something sadly necessary, but amusing...

For some reason, this little blurb in the county daily paper made me chuckle yesterday. It's a serious concern & problem and it is really sad that this kind of advice needs to be in the newspaper. Siskiyou County has a lot of wilderness area that marijuana growers seem to like. So do a lot of other places. In yesterday's Siskiyou Daily News, there was an article entitled, "'Busy week' for marijuana eradication team"...and goes on to talk about some raids in a remote area of the county. And then, in a little side box it had this:

Stay Safe
Marijuana harvesting season is here.
Stay safe in the wilderness by keeping an eye out for:

• Isolated tents/trailers
• Soil cultivating in unlikely areas
• Irrigation piping

Buck season starts on Saturday (Bow season is underway already)...a few weeks ago there was a similar type warning in the valley's weekly paper...but not quite so concise...and not in a pretty pinkish box. I guess hunters have stumbled across marijuana crops in the past. Might not end up a very happy encounter.

One more post for today...

mom and i have been talking about trying different recipes and tonight we tried one that was a keeper...it's from a Kraft magazine. Anyway, I love meals that have your vegetable & meat all in one...makes things so much nicer :)

Tatter-topped Casserole
(from Kraft food & family Fall 2008 magazine)

1 lb ground beef
1 small onion, finely chopped (optional…I used about a T of dried onion and about 2 tsp of garlic)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
¼ c milk
1 c frozen mixed vegetables
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1 lb frozen bite size seasoned tater tots

Heat oven to 375. Brown meat and onions. Drain. Pour into 8x8 baking dish.
Mix soup & milk; pour over meat (actually, I dumped the soup & milk into my frying pan with my browned & drained hamburger and stirred it all together and then dumped it into my 8x11 baking dish…didn’t have an 8x8 one…it worked out just fine). Top with layers of mixed veggies, cheese and tater tots. (I don’t understand why it says layers…you really only do just one layer of each…). Bake for 45 minutes or until tater tots are golden brown and casserole is heated through.

Pears...

A few weeks ago, Mom and Dad bought some pears from the stake's pear orchard up by Medford. None of us were able to go and pick...Dad was in the hospital, Mom worked, Brian was either in Davis working or at school up here and I had the boys. But luckily and thankfully, some people from the ward went up and picked and brought some down for us. We got 160 pounds of pears. And they all got ripe this past weekend! So between Saturday and Sunday Mom and I canned 31 quarts (and 4 quarts of peaches that someone had give us that we couldn't eat all of fresh). Then on Monday I canned another 21 quarts. My first time canning solo...Mom did peel and slice the first batch, but I finished them off and then did two more batches on my own. It takes me a lot longer to peel and cut than Mom does! Today we kept the Hurlbut/Lee Cannery closed, but we'll reopen tomorrow and hopefully maybe get them finished. Probably at least another 21 quarts to go. This weekend we'll have to do more green beans...and before we know it it will be time to pick the apples off the tree in the front yard (it produces a TON every other year and this is one of those years!)

Today, I went to Yreka with Dad for his last doctor appointment. Last week Brian took him one day and Nathaniel and I took him three other days for getting his foot cleaned and wrapped at the wound center...today he was able to drive himself, but I went along because I needed to get fingerprinted at the County Office of Education so that I can subsitute teach. That's all taken care of, all my money is paid ($55 to the county and $55 to the state - sheesh!) and they said that I could probably start subbing as early as next week if I want to. Well, I don't want to...the beginning of October will be soon enough, thank you very much. I am going to stop in at the school district office here in the valley on Friday and see what else I need to do besides get proof of my negative TB test from this past spring.

a little later, but hey, better than never!

"Who cares about utensils!! I just need my hands." At least he ate a little more neatly with his hands this year than he did last year on his first birthday!

Nathaniel turned the big 02 on August 27th...as mentioned earlier. We waited to have the big celebration on the 31st, however because everyone could attend. And then we could also celebrate Great-Grandma Darlene's 81st birthday (which was actually Sept. 2nd) as well. This was also Labor Day weekend, so there was some extra company...Aunt Sarah & Uncle Dave and Aunt Carrie and her friend Ben (who wasn't a boyfriend at the time, but I guess he is now...Joshua slipped up and called him Uncle Ben a couple of times and lately when I say Carrie's name, Nathaniel hollers out "BEN"...he thinks Ben is pretty cool 'cause he watched "Finding Nemo" with him TWICE when he came with Carrie to help me pack the last time I was in Winters)...anyway, they'd all come up for the weekend and were staying at Grandma's.





