is juried, and an excellent show which I'm looking forward to.  Plus, one of the mom's from Nathaniel's pre-school class will have her extraordinary pottery on sale there, and I'd like to purchase a piece.   :)

Lots of pictures

Yesterday, we had a meeting to attend down in southeastern CT, so after the meeting was over, we took the boys to Fort Trumble State Park in New London, CT.  We had never been there, and found it to be a beautiful place to visit.  Here are a few pictures that I took while we were walking around.

The last four were taken at Ocean Beach Park, which thankfully, was mostly empty (sorry, but I'm not an OBP fan; it is too crowded and noisy in season).  The boys had a good time walking on the beach, collecting rocks and seashells.

And now, I have a few more WFB fleeces to add to the Sale List. 

 This is a medium grey covered fleece.  It is pristine!  The colors range from a light grey to a medium-dark grey.  The price on this fleece is $65.

This is a covered white fleece.  While is looks yellowish in the picture, the fleece washes up a nice white.  $45

Another covered white fleece.  This is more creamy in the picture, but again, washes up white.  $40

Going, going, gone! What's that? A new hobby?

The drum carder is sold.  Lisa Westervelt of Cranberry Moon Farm is now the proud owner of it.  Lisa is on her way home to make more batts.  I think she will be very happy with it.  :)

Now that I have the time, would you believe that I'm getting a loom???  Yes!  One was offered on a small spinning list I'm on for free, so I'll be heading up to Ashfield in the next week to pick it up.  All I know is that it is a floor loom, and that the woman that used to own it was a very good weaver.  I'm so looking forward to trying weaving!

Let the dyeing commence!

And you probably thought this was going to be about dyeing fiber.  Nope, Easter eggs.  :)

Last night, we got the kids together for some egg dyeing.  My SIL Debbie boiled 6 dozen eggs, and we let the kids loose.  It actually took almost 45 minutes for them to dye their eggs.  My son Nathaniel was the speedy dyer; he had his first 12 eggs finished before most of the kids had just 6 done.  So we patiently waited for everyone to finish, before we switched them around in the seating, so that they would have different colors to dye with.  The neat thing about Paas is that they give you three different sets of directions for egg colors depending on what you want.  Use vinegar for vibrant colors, lemon juice for traditional colors and water for pale colors.  Funny, I only remember using vinegar in all the years I've been dyeing, but hey, change is good.  We went with the vinegar and water methods.  The kids had a great time as you can see.

From back to front:  Megan, Nathaniel, Zach and Calvin.

Megan hard at work getting the perfect colors!

My former SIL Kathy (yes, we still include her in family functions, but you'd have to know my second brother and then you would understand why we include her and not him),  Megan, Zach and Calvin.

L-R:  Megan, Calvin, my SIL Debbie, and Nathaniel, all hard at work.

Is this the right color?

I wonder what this crayon will do?

And finally, it is chocolate time on Easter morning!

The spoils!    :-D