It was a restful weekend here. Just what we needed. Friday night my dad drove the two plus hours to our house, installed a new low flow toilet (complete with nonslamming seat thank you very much) as a belated anniversary gift, and then headed back home in the morning before either Miss B or Mr. Be were even up. Such a quick trip! We tried to talk him into doing it another time when he could visit for longer but he'd have none of it. Pretty nice guy huh? We are lucky indeed.
Speaking of anniversaries, ours was last week, 13 years baby! We had a special supper (steak, tomatoes from our garden and fancy cheese from Champlain Valley Creamery). Carleton, owner/cheesemaker, is an old cheese buddy from way back when and we love to buy his stuff when we see it. His Organic Champlain Triple did not disappoint!
Miss B is always ready for a celebration and she made us a really sweet anniversary card and was basically beside herself with anticipation until we all sang "Happy Anniversary" to the tune of happy birthday of course : ) It was a really sweet and simple and wonderful evening.
Saturday we were all just exhausted. We wrote letters. We took naps. I read more MFK Fisher...love her writing! I made another batch of strawberry balsamic jam recipe and photos to come!
Sunday we enjoyed the paper with spinach croissants and enjoyed more rain as well. Then we opted for some physical activity (finally!) I don't think I even left our yard on Saturday! Mt. Agamenticus is nearby and we'd tried to go hiking there last year...but I don't know where the heck we got our directions. Last year we ended up on a desolate dirt road totally lost, and our car was literally swarmed with deer flies so we turned back and gave up for the day (er, the year really). We found better directions this time and actually found the parking lot near the Ring Trail - yay! Someone had had the brilliant idea of placing laminated storybook pages along the trail so that kids could read (or have read to them) a story as they hike along. Miss B was feeling a bit tired after a bit so the draw of finding the next page on the trail was a wonderful incentive to keep going. Awesome idea!
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| Post hike slump. |
Mr B's birthday is coming up next weekend. Maybe Tiramisu? He does love it. Anyone have a recipe they'd recommend? I'm all ears people.
Happy Monday folks!
I do love the idea of laminated story book pages! Does the story relate to being in the forest? Imagine how much fun it would be to do that for a treasure hunt! As for not leaving the yard - some Saturdays, I only make it as far as the chicken coop :-) A birthday cake my husband loves is Nigella's Chocolate Guinness (as in the English stout/beer) cake with a cream cheese icing - it's beautifully moist and dark and rich. If you haven't got her book and would like to try it, I'll email you the recipe!
ReplyDeletep.s. I'm absolutely bewitched by your cheesemaking history! Oooooh - we do so love cheese and it's something I'd really love to try!
ReplyDeleteOh Lily, that cake sounds wonderful! I just found the recipe on Nigella's website, but I am so touched by your offer to email it to me! I do think this one might be the one for his 36th spin around the sun. It doesn't hurt that I have a weakness for cream cheese frosting : )
ReplyDeleteThe story in the woods was about a child sneaking outside alone at night to catch fireflies which absolutely thrilled Miss B. A treasure hunt would be awesome!
The cheesemaking is quite a story. At some point I'm sure to post on it, and maybe even do some tutorials...we'll see. A website with lot's of homescale recipes that might get you all fired up to give it a go is
http://www.cheesemaking.com/recipes/recipedetails.html
Cheesemaking has moments that seem like pure magic, and there's the delicious element too of course : )