Salt-lick camera take...

Salt-lick camera take...  I saw deer tracks in the snow a couple days ago, so I put the camera back out.  Here's what we got last night:

Paradise ponders, tundra edition...

Paradise ponders, tundra edition...  It was cold this morning, 9°F when I got up.  I got a small surprise when I got out to my office this morning: it was about 65 (instead of the 73 the thermostat is set to), and the display on my little heat pump's inside component said “P3”.  I had to look that up.  It means “It’s too damned cold outside for the compressor to work!”  So I fired up my wood stove for the first time this year.  I suspect it won't be the last. :)  It's a toasty 75 in here now.

Yesterday as we returned from our trip up Blacksmith Fork Canyon we passed a group of people on the east side of State Highway 165, just north of our home.  They were sledding on a hill in an alfalfa field there, which happens to be almost the perfect slope and length for sledding – with short slopes for the little ones, and more challenging longer slopes for the older kids.  It seems to be the most popular place for sledding in the area.  After we got home, I noticed that several neighbors had their snowmobiles out in our 12 acre south field, which is almost perfectly flat and square – perfect for that purpose.  I took down the barbed wire fence on the west side of the field this fall, hoping to make it a bit nicer for people to play on in the winter, and that appears to have worked, as I can see several places where snowmobiles crossed over where there used to be a nasty fence.  People around here assume that it's ok to play on property that isn't plainly marked “no trespassing” – and if you did mark your property, people would think there's something weird about you.  I like this! :)

At right is the driftwood wreath that my brother Scott made and gave us for Christmas.  This morning I applied some Watco natural (no color) finish to a few hidden spots on the back to see how it looks.  If I like that, I'm going to carefully finish the whole thing. This will be a bit tricky, as there are a bazillion nooks and crannies that need to get some finish into them.  Penetrating oil finishes (like Watco) aren't brushed on, they're wiped on, and you don't leave any on the surface – it all soaks into the wood.  I've never tried to finish anything like this with penetrating oil!

I've got some work to do today to get ready for our Model X's arrival – mainly, I've got to get our insurance nailed down.  I'm going to do something I haven't done for 20 years or so: consider getting collision insurance.  It will be interesting to see what the quote is for an exotic car like this.

Debbie discovered a great a cappella group yesterday that has a couple of Christmas albums: Home Free.  That got me to wondering if there was a similar group of female singers (Home Free is all male), and that led me quickly to Noteworthy, based out of Salt Lake City.  A few minutes later I had three a cappella Christmas albums downloaded (via iTunes), and I was listening to them.  I'm playing them again right now as I write this.  Beautiful music with just their voices, which awes me no matter how much I listen to it...

A Sowell scare...

A Sowell scare...  Yesterday while browsing the news, I saw a headline that said goodbye to Dr. Thomas Sowell – and I thought 2016 had gotten even more awful than it already was.  But no, it was simply the news that Dr. Sowell had announced his retirement – at the age of 86.

While I've never met Dr. Sowell, he has played an outsize role in my political and economic education.  His gentle, concise, precise, and humorously stated wisdom led me to insights and understanding more than the vast majority of experts and educators.  His writings, including his many books, have been an inspiration to me and many others.  Much of his work is online, including many video clips and longer interviews.

One thing I was delighted to read in his announcement is that he intends to devote more time to his photography.  Many of these are of natural subjects, and are reminiscent of the work of the great Ansel Adams.  His subject matter is very varied, though.  If you're interested in photography or art, you'll be rewarded by spending some time in his published photos.

He's also going to be updating his web site, though I'm not entirely sure what that means.

I'm relieved to hear that Dr. Sowell is still with us, and I hope he still has many years left in which to enjoy a relaxing retirement...

Model X update...

Model X update...  I just received an email asking me if I could be in Salt Lake City on Friday to pick up my Model X.  Woo hoo!

