Last weekend we woke up on Saturday and decided we should go camping. I packed, Dave figured out where to go, and we were on our way. We headed up to Fort Collins and then went west into the mountains, trying to camp on Red Feather Lakes. Nothing open. We went to the Poudre River, Kelly Flats campground and found the last spot. It was a good one, just above the Poudre River. We fished, we grilled food, we read (currently reading Game of Thrones), we slept, and we returned the next day in time to clean up and get ready for the first week of school.
Red Feather Lakes, where we spent all of 15 minutes.
Dave getting our poles ready. Dave ended up catching rainbow trout! Very cool. I caught nothing.
Our campsite on the Poudre.
We got this stove for $4 at the recycler and it worked on the first try. They sell for $60 at REI. Making potatoes to go with the burgers cooking on the campfire.
Fun with photography. Loving our new half-dome tent. There's a door on both sides!
Bacon and egg sandwiches for breakfast with Chai tea. River in the background.
We went to Culver's in Fort Collins. This was Dave's first Culver's experience. He had a butter burger and said, "I mean, it's a step up from McD's." He also had some custard and agreed it was good. Culver's originated in WI and there's three of them in my home town, one of which I worked at in high school and college.
This pictures is sideways, but I just don't care right now. This is a Kelloggs Breakfast tomato. I combined two of these, about six San Marzanos, two Jet Stars all from my garden plus two mystery tomatoes from my CSA, oregano and basil from my front porch, and made THE MOST AMAZING pizza sauce and then pizza that I have ever eaten.
These are my super-productive basil bushes. If I stick around this weekend, I will likely harvest and make my third huge batch of yummy pesto. That's flowered mint in the background.
This one massive tomatillo plant helped me make a quart of green chili salsa, which I served over pressure-cooked pulled pork from a 8lb pork shoulder/butt. We have extra salsa, so I might have to make some soup. The tomatillo plant is still making more, so round two might happen in September, however, it has been very hot this week. We set 2 temperature records and tied 1. We're about 10 degrees warmer than we should be and my plants are taking a beating.
I go outside last night around 9 to water plants and am totally weirded out by the look of this guy. I go back in and proclaim that someone or something assaulted one of my small tomato bushes. I grabbed the headlamp and found...
Tomato Hornworms. These guys are freakin HUGE! At first glance it looked like a snake.
Much larger than my pointer finger. I violently killed both of them out of fear that they would take over the other 15 plants in my yard and somehow get to the garden. Take that, nature! That makes flea beetles, aphids, and horn worms in my organic garden this year.
Harvesting is continuous around here. Tomatoes for every meal, basil as well. I'm also going to have to do something with these cucumbers ASAP.
First week of class went well, except, as usual, I'm totally wiped. I hope your August is finishing off well!
Summer has proven to be fun, but unfortunately, winding down. Dave's birthday was a huge success, we spent the day at a Brew Fest put together by one of the band members of String Cheese Incident. For a small donation, we spent the day sampling amazing beers, listening to great music, and hanging out with great friends. The unexpected part was that you could get three pints of beer as well as a meal with your donation, and it turns out that the Redstone Meadery had a booth. I got sufficiently drunk off of a pint of mead plus several tasters of other mead and gluten free beer (New Planet). Mead is honey wine and we actually make our own in our closet (water+honey+yeast+time=mead), but Redstone's is so super yummy. Normally people don't drink a pint of mead and I was shocked they were serving it to me! This helped the afternoon be extra enjoyable!
Dave also let me cut his hair into a nice mohawk for a day, then buzz cut! (See previous post for motivation on why this was so important.)
I then had a week with Dave, remember he had been in New Jersey for two weeks, before heading to Wisconsin for a week where I spent fun time with 51 of my closest relatives on a lake boating, eating good food, and relaxing. Last Saturday I spent about 16 hours traveling before finally getting home to my own bed. I picked up Dave in Winter Park from a bike trip after my flight to Denver. I forget how far he had gone, something like 150 miles in two days and a huge elevation gain (Boulder to Winter Park, plus all of the ups and downs in between). Here's one of the beautiful photos from his touring trip. The trip ended early with a knee injury, poor guy!
A picture from Dave's 150 mile bike tour from Boulder to Winter Park.
This past week I was at a workshop at NCAR in Boulder learning about the latest and greatest weather data so I can be the professor with the most up to date, ground breaking materials in my courses. It was a long week, but spent with great people and I learned quite a bit.
