Short ROAD TRIP

After too many years of Covid 19 and being at home hiding out from the virus, sometimes you need to get out of the house. That was yesterday when I talked my hubby into taking a two hour round trip to the nearby Pine Valley Mountains to get away from the city, see trees and walk by a babbling brook for awhile. It was refreshing. On the way back we stopped and bought some peaches and plums from our favorite fruit stand in Santa Clara. Then today it was time to go see my Glaucoma eye specialist and receive a welcome report that the laser treatment I received two weeks ago has brought my eye pressure down though it hasn't restored any of my lost vision in that eye. Growing old is certainly full of challenges daily...

Pine Valley LDS Chapel is located at a 6800 ft elevation

Look up those are tall trees and smell the pine in the air!

A litte brook babbles its way down hill.

Enjoying the Pine Valley campground and nature walk

A new tree is growing near the stream

Truly a country farming and summer home area

Surrounded by mountains it's peaceful up here.

No autumn leaves but colorful plants

Bright yellow rabbit bush is everywhere

Soon time to head back to the city and traffic jams

100 Years of Pioneering Women

I've belonged to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers organization for 25 years now. Today we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the DUP camps starting in the Southern Utah area in 1921. The original group started in Salt Lakt City in1901 by daughters of those original pioneers who traveled across the plains in 1847 to 1869 from Nauvoo and other stops along the way until the transcontinental railroad made that type of travel unnecessary. Our goal is to honor their memories and legacy in our families.

Table display of the Atkinville Camp the one I belong to

Centennial camp and some of their projects

Cotton Mission has planted some cotton!

Dixie Camp had models of historic buildings in St. George

Dixie Manomas Andrus & Ft. Pearce  Camps had displays also

Sunflower camp-love their decoration theme

 What did we do? Well, had a tasty luncheon, talked, visited, laughed, sang, played musical instruments,  listened to pioneer stories and got ready for another year of monthly meetings with friends and fellow pioneer descendants. Our theme "Daughters of the Future-Keepers of the Past."

Cooking Again...

Amazing how after 60 years of COOKING you get tired of it, BUT you don't get tired of EATING! It's been a long time since I've eaten Swedish Meatballs-a favorite of mine whenever we visited IKEA in SLC. But out closest IKEA is in Las Vegas which is about 1.5 hours of freeway traffic from here. So I decided I would try cooking my own meatballs. Unfortunately I didn't have a RECIPE but did have a cookbook of Swedish recipes and a laptop. https://therecipecritic.com/the-best-swedish-meatballs/ 

Years ago I was married to a Swede who was an amazing cook but I never helped make or even write down his recipe for meatballs. Now he is no longer with us having died of cancer many years ago. I thought how hard could it be to make MEATBALLS! So here is a photo essay of my journey. 

You need ground pork w/o spices, eggs, bread crumbs and

onions being  chopped by my helpful hubby

then comes the gooey part mixing it all together with your hands

Forming meatballs to fry reminds me of pottery class

After meatballs are browned then you bake them to finish cooking

Time to boil potatoes, mash, make gravy and add meatballs

Delicious over mashed potatoes, only missing lignonberries