At one point they (Tesla) told me that my Model X should be done in early 2016.  Apparently their definition of “early” is the next-to-last day of the year.  :(

We live in a postcard...

We live in a postcard...  Here are some photos from a trip we took up Blacksmith Fork Canyon.  We just got back a few minutes ago.  It's a winter wonderland up there!  All of these were taken from along the road.  The first one we took just to show how many deer tracks are out there – those were are all made within the last 15 hours or so.  The sixth photo is an “iPhone telephoto” (all digital, not optical) of a common phenomenon back there: icicles formed by melting snow cascading off rock.  The seventh photo shows the bluff above the man-made pond whose outflow drives a turbine that provides power for the people living in Hyrum (just north of our house).

Paradise ponders, Christmas food coma edition...

Paradise ponders, Christmas food coma edition...  Well, we had our planned Christmas dinner: a fine cream of asparagus soup, a main course of homemade noodles and beef stroganoff, and chocolate mousse for dessert.  I forgot to take photos of the soup and mousse. :)  The noodles were good, but we had too many of them :)  We doubled the recipe when we really should have halved it!  The beef stroganoff was very good.  We'll adjust the recipe a little next time we have it, but it's definitely good enough to have again.  The chocolate mousse was just as good as our memories of it.  It turned out that my brother Scott (in the first photo below) had never had chocolate mousse before in his life.  It was a revelatory experience for him, despite containing something he normally wouldn't eat (sugar).

After dinner we opened presents, which was mostly Scott's job. :)  He had a nice pile of packages under the tree, most of which contained presents for his kitties.  He also got some new pants.  He brought us a beautiful present, but it wasn't wrapped: a wreath made of cleverly intertwined driftwood (and naturally I forgot to take a photo of it!).  I'm thinking about finishing it with a penetrating oil finish to help bring out the wood's beauty, and Debbie's thinking of different ways to decorate it for various times of year.

We had a rousing game of a family favorite card game last night: Oh Shit!  Scott won the game, fair and square – first time he's done so since roughly 1832.  After that, we shoved him out the door with his pile of presents (and some stroganoff and mousse) and sent him home.  He made it safely; he told me this morning that basically only Paradise had any significant snow.

This morning it was 15°F when I got up, and even now it's only up to 17°F.  Since I plowed yesterday morning we got an additional two or three inches of snow, so I'm about to go out and plow again.  The photos below will give you some idea what it's like here right now.  The snow is a very fine powder, light as a feather, which should make the plowing, blowing, and shoveling relatively easy.  It fell yesterday with zero wind conditions, which made it pile up very high.  The willow tree (second photo) has 5" or more piled onto some branches.  The dried sunflowers (last two photos) have a couple inches piled onto each flower, quite a sight!.  In the first photo, to the left of the fence you can see the “tracks” made by Tim's two horses.  They're still having a great time pawing up alfalfa from under the snow.  The third photo is a pile of driftwood that Scott gave me – the big piece on top has almost six inches piled on it.

Ok, I can't put it off any longer: time to plow!

Paradise ponders, crab cakes, champagne, and M shirts edition...

Paradise ponders, crab cakes and champagne edition...  Well, we had a fine meal yesterday, and just the two of us.  The carrot-ginger soup (left photo) was spectacular after Debbie's adjustment of the seasonings, and the crab cakes with tartar sauce (right photo, which I forgot to take until I was partway through my crab cake!) were the best iteration of this recipe pair that we've had yet.  In past years we've had trouble with the crab cakes falling apart in the pan, so this year I tried putting an extra egg (total of two) in the recipe, and that did the trick quite nicely!  While snow crab meat isn't what you generally think of for crab cakes, in fact it was excellent.  The topper was the champagne: a nice bottle of our favorite (Veuve Clicquot Brut).

Stuffed, we were.  We two put away about a quart of soup, a pound and a half of excellent crab meat, and an entire bottle of champagne...