Friday was Dave's company picnic and then we finally got to catch up with friends we hadn't seen since Dave's birthday. Yesterday we took a bike trip just a few miles from our house to South Boulder Creek to go fishing. We caught zero fish! I even killed a grasshopper and stuck him on my hook to see if fresh bait would help the situation. Nothing. The bike ride home has inspired me to start taking my old $100 Target special Schwinn bike to the Park N Ride to get to work instead of driving my gas guzzler the two miles before catching the bus to Denver. Two miles seems like nothing, but there is a 400(?) ft elevation gain on the way home that keeps me from wanting to do it. However, it will be a good way to get in shape and stay that way during the friendly-weather part of the semester.
I could probably win an award for the cheapest bike in Boulder.
Dave fly fishing on South Boulder Creek
Trying to entertain myself after loosing my bait several times.
Finally, this week I have some odds and ends to do, the sorts of things I do to keep my life organized before entering a semester where I'll have zero days off until Thanksgiving, like getting a hair cut and fixing my car. Then, I have to get ready for my semester of teaching four college classes at a time. Two classes are easy as pie since I have taught them both several times. One upper level course will be my second time around, but I have lots of room for improvement. One course will be new, but based on a course I taught once, so I have slides, but I'm not sure how helpful they'll be. I did spend my summer prepping for these courses, but it just never feels like I've done enough when the time comes to jump in. I also have to write a paper explaining why I deserve my job for my annual review, due within the first few weeks of class. Classes start in a week and I'm excited, nervous, and hoping I can keep my professional life to Monday through Friday so that summer doesn't have to end today.
Meanwhile, my CSA has been giving me some good veggies (cherry tomatoes, green beans, broccoli, peas) and some not so good (cabbage, turnips, collards, more kale and lettuce, too many beets to eat). My garden looks amazing except that it is the hot and dry season right now, so I just water it every chance I get to keep it from wilting away before the tomatoes all finish up. I'll take some pics and share those, but otherwise, I might be signing off for most of the semester and just try to blog when we take fun trips worth talking about.
Happy Birthday, Dave! (Dave is the least likely person to read my blog or go on Facebook, but I'm putting it out there anyway.) Dave is a whopping 27 years old today.
On my (29th) birthday back in February, Dave surprised me by waking me up early, giving me trekking poles as a gift, and packing me in the car with our snowshoes. He had a day of snowshoeing in the mountains planned for us. It was snowing so beautifully, we really had a great time and barely made it home in time for dinner and drinks with friends. Here's a picture of Dave in his goofball hat on MY birthday.
My birthday, 2011. Snowshoeing near Moffat Tunnel. Nice hat!
For Dave's birthday we have a fun day planned that involves watching the Tour, listening to some live tunes, compliments of a band member of String Cheese Incident, tasting lots of different types of beer, hanging with good friends, and even attending a portion of a wedding. Plus, he just arrived back into town after two weeks away! My gift for him totally won't come via UPS until Monday. Shoot! We'll all just have to wait patiently. (I think I'm the most impatient in this situation.)
...gluten free Rice Krispie treats!!!!!!!!! Dave's mom found gluten free Rice Krispies at the store in New Jersey, so the first chance I got, I ran down to the grocery store and, on the shelf above the regular Rice Krispies were gluten free Rice Krispies! Thank you, Kelloggs! The funny thing is that they advertise it as containing brown rice, as if regular rice wasn't gluten free. It was the malt flavoring that ruined it for us! I would like to point out that I just paid $5.49 for this box of cereal, but the regular box was on sale for $1.99. For real, but at least now I can have breakfast with Sir Snap, Mr. Crackle, and Dr. Pop every day!
I ran over to the baking aisle and grabbed a bag of marshmallows and I just ate my first Rice Krispie treat since 2003! It was everything I remember it being. It's like my childhood in a little snack. In fact, the taste brought back a very specific memory of O.M. practice after school in 4th grade and every time Angie was in charge of treats, her mom would make us a batch of these babies.
I am in heaven. Actually, I'm a little freaked out that I can't control myself and might eat half of the pan before Dave gets home from work.
