Category Archives: Life

Dylan, Ann, Doug, Liz, Mark and I all decided to go in together and purchase half of a local grass-fed cow this year. Our cow grew up on the pastures of the front range and spent her summers muching on the tasty grass of Nederland, CO. She was processed humanely and locally in Lafeyette, CO. On Wednesday she arrived from the processor as over a hundred pounds of beef. On Thursday we thanked cow #9633 for her sacrifice this year and divided up the beef among the families and freezers.

There’s a couple fun photos in the gallery, and lots of beef in our freezer!

Last Thursday, Liv went to work with Mark as usual. Mark works out near the local commuter airport, and sometimes he lets Liv run a bit in the afternoons. On Thursday, though, Liv came back with a serious gash across the back of her left rear leg. Mark wrapped up the wound quickly and drove her straight to our vet. That’s where we got the bad news that not only had she opened up a huge part of her back leg, but she also sliced through two of the tendons on the back of her leg. Without surgery, she’d loose the use of two of her toes. Her feet are very high-stepped, and being flat-footed for the rest of her life would just be terrible. So, we sprung for the surgery.

On Friday, Liv went under the knife. The surgery went great, and the vet was able to re-attach the two tendons. Liv came home with a big purple splint on her foot, and strict instructions for her to not walk up steps, not to jump, run, play or have any fun for the next six weeks!!

So far, she’s been good, and seems to be healing up without much problem. She hasn’t messed with the splint at all (knock on wood) and isn’t being too obnoxious about her lack of exercise the last few days. We’ll see how annoying she is in six weeks, though!

The evenings are warm, the gardens are full and the grills are smoking. We had a really nice picnic last night with all the girls (and Mark and sons and daughters) in the four townhouses in our building. It was an evening full of beer, tasty ka-bobs and brownie balls! I took some nice shots of Jennifer and Barbara playing with the biggest hula-hoop I’ve ever seen! Check them out in the gallery. Yep, it’s been a great summer!

Even though I’m supposed to be doing the cooking, Mark has been happy to bake a bit in the evenings. I suppose it’s like how he’s supposed to be paying the bills, but I keep checking the investments. It’s hard to stay away from activities you enjoy.

Last night, Mark made another batch of Jam Thumbprints. These are some of our favorite cookies, and they always seem to turn out perfectly.

I love “food photography.” For some reason, cookbooks feel that if most of the food is out of focus, it looks tastier. I tried to replicate that here. I also used a bounce-flash off the ceiling for the soft lighting.

Jam Thumbprints

2/3 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups AP flour
2 slightly beaten egg whites
1/3 to 1/2 cups of jam (we used blackberry)

1. Grease a cookie sheet; set aside. In a large mixing bowl beat butter or margarine with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add the sugar and beat till combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla till combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in remaining flour. Cover; chill dough about 1 hour or till easy to handle.

2. Shape dugh into 1-in balls. Roll balls in egg whites. Place 1 inch apart on the prepared cookie sheet. Press our thumb into the center of each ball. Fill with jam! Bake in a 375° oven for 10-12 minutes or till edges are lightly browned. NOTE: The jam will be as hot as LAVA when it gets out of the oven. Be very careful handling the cookies.

June 16th is the official one-year anniversary of this blog! Yey! It’s been a great year, full of adventure and excitement, made all the better for being able to share it with all of you! In honor of this special occasion, I’ve decided to pull out some of my favorite posts, and link to them here for you. Some are great just for the photos, others for the stories, and some just for the memories. Enjoy!

In the last three days, I’ve been miserably ill with a nasty summer cold. Isn’t that how the plague starts in The Stand? “Oh, those summer colds are the worst…”

But, the FedEx guys just keep bringing me fun new toys! First came my little package of camera goodies. I had to buy a few accessories before we head to Italy, so now I get to play with a new compact tripod, a nice new polarizer and a brand new flash!

On the next day, my new laptop came! As has been previously discussed, I recently destroyed the main board of my laptop with a glass of chocolate milk. Mom and Dad, being the wonderful people that they are, offered to buy me a replacement as an early graduation present! While I probably won’t be getting a degree until late this summer, I couldn’t refuse.

So, now I’m blogging and editing photos on my new Intel dual-core MacBook Pro. It’s soooo wonderful! Oooo sooo shibbee!

And then, on top of all of that, tonight I harvested the first of my garden strawberries. These are tasty little treats! I may not be able to breathe through my nose, and my eyeballs really hurt, but I’m still a happy girl.

Upon great pressure, I yield to the majority. I have created a MySpace page. I’m sorry.

http://www.myspace.com/kcalder313

And, on a side note, anybody know how to post blog entries from WordPress into MySpace? Is that possible?

10,000 views in Flickr as of this morning! Pretty cool… it’s gonna be a good day.