Boulder Garden/Old Mt. Si. Trail

Friday I took a weather gamble that actually worked. I gave myself two choice: hike at sunrise, and write for the rest of the day, or write first and hike in the afternoon.
I elected to write first and finished up my latest assignment around 2pm. Then I ran out the door for a hike. The weather Friday was beautiful and a very welcomed break. I just wished we had light a little longer.

I broke my own rule and hiked on Mt. Si on a nice day, in the middle of the day, during a holiday week. Mt. Si. is a busy mountain and despite living very close I rarely hike it because of the heavy traffic. And unless it is before sunrise I pretty much won't touch it on the weekend.

I started at Little Si trail head, went up the steeper half of the Boulder Garden trail (I have learned from experience I prefer going up one side and coming down the other out of respect for my knees) and then broke off to hoof up the old Mt Si trail. 

I didn't quite hit the top because of the snow nearing the top and lack of headlamp (even though I own about 5 of them not one was in my pack). This photo is on the way back down - it was too hard to deal with photos on the way up. Nim was on red alert due to the constant snow falling out of the trees. Some of his response was prey and some was flight...it was exhausting for both of us. :)

We picked up the Boulder Garden trail again, headed down, re-joined the Little Si trail and headed for the car. Most of the traffic was on the Little Si proper trail which I wasn't on all that long thankfully.

Have a great Sunday! I better get on my fabric selection for the mystery quilt.

December Almost Over - Disorganized Post

Good morning - this will be an exceptionally disorganized post. This week feels sort of chaotic and apparently today my blogging will reflect that.

Couple notes of potential interest:

1. Sandy Hook is moving and they are asking for snowflakes to decorate the new school. While I know they were probably thinking more paper, I know some of you crochet as well. I kind of doubt they would turn them down. Please do not write messages on the snow flakes. Think beauty, think peaceful decoration, think glitter...

The Connecticut PTSA is accepting snowflakes until Jan. 12. 2012. Snowflakes can be mailed to the following address:
Connecticut PTSA
60 Connolly Parkway
Building 12, Suite 103
Hamden, Conn., 06514

2. Check out Chocolate Covered Katie's Christmas wrap-up blog post. Mostly because it mixes desserts and dogs, and because although Batman is roughly the size of half of Nim's head, let's just say I WILL be finding that shirt in Nim's size. 

Christmas Day I dealt with some major house cleaning. There was a curtain I have been avoiding because of a large spider I saw on it 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately in the same area I saw a different large spider about a month ago. I know it was a different one because the one a month ago was "dealt with."

I have had a huge spaghetti squash craving for the past few weeks. I found the perfect baked vegan macaroni and cheese style casserole recipe except that King County sold out of raw cashews. (Basically there is a limited amount of places to find them in the first place and I gave up after the first one due to holiday craziness).

Fortunately I found a cashew-free vegan cheese sauce recipe on Delights and Delectables and winged it.The sauce was very good. I added sauteed mushrooms and broccoli and more nutritional yeast and Daiya. My only beef was that spaghetti squash really cooks down so it didn't last long.

It was rainy and windy most of Christmas Day (of course) and Nim was going nuts. I gave him a choice between antler and very large bully stick so I could clean and bake. (Note my sewing area is also currently my research writing area).

He selected the bully stick.

We ended up doing a dark walk that evening when the weather finally broke. I actually enjoy that at this time of the year with all the Christmas lights.

I did NOT get started planning for the New Year's Day Mystery Quilt yet, maybe later in the week...

Merry Christmas

The 2013 New Year's Day Mystery Quilt fabric guidelines and beginning cutting instructions are posted for people needing a fabric distraction today.

Christmas Eve Monkey

New Toys

My mom sent over a bag for me yesterday that I wasn't going to go through until the holiday. Leela got into it anyway...

It has a bell. They played with it all night long. All. Night. Long.

Nim sported his Christmas bandana at training this morning and got a new fluffy.

We also saw some chickens while training this morning. To me, chickens are kind of like dogs. For some reason they seem to like to run the fence line of their coop when something is on the other side of the fence. This is exciting stuff for Nim. The person with me had never heard Nim's "yell" for birds. It is embarrassing and anyone still asleep on a quiet Sunday morning probably wasn't after that.

It is only 2:40pm and it is getting dark out here. I think we have more rain coming too. Have a gentle Sunday.

Winter Solstice

Hello shortest day of the year! Only sunshine ahead now right?

Yesterday was never-ending and misery-inducing rain. Then this morning I woke up to it not raining so I quickly headed to Squak for a hike that was supposed to be followed by Costco (big fail when I couldn't find parking...the hummus and avocados will have to wait).

It lightly drizzled the entire hike and now that I am back home the sun is out.

I did get Nim his holiday Bow Wow! Bandana from Earth Pet which was worth getting through traffic for. Photos later - he is being surly right now.

Have a great Friday!

First Snow Hike of the Season

It is painfully cold today, but I still wanted a break for a first snow hike of the season.

I swear I am actually more scheduled right now unemployed than when I was working from home. It helps me cope with the unknown a bit better I think.

You can see it is actually pretty dark out still. There will definitely be more rain or snow later in the day. But for this hike it was a dry, cold snow.

Over 2/3 of the hike was completely untouched snow which was beautiful.

Have a great day!