I would like to point out the fact that General Mills has been on board with this for quite some time and they have their own line of delicious gluten free options. The Honey Nut Chex is my candy, the Rice Chex is perfect for puppy chow (chocolate, peanut butter, butter, powder sugar amazingness) and making your own chex mix at home. I'm also a huge fan of the Cinnamon Chex in milk. On any given day, you can find one of these on my pantry shelf and one in my office. In fact, sometimes I make these my breakfast AND lunch when I forget a real lunch and can't get away to eat.
I do, however, have one wish that some day, some how, I can eat Lucky Charms again. General Mills, have you considered packaging just the yummy marshmallows that come in the Lucky Charms? Because I could mix those with the Rice Krispies and be content for the rest of my life! I'd also probably be really, really fat, or maybe just energized for the day?
Until then, I will be chowing down on expensive, but tasty Rice Krispie treats! Hurray for Kelloggs!
July 1?, 2011. I love how this cumulus cloud has its own shadow on the cloud behind it.
Not much new to report here, but I am excited for my Thursday-Sunday and can't wait to tell you about it, assuming everything goes as planned. Part of the planned coolness depends on a package arriving on Saturday via UPS. We both know it will be late and show up on Monday, right? I guess if that's the case, the fun will just be a little stretched out. Still, I'm excited for the possibility that everything might fall into place.
I have about ten basil bushes and I realized that some of them started flowering. Oops! I did a little youtubing of basil harvesting videos and they taught me how to pinch off the flowers so the plant doesn't stop producing basil leaves. Then it showed how to pinch off stems that are getting long to promote branching. I think if I do this regularly, I should have a constant supply of basil from now until September. While "pruning" them, I gathered enough for a batch of pesto. I usually buy pine nuts for my pesto, but realized it was getting too expensive so I switched to roasted soy nuts. These taste good, but are a bit drier than I'm used to. Maybe some more oil would help for next time. I also roasted my garlic to avoid killer garlic breath. I'm super stoked about using my own basil because in the past, I've spent $5 on basil at the store for one batch.
Too bad there's no tomatoes ripe yet, or I could start doing capreses. I will be patient, though!
My tomato bushes are infested with red aphids and despite my best efforts to power blast them off my plants with the hose and squish them with my gloves, they continue to reproduce. I'm hoping that the last 4 days of 90+ degree weather has weighed on their population and they will die off naturally soon.
This week from the CSA I finally got something besides greens! I got baby salad greens, spinach, butter lettuce, kale, rhubarb,
broccoli, baby beets, snow peas, and a bonus 1/2 doz eggs. Note that your eggs can be low in cholesterol if your chickens are properly fed. It's so worth splurging for the nice eggs.
I made some peach rhubarb jam that is quite good and I started eating "Italian salads" where I use any lettuce, put shredded Italian cheeses on top, roasted red peppers, tomatoes, and Italian dressing. It's helping me get through things more quickly because it is so tasty. I have also been doing quinoa stir fries. Whatever veggies I have around, plus CSA veggies like pea pods, spinach, broccoli, and green onions, and even my own podless peas from my own garden. As soon as I get a moment where it's not more than 80 degrees in my place, I plan on making some glazed baby beets and kale chips.
This coming week I'll get rhubarb, kohlrabi, spinach, green onions, lettuce, green garlic stems,
broccoli, cylindra beets, and snow peas. I'm going to have to be very diligent these next few days to put a dent in last week's veggies since I'm all by my lonesome and still have more greens left than I care to admit.
Any kohlrabi suggestions? I've got a recipe for hash-brown style kohlrabi and another for kohlrabi coleslaw, both of which sound right up my alley. I might have to dive into the recipe books first, though.
I tried this recipe for home made butter finger candy and they are pretty good! I think I'd use semi-sweet chocolate in the future instead of bittersweet and use more of it. Be sure you have a candy thermometer before you get started. One note is that if you are trying this at altitude (mile high), be sure to reduce your sugar temp to 280 (or slightly lower) rather than 290. I burned my first batch because my thermometer wasn't getting a reading since the liquid was so shallow. Oops! The blogger suggests freezing it to put it on ice cream and I might have to, either that or give some away. I do this a lot. I have a craving, fulfill it, then have a lot of leftovers. Ah well.
The texture is very similar to a real Butterfinger in that it's crunchy and gets stuck in your teeth! I'd err on the side of lower sugar temps to make mine slightly softer next time. I also threw some powder sugar on mine to sweeten up the dark chocolate. The whole thing took about a half an hour even with my first oops. Butterfingers are naturally gluten free, no special ingredients required. Butterfingers and Cheetos are two things I can get from a vending machine that are gluten free. And that's exactly why I need to be sure to bring a lunch with me every day or I might get myself into trouble!
