Winter Carnival

Each year the Red Lodge Ski Mountain hosts a Winter Carnival. Not being much of a skier (let's be honest - not being a skier at all this winter) I didn't attend the Carnival up at the mountain. I did however get to see the Parade downtown.

A main event for the Carnival is the racing of floats down the ski hill. Area businesses, organizations, and just crazy people careen down the mountain in homemade floats all with the goal of being the first to slide in still standing.

This year's Carnival theme was 'Beach Party'....here's a few examples of the variety of floats. 

Up to My Elbows in Garbanzo Beans!!

Today I set out to make homemade hummus. Before today, I purchased raw garbanzo beans from our local Regis Grocery, soaked them overnight, and cooked them for an hour (until they're soft). I had way more beans then I could possibly use so I froze half of them (they'll be great salad toppers) and used the rest for yummy hummus.

I started with a recipe from Alice Waters' cookbook - The Art of Simple Food (great book) - an original hummus with Tahini (pureed sesame seeds). I also made a pesto and roasted red pepper hummus. Overall, they all three turned out pretty good. Super healthy and relatively easy! Good thing too because I made so much I'll be eating hummus for a long time!

All good projects start with a bit of a mess!

For a second batch I decided to peel the garbanzo beans for a smoother consistency....can't really say it's worth it - it took forever!

The final products! Plain, Roasted Red Pepper, and Pesto. YUM.

Community Food Forum

Last Saturday I attended a Community Discussion sponsored by the Beartooth Front Community Forum entitled "Improving Community Well Being Through Food".

For a town of only 2,000 people there was an impressive turn out of almost 200 folks! That's better than some elections!

They started the meeting off with a Priority Exercise using sticky dots! (A favorite of planners).

The meeting organizers did a great job of selecting panel speakers and appropriate topics.

After the speakers we had a fabulous lunch made with local food prepared by various restaurants, ranches, and farms.



Overall, it was a great event focused on the value of local food in creating a sustainable community.

Bad Ice....

We've had such beautiful, warmer, sunny weather lately Shelby and I have gotten in lots of walks. She loves to walk (okay run) in the snow rather than on the sidewalk, crazy girl. Because of all the warmer weather there is quite a bit of ice as well (snow melts and refreezes). Poor Shelby recently fell victim to one particularly sharp piece and cut one of the pads on her back paw.

Poor Shelby also has a poor (as in no $$) momma so instead of taking her to the vet I did a 'home remedy'. See photos.

I'm sure it's the same thing the vet would do minus the $200 charge, right? I was sure to use antibiotic ointment and wrapped it up tightly (not too tightly) then I used my trusty socks (courtesy of British Airways from my flight to Europe oh so long ago.)

She looks a little silly but I think she'll heal up just fine.

Please tell me I'm not a bad mom. Signed - Dr. AM :)

A Night to Remember...

Back in the summer sometime I locked myself out of my house. It was Shelby's fault really. She was on a long tie out in the back yard and had gotten herself tangled amongst the trees. When I went out to get her I somehow pressed the lock down on my back storm door. I went around front thinking, easy I'll get in that way. Wrong - me being 'safety conscious' I had locked the front storm door as well (on purpose). So...long story short my hero dad came over and used his man drill to get my front storm door open. Success!

Although it was raining that afternoon and my dad told me to wait in the truck I didn't. It didn't seem right for him to stand in the rain fixing my problem. So I stood by and 'helped'. More importantly, I stood by and watched. I'm soo thankful I did....

Fast forward to tonight....a cold (-10F) winter night. Apparently neither Shelby nor I learned our lesson back during summer about the back door. Tonight's issue wasn't that Shelby got tangled; tonight's issue was worse. Tonight her feet were freezing so instead of running into the house when I opened the door she laid down in the snow. Bad idea. Me, being the loving mom that I am ran out to get her....in my slippers and pjs. Worse idea.

Can you guess what happened next? Yep, door closed behind me. I try to go back into house. Door won't open. Door locked....Erghhh. It's COLD. No, no....it's FREEZING - literally.

