Merry Christmas

from Nuthatch Hill.

Cali, with her Christmas gift.

Warm woolen mittens

A favorite thing from one of my favorite people.

Thank you, Jeannie, for always thinking of me.

More Hawaii

A beautiful sunset during our dinner at Mala in Wailea.

That dark blob is a turtle. We saw several at Hookipa and Big Beach in Wailea.

This was an amazing dessert called the Polynesian black pearl. I ordered this at Mama's Fish House. It was chocolate mousse with passion fruit cream inside and served in a cookie shell. Just divine.

Hubby with his Pina Colada at Mala. This is probably the best Pina Colada I've ever tasted.

I ordered a drink called "three Nenes". It's made with three kinds of Grey Goose vodka. Nene is Hawaii's state bird.

Road to Hana-Arboretum

Hubby flew to Oahu one day to visit with his friend, Mike, which left a free day for the 3 of us to drive part way to Hana.

We stopped at an Arboretum about nine miles past Paia and wandered around for about an hour. This is a view of the lush grounds with the Pacific in the background. It was quite beautiful here, but there were a lot of mosquitos that seemed especially fond of Dave and I. Debara was spared for some reason. At this point, I was sure I wasn't leaving this island unscathed.
Papyrus flowers. I tried to see if there was a scent, but as I moved in to check, there was a huge spiderweb in the way. I gave up on that idea.

Hibiscus. Gorgeous.

Ginger flowers.

Another hibiscus.

Snorkeling

We spent one day snorkeling at Ka'anapali Beach. I love to snorkel however, the water was way too cold for me and the visibility was very poor. Every time I put my head in the water I would shiver and panic. On top of that, as I was helping Debara get past the breaking waves, a rogue wave knocked me down into the surf and I sucked sea water. Yuck. I came up with another skinned knee after being thrown onto the beach. That was that for the girls.

Here we are trying to warm up.

Dave took to the water like a fish. He went out a few times and really enjoyed himself.

This is as far as Hubby's snorkel got to water.

Dave and Debara enjoying lunch at Kimo's in Lahaina.

Here we are waiting for our Pina Coladas.

Nakalele Blowhole

The guys played golf one day which left Debara and I free to explore West Maui. We went on a hike to the Nakalele blowhole.

This is the start of the hike. There wasn't a human around when we started. In this pic you can just make out the light beacon in the distance and to the right. We had to hike around that and head down into the rocks.

This is a view from the cliffs. Very scary. I couldn't believe the trail took us this close to the edge and as it turned out, we weren't on the right trail.

A view of 2 pools. Just gorgeous, of course you'd be crazy to swim in them.

After climbing around the rocks and skinning my knee, we finally ended up at the blowhole.

A nice couple took this pic for us. They came down the easy trail which was mere feet from the blowhole. We decided to go back the way we came even though the other trail was easier we would need to walk on the highway for 1/2 a mile and that seemed more dangerous to us. On the way back, the trail we were supposed to take was spray painted white by some kind soul and was so much easier to follow. No more skinned knees!

Haleakala National Park

Here we are at the entrance to the Park. The elevation was around 7000 ft. The wind was quite chilly.

Up at 10,000 ft and overlooking the crater. You wouldn't think you need to pack jeans and sweatshirts for Hawaii, but to avoid freezing up here they come in handy.

Dave with the island of Hawaii in the distance.

Another view of the crater. We didn't stay too long as it's tough to breathe and some of us were getting altitude sickness.

Secret stuff going on here. The building on the left can scan the entire horizon top to bottom in 90 seconds. This area is off limits.

Hawaiian vacation-day 1

After a long flight we finally arrived on Maui and were greeted with warm winds and nice temps. So much better than the frigid Montana weather.

Here we are at Fred's Mexican Cafe which was walking distance from our condo. We ate here about 5 times.

Dave and Debara.

Hubby cutting pineapple for breakfast. After Jan. 1, they aren't growing Maui Gold pineapples anymore so we were lucky to be there when we were. We bought 2 and they were delicious.

Brrrrrr

It snowed this morning.

We are going on a little hiatus from Nuthatch Hill. In Joni Mitchell's words, "I'm going to see the folks I dig...California, California, I'm coming home."

Check back in December.

More wildlife

We went for a ride around the Clark Fork River yesterday and saw a small herd of sheep.

Pitiful

Cali became covered with seeds from a patch of hounds tongue on our morning walk. These don't brush off. Each one has to be pulled from her coat.

Not a meatless Monday menu

Looking out from the kitchen window the other morning we saw two critters loping about on the road. From that distance I couldn't tell if they were cats, or skunks, or what. Hubby knew right away based on their posture and strange walk that they were raccoons. Later on our walk we found the proof. A nice pile of raccoon scat.

Late in the summer we spotted a baby raccoon down by the mailboxes. That location is right by a creek, but up here on our property we are a good hike from water so I'm hoping they were just out on a walkabout.

More meatless Monday

Making homemade whole wheat tortillas.

A mixture of roasted ancho peppers (the last of them from the garden), garden onions, and mushrooms. These made great burritos. So flavorful we didn't miss the meat at all.

Sunday ended up being a meatless day as well although that wasn't the plan. We harvested the remaining carrots from the garden on Saturday afternoon and Hubby wanted to make a carrot soup. Here they straight from the garden.

And all clean!
The carrot soup was awesome. Hubby made it with our own potatoes and shallots from the farmer's market. Yummy! and I don't really like carrots all that much.

All alone

The loggers left this one and only tamarack tree standing. I was so afraid they would cut it down, but I guess they really did know what they were doing. It's the only one right by our house and I enjoy watching it turn color in the fall. I had a much nicer pic of this tree taken a few days ago with Cali posing in front, however due to a computer glitch all my pix from October were lost so this will have to do.

Cali's playmate

Klanncy has finally surpassed Cali in height and weight...by quite a bit. He's at least 30 pounds heavier than Cali. They still enjoy wrestling each other, but Cali is out-matched.

Pause for paws

I thought Cali's paws were big, but this bear paw print is HUGE!

Meatless Monday

We still have quite a few potatoes and onions in storage and since it was a meatless day today we decided a potato pancake for dinner would be perfect.

Here are the freshly scrubbed Yukon Gold potatoes rescued from their hiding place in the garage.

Yummy!

Don't try this at home...

Fortunately I was able to pick all the peppers from the garden before the big snow and deep freeze. Hubby suggested I dehydrate the Serrano peppers and then make pepper flakes.

Here are the dehydrated peppers still on the racks.

Into the Cuisinart for a quick blitz. I didn't have much material to work with after the dehydrating process.

Now comes the dumb part and not for the amateur, I lifted off the lid and fine HOT pepper powder filled the kitchen. Can anyone say "pepper spray"? Both Hubby and I were coughing, gagging and tearing up like crazy. This is definitely a task delegated to the outside with plenty of ventilation.

This is why we want to move...

This is my "pet" Stellar's jay. He visits every morning at 8. This picture was taken yesterday.

This picture was taken this morning after over 2 hours of snow removal. We had over 6 inches of wet, gloppy white stuff piled up everywhere. It's only the beginning of October. I can see having this kind of weather next month, but we have basically skipped right over fall and headed into winter. Now maybe all of the people who question our motives for moving will get it.

Final forest thinning

The loggers have been working for weeks now on the final thinning of the forest. They've cut a lot of small trees and are busy putting them in piles. They worked along our property line this week and cut most of what was a nice screen. Oh well. They weren't our trees anyway, but it was nice to have that barrier.

It's very easy to see the house from the forest trail after all their work.