Our friend and neighbor Tim D. came over after we'd finished eating, to bring us a Christmas card and to visit for a bit.  When Debbie opened the card, she discovered a gift card for a meal at Maddox Ranch House, a place we love (and Tim knows it :).  We sat and talked for a while in our living room, in front of a roaring fire.

We love living here!

Last night we got about six inches of a fine, powdery snow.  It's not all that cold (25°F at the moment), so I'm a bit surprised how light the snow is.  Nevertheless, I'm going to plow it just in case things get worse later today.  The snow is still coming down, fairly hard at times, so I won't be a bit surprised if I need to plow it again before my brother Scott arrives this afternoon.  I hope he can get out of his driveway!  Some photos below that I took this morning:

Our front door wreath is very pretty with the snow on it!  The second photo shows what I saw when I opened our garage door.  Under the pines in the third photo, if you look closely, you'll see platoons of birds on our feeders.  I'll bet they need filling before the end of the day (I just filled them yesterday morning).  The last photo is the front of our barn, where a drift is close to two feet high.

When I'm not plowing today, I'll be helping Debbie make our Christmas meal.  Our menu: cream of asparagus soup (a scrumptious-looking Julia child recipe we've not tried before), beef stroganoff on homemade egg noodles (a new recipe for us, an Internet find), and chocolate mousse (a Julia Child recipe we've made many times before, and hands-down the best chocolate mousse I've ever had).  We shouldn't be hungry when we're done! :)

Here's a minor milestone I passed yesterday, which still has me kind of amazed.  For many years, my entire adult life really, my normal shirt size was XL.  They were a little big on me, but I like loose clothing, and L shirts were generally too tight.  A couple years ago I noticed that my few L shirts were fitting just fine, so my next few shirt purchases were L.  A few days ago, when putting on a L shirt, I noticed it was a little big – so Debbie secretly ordered a M shirt for me to try, a nice Carhartt flannel shirt.  It fits perfectly, just the degree of looseness I like.  I cannot remember the last time I fit into a M shirt, but it must have been when I was 15 or so...

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Paradise ponders, homemade egg noodles edition...

Paradise ponders, homemade egg noodles edition...  Debbie and I had a very pleasant day yesterday, except for being cold.  Our furnace is still acting up, though toward the end of the day it suddenly started working correctly.  We made up for the cold by keeping a roaring fire going in our living room, which ended up being downright toasty!

After gorging ourselves on panettone (which we polished off this morning), we set to work cooking (a collaborative effort) and wrapping presents (that was all Debbie, so they actually look nice).  First we made the carrot-ginger soup, all but the last step (adding cream and a final heating).  That will be our appetizer this evening.  Then we made tartar sauce, using a recipe we've made several times before, from Julia Child.  The recipe she gives is quite basic, but includes a clause where you just throw any old fresh herbs you feel like into it.  For this batch we used a base of Duke's mayonnaise, with minced sour dill pickle, capers (lots of them!), tarragon, sage, thyme, Thai basil, chives (lots!), parsley, and marjoram.  This year's batch has the highest herb-to-mayonnaise ratio of any we've made – and it's really, really good.  And that's even before we let it stand overnight!  Then we made bread crumbs (from a fresh loaf of country white bread from Great Harvest, a local bakery).  Finally, we made homemade egg noodles for our beef stroganoff tomorrow.  Here are some shots of the the work in progress:

If you've never made noodles before, it's really rather ridiculously easy – but quite a bit of physical work.  The dough is just flour, eggs, and milk; it comes out fairly stiff and tough.  Then you roll it into a big flat pancake, as seen in the first photo.  That's a lot of rolling to get it to that point!  The next step is to simply cut it into thin strips – easy, but very repetitious.  Finally you just peel up the strips and curl them up onto a pan for drying (or you can hang them on a drying rack, if you have one).  That's it!  They are delicious when homemade, and if you're a noodles fan it's well worth making them like this.  Also, you get to experiment with the different recipes, with different flours, herbs, egg content, etc.