So...fast forward through Anne-Marie running from behind her house to the front of the house next door (we have an alley in the back and luckily the house next door has no fence). Along the way Anne-Marie looses her slippers, falls into a very big, very deep snow drift, and is yelling 'help' like Kate Winslet in Titanic. (Yes, you can laugh...I'm chuckling a little myself...I was NOT laughing at the time. I would have cried but I was afraid my tears would freeze to my face.) Continue fast forwarding through Anne-Marie stumbling into the dark, two story quadplex next door only to find one lonely guy who 'kinda' offers to help. I ask if he can go get my dog who is still in the snow in my backyard (Not sure why I didn't bring her with me...) He takes forever....for which I didn't have time to wait so I run to the neighbors on the other side of my house; to their nicely lit home with their cute granddaughter playing in the living room with their sweet black lab. Much better.

Fast forward through Anne-Marie borrowing boots, gloves, socks, jacket, and a scarf from nice neighbors; going back out to see 'dude from next door' with no dog, "yea...you're dog won't come near me."; running back to the back yard, getting Shelby; borrowing a drill from nice neighbors; getting help from guy #2 that lives in quadplex...actually helpful (I've blogged about this fella before - see 'Neighbors in the Yard' post from Saturday, May 15.) and FINALLY getting the front storm door open only to find that my actual front door is locked too! Ergh!!! Red Lodge is one of the safest places in the country and I live in Fort Knox!

Back to friendly neighbor's house...who drives me to step-mom's house to get house key. 40 minutes later I'm once again in my warm, warm, oh so warm house. I'm NEVER locking the storm doors again. NEVER.

Sorry - I was a little busy avoiding frostbite to snap any photos. :)

What do you see?

What do you see in this picture? Hopefully just a window! But if you were here in person you'd see it's a shrink wrapped window! Personally, I've never shrink wrapped (shrunk wrapped?) a window before but apparently it's a pretty common practice here in the FREEZING Big Sky Country.

I found my window kit on sale at Target (my favorite!) for $6 - what a bargain...it had one of those red clearance stickers that I just can't resist! It was a bit challenging to put up because I only had one set of hands....Shelby's cute but not very handy. But now that it's up I can already feel my electric bill going down!

I used to keep my curtain closed to block out the cold, which of course also stole my sunlight. Now I have no cold but plenty of sun, well not today since it's currently a mini-blizzard outside, but hopefully tomorrow! Mission accomplished!

Superbowl! Super fun!

We had a super fun superbowl party although I wasn't super impressed with the superbowl commercials. We had super food, super beer, and super company!

This is a Super Cooler, Montana style:

Super yummy food, I made the super buffalo chicken dip in the super silver crockpot:

We had a super amount of pigs in the blanket a must-have at any superbowl party. We also had super yummy venison meatballs. I had a super amount of those myself:

There were also super people at the superbowl party but I was busy drinking my super beer and eating my super food to get any super pictures. Super sorry!

B-I-N-G-O!

The last Sunday of each month the Beartooth Humane Alliance host a lively game of Bingo at the local Bull N Bear Saloon.

I attended for the first time last Sunday and walked away a big winner! $7!! A great time raising money for homeless dogs and cats, enjoying a nice cold beer, and yelling Bingo at inappropriate times (it only happened once, on a special card, I was confused. Yes, I have a master's degree and was confused by the special Bingo card. Perhaps that's why they call it Special.)

Me and 'Bingo the Dog'. Yes, he had a tail and yes, it was wagging. :)

Me and Anita....sorry about the eyes - don't be scared.

Me and Anita again....swapped...sorry about the eyes - again don't be scared!

Frozen Fog...

We recently had a pretty heavy foggy night. The next morning we awoke to a winter wonder land as all the fog froze to anything and everything. It was beautiful and lasted for several days. I tried to capture it in my photos but just know I didn't do the magnificence of it much justice. I'm willing to take the cold when it's this beautiful.

The first three are of Rock Creek, then it's the road along Rock Creek, followed by two of our 'Thomas Kinkade Village'. The last with the rainbow is proof that God shines even in the midst of winter (see my Love Undeniable Blog post about Life's Seasons.