Last night, some of the worst fears came true for the Fourmile Canyon and Boulder. I would argue that it could be worse, the storms they got could have been bigger, more stationary, and more pleantiful, but apparently what they got was enough to do some big damage. This is particularly disturbing because this monsoon season isn't over yet and today could bring more problems for the area, depending on the placement of the storms. Here's a collection of information I put together from the events.
Wednesday evening a very intense thunderstorm dropped large amounts of
rain over the fourmile burn area. Here's the text from the NWS's flash flood warning:
...A FLASH FLOOD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 915 PM MDT FOR
CENTRAL BOULDER COUNTY...
AT 703 PM MDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED VERY
HEAVY RAIN FROM A THUNDERSTORM NEAR SUNSHINE...OR ABOUT 32 MILES
NORTHWEST OF DENVER. THIS STORM WAS MOVING NORTHEAST AT 15 MPH...
AND HEAVY RAIN WILL END BY 720 PM.
AUTOMATED RAIN GAUGES AND WEATHER SPOTTERS REPORTED BETWEEN FOUR
TENTHS AND 1.18 INCHES OF RAINFALL IN THE FOURMILE BURN AREA. THE
HEAVIEST RAINFALL HAD OCCURRED OVER THE NORTHERN AND WESTERN
PORTIONS OF THE BURN AREA.
THE BOULDER COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGER REPORTED DEBRIS FLOWS IN THE
FOURMILE BURN AREA. IN ADDITION...FOURMILE CREEK WAS ALSO RISING.
LOCATIONS REMAINING IN THE WARNING INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO
WALLSTREET...SUNSHINE...SUMMERVILLE...SALINA...CRISMAN AND GOLD HILL.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
THIS IS A LIFE THREATENING SITUATION. HEAVY RAINFALL WILL CAUSE
EXTENSIVE AND SEVERE FLASH FLOODING OF CREEKS...STREAMS...AND DITCHES
IN THE FOURMILE BURN AREA. SOME DRAINAGE BASINS IMPACTED INCLUDE
FOURMILE CREEK...GOLD RUN...AND FOURMILE CANYON CREEK. SEVERE DEBRIS
FLOWS CAN ALSO BE ANTICIPATED ACROSS ROADS. ROADS AND DRIVEWAYS MAY
BE WASHED AWAY IN PLACES. IF YOU ENCOUNTER FLOOD WATERS...CLIMB TO
SAFETY.
DO NOT DRIVE YOUR VEHICLE INTO AREAS WHERE THE WATER COVERS THE
ROADWAY AS THE WATER DEPTH MAY BE TOO GREAT TO ALLOW YOUR CAR TO
CROSS SAFELY. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF FLOOD WATERS. ONLY A
FEW INCHES OF RAPIDLY FLOWING WATER CAN QUICKLY CARRY AWAY YOUR
VEHICLE. TURN AROUND...DO NOT DROWN.
and an update to this
BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED FLASH FLOOD WARNING NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DENVER CO 808 PM MDT WED JUL 13 2011
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN DENVER HAS ISSUED A
* FLASH FLOOD WARNING FOR... CENTRAL BOULDER COUNTY IN NORTHEAST COLORADO
* UNTIL 1100 PM MDT
* AT 806 PM MDT...FLASH FLOODING WAS OBSERVED ALONG FOURMILE CREEK. THE CREST OF THE FLOOD WATERS WAS REACHING BOULDER CREEK...WITH A RAPID SURGE AND INCREASE OF AT LEAST 4 FEET OF WATER.
* LOCATIONS IN THE WARNING INCLUDE BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO WALLSTREET...SUNSHINE...SUMMERVILLE...SALINA...ORODELL...CRISMAN... AND GOLD HILL.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
THIS IS A LIFE THREATENING SITUATION. HEAVY RAINFALL WILL CAUSE EXTENSIVE AND SEVERE FLASH FLOODING OF CREEKS...STREAMS...AND DITCHES IN THE FOURMILE BURN AREA. SOME DRAINAGE BASINS IMPACTED INCLUDE FOURMILE CREEK...GOLD RUN...AND FOURMILE CANYON CREEK. SEVERE DEBRIS FLOWS CAN ALSO BE ANTICIPATED ACROSS ROADS. ROADS AND DRIVEWAYS MAY BE WASHED AWAY IN PLACES.
