NIGHTLY SCENE

This is Jake and Gidget's nightly version of dog spooning. Never fails. Linda and I sit on the recliner couch and put our feet up. Gidget is the first one to lay down at our feet, but under the foot rests and against the couch. Then giant Jake comes along, in one smooth motion sinks down to the floor in between the foot rests, squeezes Gidget, and eventually stretches out alongside her. What a pair! JIR

NO APRIL FOOL'S JOKE

We love an early spring, but 81 degrees and sunny on March 31st and April 1st gets a bit bright and hot!

It has been so dry, and the moisture we have received so minimal, I watered and fertilized our trees today. The flowering crab apples are blooming, and the pansies that started growing in our rock garden last year are already beginning to show.

The maples and the linden tree are holding back a bit, but this pear tree is taking off big time, with the apples trailing behind. The temperatures are supposed to drop tomorrow, going below freezing during the night, an inevitable peril of such an early spring. JIR

I FEEL THE NEED NOT TO KNEAD

Being the bread baker I am, it made me feel momentarily inadequate not to have known about Jim Lahey's no-knead bread popularity dating back to 2006. I have to thank Steve and Chicky's friend Kentz for introducing me to this great option for making bread. So here is my first try at it, the Irish Beer Bread Kentz made for our St Patty's Day dinner. After the uneventful initial 24 hour rise, and the second rise in the towel, the only tricky part was getting the dough not to flop too much when dropping it into the hot dutch oven. As you can see, it recovered quite a bit, judging by the air holes in the bread, but I think a "bigger" loaf could be produced if this step did not require to "drop" the dough. Overall, I am very pleased with the outcome. Next will be Jim Lahey's standard bread recipe. JIR  

SPRING AND FIRE

Meadowlarks and robins have returned. They may be wondering why they even bothered to leave. Trees are sprouting and weeds seem to be popping off the ground overnight. Spring is here, earlier than I can ever remember. Cabin fever was short-lived. We'll take it. In South Dakota, the ground is dry. Hoping spring rain will add moisture and lessen the risk of fire.  

We fired up the pit and the grill. The air at dusk was chilly and still. 

Keeping our distance from the fire

T-bones and corn on the cob, icing on the cake. JIR 

ROAD TRIP

We have taken a lot of risks in our lives and, for the most part, they have paid off. Planning a 860 mile round trip by car in early March is a risk because some of our biggest snow falls can happen this time of year. Not this year, and not while we were on the road. 

On our way to Denver, we cut through the Black Hills going through Hill City and Custer. Cloudless blue skies and temperatures in the 40-50's when we left

Eastern Wyoming is a vast desolate place so a rest stop is a welcomed sight when the bladder is full. Quiz: what stands out and looks very unusual in this picture? (the answer is just below)

Green grass in winter in eastern Wyoming? Yes, thanks to artificial turf state officials in Wyoming can proudly say the grass is greener in their state (in winter).  And visitors can pose for pictures after they pee.

Why do I want to pronounce the name of this town with a "t" at the end?

Fort Collins, Colorado is a vibrant little city (pop. 150K) where Colorado State University, Hewlett Packard and lots of microbreweries reside. Budweiser also calls Fort Collins home but we won't go there (literally). We enjoyed spending the first and last nights of our trip in Fort Collins.

On the outbound we visited O'Dell and Funkwerks. O'Dell is the granddaddy of Fort Collins microbreweries, noticeable in it's size and complexity. Funkwerks, more laid back and only serving 4 types of saison beers, is a newer microbrewery.

We did not take any pictures in Denver but enjoyed our visit there also. Based on Chicky and Steve's recommendation, we ate dinner and tried Belgian ales at the Cheeky Monk. The highlight of our dinning experience was Cuba Cuba, an authentic Cuban restaurant whose owner is a first generation Cuban-American.  She opened the restaurant because, when she moved to Denver, she missed her mother's good Cuban cooking. No visit to Fort Collins is complete without a visit to New Belgium, perhaps the most popular of it's microbreweries. Friday late afternoon before last call at 6PM is an experience not to be missed at New Belgium. We enjoyed a pint of Belgo, one of their Lips of Faith series IPA's JIR