13 days!

Fall Utah hike today in Big Cottonwood Canyon with Michael and Bob.

Summary of our lives for the past week - not including the travel to and from Cleveland, Ohio, which was actually a surprisingly nice drive both 12-hour directions!

First Saturday in June at our house!

DONE!

Michael, Pika, Nacho, and I went for a hike at the Walls of Jericho a couple weeks back with Diana and Dave - it was fabulous!  The hike was different than I thought it would be - judging by the name, I thought it was going to be more walled-in the whole way.  However, it was really open and forested until the very end.  

Early spring hike from March 17, 2012 - first hike of the year with shorts and t-shirts!

We went climbing a couple weekends ago at Sandrock, AL and had a great time!  Michael and I had not been climbing for years (although we did meet at the Georgia Tech climbing wall!).  Katie was in town from Colorado, too, which made it extra special!

Work has been intense.  The images above are from late February.  The top photos are of our two quince bushes, which were especially beautiful this year.  The cabbages in the lower left are also doing great - we just need to eat them!  Michael has been making really good progress on putting up fence posts.  Now we just need to find time to put up slats.

Tuesday afternoon at the front door.

Best granola ever.  Recipe here from Orangette / Food52 / Early Bird Foods.

Friday afternoon in the lab.

My allergies have been insane this past week with the unusually warm winter weather.  It was so bad last Monday I went home sick from work an hour after arriving at my desk.  I spent my sick day studying dynamics and differential equations for my Analysis of Engineering Systems class and hanging out with the dogs.

The family took a muddy (but great!) hike this morning on the Wild Flower Trail before it started raining again.

For my MAE 455 Design of Thermal Systems class, I am participating in a team project to develop a system that transfers heat from the waste energy of a John Deere diesel generator to a greenhouse in order to grow food in the winter in Point Baker, Alaska.  My team is focusing on capturing waste energy from the coolant and modifying a prefabricated greenhouse to be warmed in order to grow produce!  

Old-Timer Joe is back home with his family, who were so excited to see him!  Michael and I enjoyed our time with O.J., and we miss him terribly.  However, it's probably for the best as is.

No word from anyone on O.J.  He seems to be enjoying himself here at Hacienda Middlewood.  Pika and Nacho think he's okay - not good or bad but okay.  Nacho was a real help yesterday while I was trying to make up the bed - putting new sheets on the bed and cooking are his favorite household chores.  

Afternoon nap while we were out of work last week due to the power outage...

Note:  I added Labels to this post and blogger republished it as a new post; not sure what's up with that. 

Garden update:

-  We took a class on separating perennials at the Huntsville Botanical Garden this spring and were sent home with a bunch of perennials we planted in our yard - including these awesome irises that have just started blooming!  I'm not normally one to get excited about irises, but I think these are pretty awesome.

-  I think we're close to getting all our vegetables planted.  So far, we've put swiss chard, radishes, lettuce, spinach, broccoli, basil, parsley, cilantro, tomatillo, hot peppers, okra, eggplant, sage, dill, thyme, rosemary, oregano, and a bunch of different types of tomatoes in the ground.  All we have left is squash and melons - I think.  The swiss chard is going wild!  And even the broccoli is hanging in there - what a trooper!

Note:  I added Labels to this post and blogger republished it as a new post; not sure what's up with that.

View from work today:  the port that accommodates the vacuum pump and instrumentation for the Liquid Level And Mass-gauging Apparatus (LLAMA).  I'm not going to lie, even if I thought the technical aspects of my job were boring, it would still be really fun just to look at all the hardware!

Note:  I added Labels to this post and blogger republished it as a new post; not sure what's up with that.

Michael is kayaking on South Sauty today.  I was planning on going but woke up feeling crummy with a killer headache.  It's probably for the best - I really needed to get some work done, namely on a final report that was due on Friday.  We just recently purchased a new desk on Craigslist, and I'm totally loving working at it.  We have placed it in our "wood panel bedroom" so it faces the window where I can look out and see our front yard.  I love it.  Way better than my windowless cubicle at work.

I installed Instagram on my phone yesterday, and the photo above is my first attempt.  

Michael and I found this guy late last night walking down the middle of Whitesburg Dr., a busy street in southeast Huntsville.  He wasn't wearing a collar and isn't microchipped.  We've posted adds in The Huntsville Times and Craigslist, but I've got a bad feeling we're not going to hear from anyone.  We took him to the vet this morning to get him checked out and then over to Goin' To The Dogs and Cats Pet Supply for a nail clipping and thorough bath.  He's very sweet, but we really don't need a third dog.

We're calling him "Old-Timer Joe" for now.  Or OJ for short.

Last Thursday Lee McBride from Foodscapes came over for a garden coaching session with us.  The meeting was great and got us reinvigorated to make some progress!  We're working on finishing the rock bed on the south side of the garden - Michael is almost done with the front row of rocks.  I weeded and turned over several of the beds.  I also photographed the winter veggies we have left - swiss chard and cabbage.  The swiss chard is fabulous, and we've really enjoyed it.  We've yet to see on the cabbage.

Today is beautiful, and we're hoping to get outside and work some more!

Today was a big cooking day for us:  Roasted Carrot Soup and Alice Waters' Ratatouille.

We cooked pizza this weekend on the Big Green Egg my parents gave us and the pizza stone Michael's mom and stepdad gave us for Christmas!  It was fabulous.  The pictures above are our first attempt - handmade pizza dough, tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, red pepper, mushrooms, broccoli, onion, and goat cheese.

The image above is our second attempt - handmade pizza dough, tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, red pepper, mushrooms, olives, onion, and goat cheese.  On this round, Michael was able to get the Egg hotter than the first time (around 650 degF!), resulting in the crust being very crisp on the bottom and pleasantly crunchy on the edges.  It was the best pizza I've ever eaten.