Happy Halloween!

Hardcore Fishing

Mr X didn't feel like he'd gotten the opportunity to fish as much this summer/fall as he had wanted to. So last Friday while I was working (he had the day off) he decided to head up to his favorite fishing spot one last time.

It takes about 45 minutes to hike there on a normal day. It took him longer on this day due to the fact that it was a winter wonderland up there. Despite the cold and snow Mr X trudged on - a very determined fisherman.

The path to our fishing spot.

The views along the path were pretty incredible. I'm so glad Mr X took the time to snap some photos for me.

This is the little stream that runs down from our fishing lake.

And here is the lake. The very frozen lake.

More frozen lake....(Mr X was walking along side of it to get to the mouth of the lake, where he loves to fish.)

Here is the mouth of the lake - and he was pleased to see that there was a tiny bit of unfrozen water in which he could fish.

 

So this is where Mr X fished. He said that sometimes his fly would get hooked on the edge of the ice and he couldn't get it off, so his solution was to dig for rocks and toss them at the edge of the ice until it broke off and then he'd reel in his line and detach the cumbersome chunk of ice.

Mr X told me that it was 18 degrees up there. Ouch! But he was determined to fish - I believe he said that he caught one fish the whole time. He tried for a while, until the cold cracked his fly rod during a back cast. Dejected, Mr X packed up and headed home. Poor Mr X. I felt so bad that his beloved fly rod was broken.

Not a Whole Lot of Exciting Happening Here

It's always rather difficult to blog when you don't really have anything to blog about. It's the shoulder season here and nothing too exciting happens during the shoulder season. The mountains are wet and muddy and snowy so hiking and biking and exploring them in general kind of dries up a bit for us because we're not that hard core. But there's not enough snow do begin doing our beloved snow sports yet. I'm trying not to just abandon blogging entirely until the shoulder season is over. So as a result you get somewhat sporadic, rather dull posts like this one. *shrug* But this is the sort of thing we've been up to lately: Prepping for the winter.

We have a wood-burning fireplace. The last few winters here we've been purchasing a bundle (or two or three) at a time from the grocery store when we go. At about $5 a bundle that gets expensive if we want to have a cozy fire burning in our fireplace with any sort of regularity. So this year we decided to buy firewood in bulk. I've estimated that the cost will be about half of what it would have cost us for this much wood at the grocery store. We purchased a quarter cord of red cedar. We may very well need a bit more than this, but storage space was as issue - both in our car and in our townhome. We'll see how we fare with this amount this year and we'll supplement from the store as needed. If we need more than this next year we'll have to have our supplier deliver it to our home.

Loading up the car.

Driving home in our very fragrant and jam-packed car.

Now for the unloading.

Our garage smells so good these days with all of this cedar freshening it up. I love it!

The final result. It seemed like a lot when our car was filled with the wood. Now, stacked up in our garage, it seems like so little. Oh well.

The Yearly Trip to the Apple Farm

Each fall here I drag Mr X to a local apple orchard and farm so we can take home a half bushel of apples. While there we usually feed the giant horses some carrots and feed ourselves an apple cider doughnut or two (or three...) and maybe sample some freshly pressed apple cider. Some days later I make and preserve applesauce - with Mr X's help.

I don't have an applesauce recipe. Each year I just make something up as I go. This year I threw some cinnamon, vanilla, ginger and bourbon into my applesauce. Mr X and I both thought it turned out great.

Photo courtesy of the interweb.

 

Photo courtesy of the interweb.

Photo courtesy of the interweb.

Photos of my applesauce, courtesy of me. Mr X and I prefer our applesauce rather chunky. No paste-like baby food consistency stuff is allowed here.

Yay - It's Here!

Around here we usually get our last snowfall of the season in May and our first snowfall of the season in October. We're 4 days into October now and I've already been chomping at the bit for our first snowfall. I woke up this morning to a light blanket of snow everywhere. Woo hoo! I was delighted. Of course it will melt here at our house quickly, but not so in the mountains and that's the most important part.