I hope everyone enjoyed the 4th of July weekend and got to spend time with friends, family, and maybe even the great outdoors.
Our weekend didn't go as planned, but we still fun and accomplished a few necessary tasks. Originally we'd scheduled to take our horses to a 3 day ride in Wyoming, riding 25-30 miles each day. But the fire evacuation last week threw the schedule out of wack (still don't have shoes on both horses) and we really couldn't leave because although the fire is essentially contained, it's still burning. The heat and the wrong wind gust could cause a flare. My mom takes care of the other four horses and that would be pretty mean to leave her to evacuate them by herself.
Of course those of you on the east coast are thinking what heat? I hope everyone fared well through Arthur. Would love some of that rain.
So on Friday we decided to buy some hay before the good prices were gone and loaded 212 60# bales onto our trailer while it was 88 degrees outside. In case you've ever wondered what it feels like to be tarred and feathered - sweat and loose hay probably comes pretty close. But it is a great weight loss program so I won't complain - until we have to do the next load.
We celebrated the Fourth with my mom on Saturday. But first we got up early and worked on a fence before the bugs and heat got to be too much. Put in five fence posts - did I mention we live in the ROCKy mountains? Then hubby got an idea for a bathroom remodel and we yanked the cabinets and sink out of one of the master bathrooms. Silly house designer didn't realize that double sinks would be all the rage one day. This became the day. We ran down to Home Depot and ordered a custom cabinet that won't arrive for 4-6 weeks. Good thing we tore everything out ahead of time!
I'd gotten a recipe for "cookie salad" at one of our endurance rides. On the way home from the Depot, we stopped to buy the ingredients (recipe below, hang on to your pancreas for this one,) steaks, chicken, potato salad, and corn on the cob. Fire up the grill!
To avoid sitting in the house with full bellies, we decided to sit in our car and hunt down a road we thought might give us an additional exit route from our subdivision in case of a fire from the wrong direction (like there's a right direction for a fire!) The maps all showed a road - including the map one of the fire emergency crews was working with! From one direction the road was gated, so we decided to see what it looked like from the other side.
This is not and will never be an evacuation route! Even on horseback. From this road people can access world class four-wheel trails. We were in a Jeep. Sounds good? A 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee with all the bells and whistles and not a scratch that we're still paying on. Hubby was grinning from ear to ear as he finally got to put the thing in 4 Low and raise the ride height to max. It actually did pretty well. But I don't like tipping sideways. At all. In hindsight, he did force me to admit I had fun. I do like 4-wheeling. In someone else's purpose built truck. Where I can get out when it tips sideways and walk.
Sunday we went for a sedate trail ride, just 15 miles through some neat canyons, then edited the first chapter of an ms pulled a dark corner of my computer. I'm taking it to be shredded at my critique group on Tuesday. Oh yeah - that load of hay? Still sitting on the trailer waiting for a cool day.
Now for the cookie salad recipe:
1 3oz pkg of vanilla pudding
1 cup of milk
--mix
1 12 oz container of whip cream
--mix
1 can of pineapple chunks (drained)
1 can of mandarin oranges (drained)
2-4 bananas
optional nuts (I hate nuts)
Now here's where I went off recipe, when I first tasted this, I thought the cookie chunks were uncooked cookie dough. The recipe calls for crumbled shortbread cookies, they soften and taste doughy. Screw that advice about eating uncooked cookie dough, I crumbled uncooked sugar cookie dough into my cookie salad. Yummmm.
I also added mini-marshmallows and some frozen mix fruit (blackberries, strawberries, blueberries)
Eat carefully, share with lots of people so you don't go into a diabetic coma!
What did you do for the Fourth of July?
No comments:
Post a Comment