Today we're making it an easy day.  I'll be bringing in some firewood, and this afternoon we'll be making (and eating!) crab cakes.  We might accidentally dispose of a bottle of champagne while we're at it, and I think there might be a Christmas movie somewhere along the line.  We watched the 1951 version of Scrooge last night, and It's a Wonderful Life the evening before.  Both are traditions with us, as is Miracle on 34th Street, which I suspect will be cued up tonight.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Paradise ponders, panettone and bananas edition...

Paradise ponders, panettone and bananas edition...  Well, yesterday we did make our trip down to Salt Lake City (SLC) on a quest for fresh crab meat (photo at right we took on the way there) – and we succeeded, sort of.  I managed to find 1.6 lbs (we were looking for 1.5 lbs) of snow crab leg meat.  That's good stuff, but not the kind of crab meat one would normally use for crab cakes.  They should be good anyway, though.  In the process, we found two very interesting stores in SLC; we'll definitely be back to visit both of them.  We also found one that we weren't impressed with, and likely will not return to – even though that's where we found the crab meat!

The first of these interesting stores was the Ocean City Seafood Market, which had very high Yelp reviews, but lots of comments that didn't sound so wonderful.  After spending some time walking through the store, we concluded that these negative reviewers were just ignorant.  This was a market!  Lots of fresh seafood, mainly fish, on ice and looking great.  They had a giant tank full of live (and happy looking) Maine lobsters, at a great price.  They didn't have fresh crab meat, dang it.  They did have frozen crab meat, but we were looking for fresh for our crab cakes.  But that seafood was just the beginning: this is an Asian grocery store, though you'd never guess that from their name.  They have lots of produce, fresh herbs, Asian spices, and things you never see in an ordinary grocery store, like mochi, frozen pre-made lumpia, a huge selection of won-ton wrappers, etc.  The people there were very friendly and helpful, too.  Definitely a place we'll be returning to, especially for that lobster!

The second interesting store was an accidental find, when we were looking for the Aquarius Fish Company.  We found Aquarius, but it was closed (we were too early).  Next door, though, was Caputo's Market and Deli, which I took a stroll through.  It's got the best selection of cheeses I've seen in many, many years – the equal of a cheese shop I once visited in London.  That's not all it has, though: it also stocks an amazing variety of sausages and preserved meats, especially Italian types – and shelf after shelf of all things Italian food related.  I'm pretty sure that anything you'd ever need to make an Italian dish is readily available there.  I spent a couple minutes just smiling at their selection of capers – there must have been two dozen types!  That's another place we'll be returning to, with an Italian menu in mind...

The last seafood market we visited was the Market Street Grill, a chain with a half-dozen or so locations scattered around the U.S.  In many ways it reminded us of the Fish Market, a similar chain with a location we used to visit in Del Mar.  Their was a nice little seafood market attached to a large restaurant.  The selection wasn't very good, and the prices were high – and the lady who served us was distinctly grumpy.  However, they did have fresh crab meat, which I bought them out of.  I doubt we'll be returning; they're about 15 miles further from us than the other seafood markets, with a much smaller and pricier selection.  They're located in a tech district, and I suspect they're mostly catering to the lunch crowd from those places.

After scoring our crab meat, we stopped (of course!) at the Red Iguana to have some lunch.  It was quite crowded, even though we got there at 11:30 am.  We had to wait about 20 minutes to get in, not too bad.  For once their specials were unappealing to either of us, so we both ordered off the menu.  I had “mango enchiladas”, which were actually carnitas enchiladas with mango mole sauce.  They were heavenly; I savored every mouthful and scraped up every drop of that mole sauce.  Debbie had steak ranchero tacos, and they came as though someone had designed them for her: chunks of beef on corn tortillas, chopped onions and cilantro, salsa fresca, and rice and refries.  She ate it all except for a few refries, a big smile on her face the whole time.  Then we had flan (me) and arroz con leche (Debbie) for dessert.  A wonderful meal, as always.