THIS WARNING ALSO INCLUDES BOULDER CREEK FROM FOURMILE CREEK DOWNSTREAM TO THE CANYON MOUTH WEST OF BOULDER.
While this was happening, sun was setting and I ran out to photograph a storm southeast of me from the top of Lehigh/Greenbriar, so this is all in the opposite direction as the canyons at risk. I'll share more pics after I sort through them, but here's a highlight.
Thunderstorm southeast of Boulder on July 13, 2011. Photograph taken by me!
A little before this picture was taken, the sirens went off and I was warned that "You have a flash flood warning, the flooding of South Boulder Creek is imminent." I was up on Shanahan Ridge as this was happening, so I wasn't too worried about this, but realized if anything big happened, I'd have a nice view of it. In fact, looking back, I'm pretty sure the sirens were going off for people below our neighborhood, or they would have been much louder. Nothing big happened, just a surge of water. (See flood map above.) Similarly, the same thing happened downtown in Boulder.
I spend a lot of time telling my meteorology students to pay attention to the weather, turn on the radio for information, etc. I was extremely impressed to find that during an emergency situation, I got sirens, a man explaining the situation over a loudspeaker, a text message from CU, and my weather radio going off (although I didn't have those last two pieces with me since I was outside). What more could a meteorologist ask for? Well done, Boulder!
Here's a video of the sirens.
And the loudspeaker man. (Sorry, I'd love to have combined and edited my video, but my video editing software seems to have disappeared since the last time I wiped my computer)
My good friend Jason has taken a video of his bike trip down Boulder Creek just a few days ago to show you how high the water already is from a full week of monsoon rains. It is well worth a look!
Around 11:30 PM my weather radio started going off again. This thing is LOUD. I ran over to shut off the alarm and listen to the warning and it was indicating what is shown below. That the Fourmile canyon was getting another thunderstorm and was having a flash flood warning. Similarly to earlier, they sent out evacuation phone calls to tell people to get to higher ground. A small surge went through the city while we were all sleeping, but no one was hurt through any of this (at least as far as I have heard). There is plenty of cleanup to be done, though. Let's hope they get a break today.
This little guy in the green outline just west of Boulder prompted a second warning around 11:30pm.
Storms kicked off later than expected today (Tuesday), but I took my dessert on a walk with me and while trying to get a picture of the storm in the background, a beautiful full rainbow appeared.
Full rainbow (impossible to capture both sides in one shot!)
I looked north and saw a tower going up lit nicely by the setting sun, so I took a little jog over to my usual viewing area and enjoyed the view for a bit.
If you don't use Google Reader, here's why you should start. Every time I find a blog that I care to follow, I throw it on my Reader and then I don't have to remember the name of the blog or check it when I'm busy, but the Reader will keep track of what I've read, what I haven't, and list it all for me. The one thing it's missing is the pretty background that bloggers pick for their pages, but it makes me feel a bit more in control with my reading. It can handle anything with an RSS feed. (Bloggers out there without an RSS feed button on your blog, I'm not reading your blog because it doesn't show up in my Reader!)
I keep categories like, friends' blogs, gluten free blogs, climate blogs, teaching blogs, comics, and news. Some I read daily, some I read over Sunday coffee, some I don't read at all, but it is nice to see it all there so I know I'm not missing out.
Here's what the expanded view looks like, but you can also do a home view, then just click on what interests you for further reading. You can see on the left, I have my categories, a few of the blogs in them, and the bold with the number in parenthesis are articles I haven't read. Some of those climate blogs put out 30 a day due to having a gazillion authors, so I can't keep up.
I'm curious how this will connect to Google+ in the future. This whole new social network thing makes me a bit nervous because I'd hate for my students to find my blog and I'm afraid I'm going to screw something up once it's all connected, they'll be able to just type in my name, and it will pop up. I hope I can still be active without worrying about this.
My question for you is, have any of you ever been able to get journal
articles feeding to your reader? I heard a sound bit about Web of
Knowledge (Web of Science) having a reader. Have any of you used this
or connected it to your Google Reader? I'd love to have a feed of at
least abstracts from my favorite journals.
