Indian Summer is now officially over...

Our wonderful nephew Austin, his lovely wife Hailey, and their adorable daughter Olivia came up to the cabin for a fall visit this past weekend.  Upon their arrival, he cooked the most delicious meal of fajitas for his mother (my sister Lorraine) and I.

The next day after breakfast...

we walked to the bridge, where we watched the ducks and fish under the bridge, 

and saw a lone moose grazing in the water.  

Then we floated the river in peace and quiet.  We were almost the only people on the river that day.  

I was so happy to introduce them to my 'happy place'.  Even more satisfying for me was seeing how much they loved and appreciated it as well.  

We saw another large cow calf pair enjoying the lovely weather.  And the weather was absolutely amazing!

Can you see the moose in the background between Hailey and Austin?

 

The next morning we woke to a drizzling rain.  I guess we saw the last of the Indian summer.  We tidied up and went home.  It was great to have my sister and her family there for the last hurrah of summer. 

My happy place....  

Nonni and Nipote

Blanche Rottluff's Pickled Green Cherry Tomatoes

My sister Lorraine and I opened the cabin on Thursday.  We each brought a few projects to work on, expecting the weather to be less than optimal.  But we were wrong.  The weather was amazing.  Nonetheless, one of the projects was to make Blanche Rottluff's Pickled Green Cherry Tomatoes.  I found this recipe in an old cookbook in the public library when we lived in Sparks, Nevada, and I had a garden full of green tomatoes by the end of that growing season.    

I don't know how well you can read this recipe, so I will tell you how we made them.  

First you clean and sort as many green cherry tomatoes as you have.  You want them to be firm and without blemish.  They need to be pierced two or three times each with a small skewer.  

Then you put 3 whole black peppercorns and one small clove of garlic, or the equivalent, in each half-pint jar.  

Next boil the brine of two cups of water, one cup of cider vinegar, and 1/4 cup of coarse (kosher) salt, or three tablespoons of pickling or un-iodized table salt.  

Put the tomatoes in the jars to within one inch of the top.  I put them into a frying pan of water to get everything plenty hot so they will seal.  Once your lids, the brine and the jars are boiling start filling the jars, wiping the rims on each one, and add the lid and ring one at a time.  Set aside to cool and seal.  I do only one jar at a time to keep things nice and hot and to make better sure they will seal.  Pickles are funny that way.  

We ended up with about two dozen jars.  You may be wondering what I do with these.  Well, they taste a bit like green olives.  The recipe says "they make an unusual cocktail snack, served plain or with a dip or skewered on toothpicks with squares of sharp cheddar".  That is how I serve them, on a cheese board with a toothpick and on top of a cube of sharp cheddar approximately the same size as the tomato during the holidays.  It is fun to have the other party goers try to guess what they are.  No one ever guesses correctly.  They are quite tasty, but if I eat more than about three, my rings are tight the next day.  

Jackson and Kelsey Weekend

A few weeks ago Kelsey mentioned to Brian that she wanted to see YNP in May and visit the cabin with Jackson.  It doesn't take much for us to get excited to head north, so they put it together and off we went.  My camera battery died when we went into the park, so of course we had a great day and saw lots of bears and elk and bison.  Here are some pictures of us at the cabin and on a walk along the river, though.

My Dolly - Jackson. Almost 4 years old

Jackson wanted to take my picture

Two moose standing perfectly still, as if they thought if they didn't move they wouldn't be seen.

Jackson and Mommy, my other dolly

Looking at fish

Labor Day Weekend Party

Lorraine and her family are here for the Labor Day weekend.  She and Bob arrived first on Thursday, and we went into the park on Friday.

 That night Austin, Hailey, Olivia and Nick came after dark.  On Saturday we planned to go canoeing on the river, however, the weather did not cooperate.  After lunch we took a field trip to Mesa Falls.  As soon as we left, the weather cleared and it was beautiful. 

When we got back Colby, Krystle, Starly, and Degan had arrived.  The bad weather returned, so our plans were scrapped again for a canoe trip.  It wasn't long before we had thunder, lightening, and hail that collected and looked like snow!  It looked like and smelled like Christmas.  All this on the 30th of August.



Later we had a yummy dinner Lorraine made, and then played games until bedtime. 

Cousins Camp Goes Home

This morning all Brian's cousins went home with their Angel Mother and Auntie, Stacy.  We were sad to see them go and I heard through the grapevine that at least one was sad to leave us.  We sure had a great time getting to know them them better, and wish them safe travels on their way back to Utah and California.

The Rest of Our Day

Joey wrote his first postcard today.  He mailed it on our way to go swimming in the lake.  It was to his mother.  Awww....

 

Joey's front flip

 Then we went off to West Yellowstone for ice cream and shopping.  

While we were there, each cousin picked out two postcards.  One was to send to himself or herself, and one to send to anyone else they wanted to.  When we got home, they wrote their postcards.  

Then I had them fill in an empty United States map with all the states they could remember from our license plate game we played while we were in YNP.  They had filled out one before we went to the park so I was anxious to see if our game improved their knowledge of US geography.  All the kids improved tremendously, with the exception of RJ, who knew them all before we went into the park!

Danny and Grace

Olivia

Wood Movers

After breakfast today we enlisted the cousins' help in moving wood that was stacked against the back of the cabin into the crawl space.

It was quite a job and they were amazing helpers!  

 

They all worked hard and happily.  We moved about a cord of wood in about an hour.  Uncle Brian and I couldn't have done this job without your help.  Thanks, guys!