Pinterest at Capitol Reef

Well, I knew that we wanted to try out some dutch oven recipes while we were camping last week.

And I saw this awesome idea on Pinterest where you put the briquettes in egg cartons, 

light the egg cartons on fire,

and the briquettes begin burning nicely.

No fire starter, lighter fluid, etc needed.

Here is our picture perfect set-up.

...lighting the egg carton...

...fire burns nicely...

...and then goes out completely.

So, we decided that we needed to put the briquettes in the egg carton,

and CLOSE the egg carton (perhaps to contain the heat?)

...egg carton full of briquettes...

lighting the CLOSED egg carton...

...egg carton burning...

...still burning...

...egg carton burning...briquettes--not so much...

So, the next day when we attempted dutch oven madness again, we went to the next logical way to start a fire and keep it burning...

We turned it over the to pyromaniac 7 year old...

...taking his fire starting very seriously...

who needs egg cartons when dry grass and sticks burn so easily?

Dutch Oven Peanut Butter Bars

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup peanut butter (I used crunchy)

2 eggs

1 t. soda

1/2 t. salt

1 t. vanilla

2 cups flour

2 cups oats

Cream butters and sugars.  Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well.  Sift dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture.  Press into greased dutch oven.  Bake at 350 for 15 to 30 minutes or until golden.

For the frosting, melt 2 cups chocolate chips and 1 cup peanut butter together and spread over bars.  Serves 12-15.

I used about 24 briquettes, 15 on top and 9 on bottom on a 12 inch dutch oven (14 inch would work well) It took about 1 hour.  I sprinkled the chocolate chips on the bars, dropped spoonfuls of peanut butter (I used creamy here) randomly on top, and put the lid back on for 10 minutes.  Opened it up and swirled the chocolate chips and melted peanut butter around.  

**Recipe found on Pinterest from the Dutchoven Madness blog.

Family in Capitol Reef

Here's a sneak peak at the festivities in Capitol Reef last weekend at the first ever HFR.

 Cole and Lillie

 I had to include this picture as it is one of only 2 pictures in which I appear.

 Summer and Lillie

 Rick and I cooked dinner on the first night...cheese stake sandwiches

Sierra and Summer

 

This outing was full of pinterest experiments....s'mores in cones.  it was a hit.

Cole wasn't big on all of the dutch oven/pinterest experiments.  He opted for a grilled cheese.

It was a little hot for Hooee.  He liked to drink straight from the spout.

Cole and Little setting up the course for a game of croquet.

We hiked Sulphur Creek from Chimney Rock to the visitors center.

Afterwards to splurged with some pie from the Gifford House.

 Cole and Lillie

Playing some Yahtzee.

 Driving to Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.  or escalante for short.

 Stopped for a visit to the Anasazi State Park.

 Accidentally found a geocache.

 Group shot at the State Park.

the aunt and the nieces and nephew 

 Saturday Night in Loa.

My Uncle Don organized a roping jack-pot event and invited us to come.  like 4 times.

It was free, and we had no other plans, so here we are.  

There were actually other people in the stands, you just can't see the other 3 people.

Truthfully, it was a lot of fun.  Quite entertaining as you can see by Summer's attention to the arena.

Lots of this going on.

Now, we have her attention.

Here is my cousin, Tyler.  

He's pretty good.  He should be.  He's been doing this since he was old enough to get on a horse.

We hada lot of fun.  Got dirty.  Ate lots of good food.  Drank lots of water. (thanks to record breaking heat!).  played lots of card games/dice games.  Sat around and talked/chased the shade.  

Can't wait until the next time around...maybe we will remember to take a group picture...

Garden Beds

This is where our playhouse used to be.  Last summer I sold the playhouse.

And the area was left to look like this for the rest of the summer...

This spring we got started with the garden area...

 Danny helped us build the beds.  He's the one that did the work next door last summer.

 Cole was a big help, moving all those rocks with his Tonka.

 Here are my garden boxes.

 Garden planted!!

 Making progress!!

 Tomatoes are growing.  I planted about 72 heirloom tomatoes in the basement under a grow light back in February.  Most of them grew--some better than others.  I was worried that they weren't going to grow well enough to get me all of the harvest that I wanted.  So, I bought 3 tomato plants from Costco.  I also bought about 12 heirloom tomatoes from Diamond's in Springville.  My tomatoes that I grew from seed are doing fairly well, they have almost caught up with the plants that I bought.  Altogether I have about 30 tomato plants growing.

Here is the bed with the peppers.  There are 39 pepper plants.  Some hot.  Some really hot.  And some sweet.  Rick thinks that next year I should plant a few more peppers!!  

I just wanted to make sure I had enough peppers to go with all of my tomatoes!

My problems is that I never end up with equal amounts of peppers & tomatoes.  

I usually end up short on one or the other.  Not this year!!

Also growing in raised beds:  radishes, turnips, beets, carrots, peas, lettuce, and cilantro.

And in the ground:  zucchini, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloup, and pumpkins.

Strawberry Towers

Back in February I ordered 50 strawberry plants.  They cost $12.

We were in the process of rearranging our yard a bit, so we decided to locate the Strawberries in an entirely different location than we've had them in the past.  Rick found some plans for strawberry towers, so we decided to take on a little project.

It turned out to be a bigger project than we had anticipated. (don't they all??)

It turned out that it is harder than you'd think to cut sharp angles on 2x6's.  who knew?

so, we had to borrow a saw from the professionals.  

Once we did that...smooth sailing...kind of.

But, we did conclude that as long as you are building one strawberry tower...you might as well build two.  or more.

This was the first time in my life that I could see a practical approach to learning geometry.

All those angles.  So much math.

Here are the strawberry towers completed, in the yard, filled with compost/soil, and strawberries planted.  (on or about April 7, 2013)

Two months later on June 17, 2013

Each planter has a different variety of strawberries.  I didn't have enough plants to fill the entire planter, so I planted yellow pansies on the side that faces north.  I thought the yellow would show up nicely and would be a pretty contrast with the red berries once they started to grow.

Little, baby strawberries are starting to show up.

They're so tasty.

This is the view of the north side.  If, for some reason the strawberries don't workout, I think these towers will look great with flowers in them.  Or maybe I can talk Rick into building a few more towers.  Probably not.