Our house was cold when we got home: the thermostat was calling for heat, but none was forthcoming.  I did a bit of troubleshooting, but couldn't find any problem.  The furnace normally shows an error code (via flashing light) when it thinks there's something wrong, and there were no error codes.  So I called our heating and air conditioning guy – and he sent someone over within a couple of hours.  The repairman, Joe, spent a couple hours carefully going over everything we could think of, until he figured out that the plenum was getting too hot and a thermal switch was cutting out.  Once he'd twigged to that, he started eliminating all the things that could cause such overheating – and finally figured out that we only had two return grilles on the entire first floor.  With a 100,000 BTU furnace, we should have four or five, or even more.  Then with some detective work, we figured out that someone (probably the previous owner) had eliminated two of these return grilles – apparently just boarded them up.  Why, we haven't the foggiest!  So sometime next week we'll have to go to work on that problem.  In the meantime, we whooped up the fan speed in the hopes that that will get us by for a few days.

This morning I had a ball with the dogs.  They got a special treat: two bananas instead of their morning one banana, shared amongst the four of them.  All four of our dogs go bananas for bananas.  The puppies are especially cute with the bananas, as they completely lose their marbles while scrambling for them.  I slice them up and drop them into their gaping maws, but only after they've settled down and are sitting nicely.  Cabo is focused like a laser on the banana slice in my fingers.  Mako will alternately watch me and the banana.  The two adults know the drill: they wait for me to call their name and then go into action.  Lots of fun!

We had a treat this morning, too.  It's become a Christmas tradition for us to get a panettone, an Italian sweet bread loaded with fruit.  I especially like them when they're not too sweet, and have lots of tart, juicy fruit in them – and the one we got this year (below) fits that description perfectly.  It's hard to think of anything that goes more perfectly with a nice cup of tea in the morning!

Later today we'll be starting our Christmas cooking.  Homemade egg noodles, tartar sauce, carrot-ginger soup, and bread crumbs are on the agenda.  We also have a few gifts left to wrap.  Should be a fun day!

Paradise ponders, caramel popcorn edition...

Paradise ponders, caramel popcorn edition...  I finished up all my bookkeeping work yesterday morning, and then Debbie and I finalized our Christmas menu.  After that, we were off to the store to buy the groceries needed.  Along the way, we stopped at three places to drop off Christmas treats that Debbie had baked.  Lots of smiles from that! :)  After we got home, our friend and neighbor Tim D. called to wish us Merry Christmas, and to ask if he could come over to deliver a treat he'd made for us: caramel popcorn.  He made it without much salt, so that Debbie could safely eat it.  We sat and talked with him for an hour or so, while Debbie and I “sampled” about half the popcorn. :)  I'm pretty sure the rest of it will disappear by this evening!

While I was in the grocery store shoveling supplies into my cart, I noticed that they had some sea scallops left – the same big ones that we'd so enjoyed last Friday.  I grabbed a pound and a half of them, hoping that Debbie wouldn't mind making them for dinner.  She didn't. :)  They were just as delicious as they were last Friday!

UPS brought us a bunch of boxes, one of which was a gift from one of Debbie's friends down in San Diego: a dozen gigantic chocolate-covered strawberries.  I ate one mid-day, and it was about as scrumptious as a confection can get.  I had bits of chocolate and strawberry juice running through my beard, and I didn't care.  Ate it in front of a roaring fire, kicked back on a comfortable couch – decadent, it was...

Our tree was completely decorated a few days ago, but this morning is the first time I thought to take a photo of it without the sun behind it.

We're off this morning to Salt Lake City, to visit a seafood market and nab ourselves some crab meat for our crab cakes on Saturday evening.  While we're there, we're also going to see what's on offer at the Red Iguana.  It's at the point of an addiction, I'm afraid – we have trouble even imagining a visit to Salt Lake City without stopping there!