Moth Balls, Dryer Sheets and Knee High Nylons

OK, the title of this post might seem little bizarre and certainly these things must be unrelated but all three were utilized at our house this summer to defeat a common backyard pest. Did you know we have a pear tree in our backyard? Did you know pears are Dan's favorite fruit? Last summer, the squirrels STOLE all the pears from our tree!! This year we decided to take matters into our own hands, starting with the above referenced tools. I read online that squirrels don't like the smell of moth balls and the website suggested suspending a healthy supply from several branches in knee high nylons. So, we tried that, it worked fairly well. Then we heard that dryer sheets have the same effect and they smell a lot better than moth balls. So, we tried that. Eventually we bought a BB gun. That at least allowed Dan to harvest enough pears to make some jelly. Hence the photo above. The pear jelly is in the center. The peach jelly (No, we don't have a peach tree in our backyard) is on the right and the peach/rum jelly is on the left.

Once Domestic Super Hero Dan got started on the pear jelly, he decided to make peach too. So he bought a lug of peaches from Craigslist and got started. Do you know how much a lug of peaches weighs? That's a lot of blanching and peeling. Yikes!

My mom canned vegetables and made jelly when I was younger and my sister, Adriene, does it now. It does call for some special tools - none of which we owned. But DSH Dan was undeterred. He adapted and made one of the tools himself. See his cool tool below.



He adapted a funnel we already had to make a W-I-D-E mouth funnel…would you have thought of that? The peach and pear jelly recipes came from my sister. The peach/rum jelly came from Receipezaar (my favorite recipe website) and you can find it here. Or, you can figure out a way to become DSH Dan's new best friend.

Big excitement in our neighborhood!

This out in front of the elementary school across the street from our house.

The Tinkerbell Room TRANSFORMED

I'm sure everyone (when they move into a previously inhabited house) questions the decorating tastes and choices of the previous owners. Since we bought our house in April 2007 we've asked ourselves many times "What were they thinking?!" Our house has three bedrooms - one that was the "master" bedroom (two off white walls, two grey/green walls), one that was the "teenager's" bedroom (four dark purple walls and ceiling) and the little girl's bedroom (lavender walls, light green trim, blue sky ceiling with clouds and Tinkerbell wallpaper border and Tinkerbell stickers - hence our nickname for the room). See the before photos ABOVE.

Dan's mom was determined to transform the Tinkerbell room into something we would be interested in inhabiting as adults. Dan had done most of the real remodeling that had to be done - moving closets, etc. So Pat took on the patching, priming and painting. We chose pale blue with white trim. See the after photos BELOW.

Our 2nd Annual Luau

Last year we hosted a luau (on Bastille Day for you Francophiles) for our housewarming party. This year we decided to do it again while we had family (i.e. unpaid assistants) in town. Pat and Jim (Dan's parents) arrived at the beginning of August and my sister, Adriene, her husband, Dwane, and their three daughters, Naomi, Olivia and Danielle, arrived a week later. Dan and I decided to serve the same menu as last year: Pineapple-glazed pork loin, Teriyaki chicken legs, Broccoli Slaw, Tropical Fruit Salad, Asian Tossed Salad, and Frozen Fruit Bars. It was a real family affair: Adriene and Pat did most of the shopping, Dan and Jim did last minute repairs to our deck, Dwane, Jim and the girls did most of the set up/decorating and Dan, Adriene and I did most of the prep/cooking.

Happy Happy this month

There are lots of August celebrations I would like to note here.

Family:
My Mom, August 13 birthday
Annie, August 19 birthday
Dan's parents, August 19 anniversary

And three coworkers birthdays:
Doug, August 16 birthday
Larry, August 18 birthday
Kathy, August 19 birthday

My high school friend Angie, August 24 birthday

Why did the elk cross the road?

We love visiting Rocky Mountain National Park and we decided to try out the new jeep a few weekends ago with a trip up Trail Ridge Road. See our slide show here. It's a good thing we went when we did because last weekend we had snow above 10,000 feet in Colorado and they closed Trail Ridge Road temporarily.

Trail Ridge Road is the name for the stretch of U.S. Highway 34 and is the highest continuous highway in the United States. It crosses the Continental Divide at Milner Pass (elev. 10,758 ft) and reaches a maximum elevation of 12,183 ft, near Fall River Pass (elev. 11,796 ft). It is closed during the winter, and often remains closed until late spring or early summer depending on the snowpack.

Book Review: The Big Oyster

The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell
by Mark Kurlansky

I read another of Mark Kurlansky’s books, “Salt: A World History”, last month for my Book Club. Though I didn’t choose the book this month, I’m a big non-fiction fan and I thought “Salt” was very interesting (though sometimes a little dry). Did you know Roman soldiers were sometimes paid in salt and that’s the origin of the word “salary”? Me neither.

So I looked for other food-themed history books by Kurlansky. I found “Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World” and “The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell.” The library waiting list for “Cod” was rather long so I moved on to "The Big Oyster."

Although the title and cover suggest that the book is about oysters, it's actually a history of New York City--the choices and, in particular, the mistakes (in hindsight) the city residents made in handling the environment that transformed Manhattan island and its surroundings from pastoral beauty to modern Gotham. Today, New York is the very representation of "city." This is how it got that way--through the eyes of the oyster. Here's more info if you would like to order it yourself from one of my favorite local bookstores.