Brian didn't get back up here until around 8 Sunday morning (he left Winters around 3 am)...I stayed up late Saturday night (well, I had to wait for the boys to go to bed) so that I could decorate Nathaniel's cake. Last year, at the San Diego Zoo, we got this cup that had a big ol' lion's head on it. I thought it would look cool coming out of a cake. And Nathaniel likes Lion King, so I worked that into it too, using some Lion King toys that someone gave Joshua a few years ago. It didn't quite turn out how I'd envisioned it, but it still turned out okay, I think...everyone ate it and Nathaniel liked it.







Nathaniel had more fun opening his presents this year than he had last year...big changes from being 1 to 2. Grandpa and Grandma got him a sand table for their backyard...he likes it, but keeps getting in trouble because after about 10 minutes (or less) he decides to toss it (the sand, not the whole thing) into the air so it rains down on him and Joshua, or throw sand at Joshua (which doesn't go over very well for Joshua) or just dump it on the grass.







Grandpa Bruce was hobbling around using his old cane...he'd gotten a blister on his toe, which got infected. The Thursday before Labor Day Weekend he'd gone to his dr. who prescribed him an antibiotic and told him to stay off of it for a few days...it didn't get much better...and by Monday morning (Labor Day) it was much worse and Grandma ended up taking him to the ER to get it checked and he spent the next week in the hospital! Today he went back to his dr. and got the okay to go back to work tomorrow...for the first time in almost 3 weeks. He's glad and ready to get back and try and get caught up on all that's piled up on his desk, but Nathaniel is going to be very sad that Grandpa isn't home all day...he's enjoyed climbing up in Grandpa's lap at just about anytime throughout the day to get a story read to him.

"I'm TWO!"...need I say more?

Still here...

I'm still here...just have such limited internet time now with everything going on, that I rarely have time to update the blog...and when I do, the internet just doesn't seem to cooperate!

So for a quick entry...Joshua and Brian are both getting into the swing of things with their schooling. Nathaniel is having fun playing outside and I'm getting my stuff ready to turn in to substitute teach.

Here's a picture of Nathaniel a couple of weeks ago...he decided that he didn't want to wait for his turn for his bath and literally decided to dive right in - half dressed! He was in his diaper and shirt. I was getting towels out or something when he decided to do this...Joshua & he thought it was funny...I didn't.

The winding down of summer vacation...

Well, the last week or so of summer vacation was slightly crazy with the move to Etna, moving in with my parents, Brian starting school, all of us going back down to Winters to pack more boxes for another load and then Joshua starting school & Nathaniel turning 2.

One thing Joshua looks forward to on visits to Grandma and Grandpa's house is to play with our old Lincoln Logs...they aren't a complete set anymore after roughly 30 years and 4 girls playing with them, but he had fun...he created a house for his mini Star Wars guys...I think it was actually supposed to be Mace Windu's house.

The day before school started, I wanted to get Nathaniel's plaster hand print (Thank You Aunt Carrie) painted and Joshua's been asking and asking to paint ceramics. So we got set up at the table for this. Joshua painted a little Mexican wedding vase for Great-Grandma Darlene's birthday. I painted the hand and the frame of a bulletin board...Nathaniel painted a teddy bear bank. This was his first time getting to paint and boy, did he have fun! He started with brown, but liked my dark green and ended up with what we fondly refer to as the "Camo Bear" (camo as in short for camouflage, not to be confused with the word CAMEL). He also managed to paint himself quite nicely.

However, I think my favorite activity was Nathaniel's decision to eat raisin bran one afternoon. I was fixing dinner or washing dishes or something and he grabbed something out of the drawer (he loves Grandma's cabinets and drawers). I didn't think anything of it until Joshua called in from the living room that he thought Nathaniel had something he shouldn't have. I thought he'd just grabbed a granola bar or something and said I'd be in there in a minute. The next thing I know, Joshua's calling me and saying that I'd better get in there fast. Well, Nathaniel has decided he likes raisins. And the easiest way to get the raisins away from all those icky bran flakes is to just dump the bag out on the floor and pick them out. Luckily, the box was almost empty. After I took a couple of pictures, I had the boys pick up what they could while I went and got the vacuum cleaner. Just as I walked in with the vacuum, Nathaniel dumped the bag out a second time. Well, at least he didn't decide to get his cup of milk and dump it out too!

Pictures from Joshua's first day of school & Nathaniel's second birthday

Here are the pictures I wanted to put with the last post...Joshua's first day of school pictures...

Here is a picture of Joshua is front of his desk in Mrs. Silva's class...

And here are some pictures of Nathaniel on his second birthday...opening a present...his "first day of school" pose and one I took in front of the raspberry bushes along the driveway...