hrrf

So I went to the dentist today, and I was thinking: they have those mirrors and those steel hooks they use to scrape your teeth. If they had enough mirrors, could they scrape their own teeth?

Been a bit busy lately.

We’ve had a very non-Colorado spring and early summer - it rained every day for about three weeks with 60-70 degree temperatures. This has affected our veggie garden - you’ll note that there is no veggi-blogging!

In the past week, however, we’ve had some ninety degree days, which the veggies have loved. The funny thing is that this year, we put down black plastic over the soil which has a dual purpose. First, it means we don’t have to weed, except for the areas around the plants. Second, it means that it heats up the soil and traps moisture, creating a mini-greenhouse at the soil level. According to the Colorado State Extension, this can increase our yield up to 50%, and increase our growing window by a full month.

Unfortunately, because we had such a cool May and early June - the things I’ve done to increase yield will probably just bring us to where we’d be if we’d had a normal season and I hadn’t put the plastic down. Oh well.

So that’s a garden update.

In other news, the other seed we planted is:

Owen traveled well.

Wedding was awesome, we love you Joe y Marvie.

Came back to house with no groceries, and no energy. I batch-edited these photos in Picasa (anyone feeling lucky?) and really didn’t look at them. I apologize for the lack of witty commentary and any inappropriate pictures that may be in there.

They’re not full size, so don’t try and print them. If you want to print some, I guess ask me for specific images and I’ll send them to you before the end of the year.

Leaving for a wedding soon. Who gets married these days?

Here’s a handful of pictures of Owen and some food. We take about three hundred, and I pick the finest of the crop.

Anna’s asleep, Owen’s squirming (yet sleeping!) in his swing, the cats are in the sunbeams scattered around the house, six different types of birds are sampling birdseed outside, and all is well in Colorado this
morning.

Yesterday we had our neighborhood Memorial Day BBQ - which was dicey for a while because it decided to rain. It did let up and give us a window eventually, but it was kind of discouraging when it started. All week we had a threat of rain, dark skies, high winds, and in some cases thunder. But it never rained. Yesterday, it did, at the exact moment we were supposed to gather outside.

My contribution to the weekend festivities was a peppercorn encrusted, hickory smoked brisket. Easy enough. Went to our local Savory Spice Shop and picked up some coarse ground Tellicherry Black Peppercorns, and some of the cracked variety too. The mystery ingredient in this extremely easy rub was Alderwood Smoked Sea Salt. The night before our festivities I mixed about a quarter-cup of each together, and then generously rubbed it on to a two pound brisket, with a little bit of oil to help it stick.

Then, fire up your smoker, or a smoker in my case. I used my neighbor’s smoker to fire up a ~180 degree fire with tasty hickory smoke and smoked that brisket for about six hours.

Petit Syrahs and Zinfandel wines have peppery undertones. In a past, private barbecue, I made this Cherry-Zinfandel Barbecue Sauce and knew it to be very delicious. I picked Red Diamond Zinfandel, because it has both pepper and cherry undertones, and was under $10. I would say it was a pairing that turned out well.

The brisket sat overnight and absorbed some of the oils from the peppercorns and the smoked sea salt to become incredibly tender and rich with pepper and smoky flavor. Slow-cooking it with hickory left the “bark” a mess of hickory flavor and crunchy peppercorns. The sauce brought out the pepper flavor even more, and the cherries added a touch of sweetness to make sure your mouth wasn’t slapped with nothing but pepper flavor. It was good. One of these times, I’ll remember to take pictures when I endeavor to cook something fancy again.

A testament to how good it was - I only got to eat half of a slice, with the rest of the neighborhood consuming the rest. Anna didn’t get to try any, as she was off nursing Owen!

Giant pictures that aren’t safe for your bandwidth in the least.

UPDATE: Yes, they’re big. Right-click on the picture and then select “view image” or “show picture”. Your browser will automatically scale the image so you can see the whole thing. I put the full size ones up in case somebody, like say the grandparents, wanted to print pictures.

It pretty much sums up Colorado baseball right now.

The first picture. If you wait too long, the stupid thing starts a slideshow and goes on to pictures of Jay Cutler at Chicago Bears camp. Denver has a hard time letting go.

Imprimis.

Stole these from woot:

Awkward Family Photos
Cute Overload
Rolcats