Wheee!

We went toobing today on the San Marcos. It’s always a great time – we try to make it out there at least once every summer. It’s funny, all the toobing photos from every year look like exactly the same trip. 🙂
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How’s it hanging?

We had a great day on the lake today.   The winds picked up so we pulled anchor and sailed over to the Gnarly Gar and had lunch.    Jake did great at the helm.   On the way back to the marina, the winds were so light that Monte and Jake were able to jump in and be towed behind the boat, as we sailed along at about half a knot.

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When we got back home, Keeto was very happy to see the flock return, as usual.   He’s a funny bird.

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The evening was filled with Wii contests of strength and speed; a delicious spread of sauteed pork chops, pasta and kale that Jake prepared; and the mandatory showing of Captain Ron for new-sailor initiation.

A great weekend!

Pot o’sunshine.

Our nephew Jake is visiting for a week or so. We had pizza night last night and today we headed to the lake. Of course.
Jane and Jeff joined us on Destiny. It was a beautiful day. After last week’s rain a straggler shower or two dodged around on the horizon.
We didn’t get rain but were treated to this rainbow from arky south.

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My latest UBI.

After spending any time on a boat, most people come home with various and sundry cuts, bumps, scrapes, sprains and bruises. We call them “unexplainable boat injuries,” or UBIs. This is my latest one. I have no idea when it happened, and it never even hurt. Weird.

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Oh, and yes, you’re correct if you think I’m running out of material, and/or trying to avoid the pile of work in my inbox. Both are true today. Have a nice day! 🙂

Drizzle, not deluge.

…but I’ll take it!! It started raining today, slow and light rainfall but it is most welcome. We need 90 days of this.

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Little helper.

It’s Saturday!! Keeto loves to help out with making the grocery list. 🙂

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My other helper made awesome daiquiris at the end of the day. I wish every day was saturday. Cheers!

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Nailed it.

My risotto-eer has been at it again.  Tonight he made Basil Risotto, with fresh basil and tomatoes from the garden.  Delicious!IMG_1733

The recipe book is  Risotto, by Clive Tring.   Lots of good risotto recipes, with lovely photos of the dishes.

 

Mid-week lake run.

We headed to the lake after work tonight to meet Lynn, Dan, and their niece Paige at the marina. We headed to the cove for a float and dinner on the boat. A good time was had by all. This is a shot after sunset with Venus to the right of the crescent moon.
Pretty sky.

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Tiptoeing through time.

I’ve spent the entire day today jumping back into my genealogy research.  I have recently connected with distant cousins in my same generation, all of who’s grandparents were siblings born in the late 1800s.  It has rekindled the fire in me to transfer the myriad of notes, stories and photographs that I have compiled over the last decade or so into a cleanly documented family tree.  And we are pooling our research.
It is especially challenging to research my ancestors because virtually all of my grandparent paths on all sides start in Ireland.  So I’m enjoying joining forces on the research.
Once I make a pass through my ancestors’ part of the tree, I’ll do the same for Monte’s, for whom I have significantly more information.

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50 year low.

We spent a second night on the lake last night. Nick and family had peeled off, so we had the anchor to ourselves. Today I paddled around the cove again. I went all the way up to where Arky cove ends. This is as far as I can go. As much as we still enjoy the lake immensely, in spite of the low lake levels, it’s hard to imagine that just a few years ago we would be able to sail up in here and beyond, to anchor, with about 40 or 50 more feet of water above where my head is. The lake is at its lowest in 50 years, right now: 625.5 feet above sea level, as we speak. Very sad. The lake is dropping as rapidly or more rapidly than it ever has during the summer… a foot or more this week, already. I don’t know what to say at this point other than this really sucks.

Pray for rain.

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Happy July 5th!

We anchored in the cove last night. Camelot joined us for the night with Lori & Doray. Kalliopi joined us with nick, Isabel, their kids and about 4 other girls. Quite the raftup! We grilled cheeseburgers off the back of the boat, in true July 4th style. Because of the drought, fireworks were few and far between. But we caught a glimpse of some.

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We brought the kayak and the sailing dinghy. They’re getting used quite a bit.

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And, here’s the obligatory arky cove sunset shot:

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My neighborhood rocks.

Happy July 4th! Monte and I are packing for two days and nights on the lake. It’s going to be great! As we were getting ready I heard the Stars and Stripes blaring down the street. We went outside and caught our neighborhood’s annual parade. I love it. Small town awesomeness in the middle of Austin! They do this every year, but this is the first year we have been home on the 4th to see it (!).

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20130706-011347.jpgwhy yes, that IS a mop&linen Statue of Liberty going down the street. Don’t you have one of those?

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Homegrown.

This bouquet comes straight from our garden: Zinnias, basil, rosemary…
Happy Friday!!!

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Pasta night.

Rob & Jen came over for dinner tonight. It was great to see them, it’s been a long time.
On the menu tonight: Homemade ravioli with ricotta & cheese filling.

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Recipe for the pasta:

  • 3.5 c all-purpose flour
  • 5 eggs
  • Mound flour on a hard flat surface. Squish in the middle like a volcano- shape and add the eggs in the top of the volcano. 🙂
    Using a fork, beat the eggs and grab a little flour on each stir. Keep doing this while trying not to let the eggs run out of the volcano until flour is incorporated.
    Now it’s time to knead the pasta dough. Scrape the surface clean and lightly flour and knead for 10 minutes.
    Wrap dough ball in plastic and refrigerate for 30 mins.
    You’ll need a pasta roller, like this one to roll the pasta to the right thickness. We have a pasta roller attachment for our kitchen aid mixer (like this one) so we use that.

    Roll the dough into rectangular strips about 5″ wide.

    Recipe for the filling:

  • 15 oz ricotta
  • 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
  • 1 T minced parsley
  • 1 egg
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • Place a row of tablespoonfuls of filling on dough about 2 inches apart on the lower half of the strip of dough. Leave room to fold dough over to cover the row of filling blobs, and room to seal each side of each ravioli square. Before folding dough over, lightly brush water along edges that you want to seal to form each ravioli (on all four sides of each ravioli). Then fold and press edges of each ravioli square to seal, while trying to get as much air out of the pocket before sealing.
    Then cut each ravioli free.

    Place in salted boiling water for 4 minutes. Scoop them out and serve with whatever sauce you crave.

    I realize now that I should have taken pictures of how we made these bad boys. But I didn’t. Next time.