Beets and Salsa

There are all kinds of things I can't grow here in this climate, like corn, tomatoes, watermelon, etc. But there are also things that love it here. Like beets! I love beets too, so this works well. I planted several varieties including the standard dark red beets, as well as golden and these candy cane striped ones. Some of them ended up growing huge! You can see below that one is larger than my hand. And still incredibly sweet and tender. I think all the different colors are fun to see. We've been eating a bunch of them fresh, but hopefully next week I will be pickling and canning a bunch more to save for winter.

And then I made up a batch of salsa, thanks to driving by a farmers market a few hours from here where they can grow things like tomatoes and peppers. So I bought all their seconds, chopped them up, and ended up with this big tasty batch! We'll eat some of it fresh and freeze more for later.

Fall Around Fy Nyth

The leaves, at least on the few trees and bushes that are not pines, are turning colors. While it poured here for three days, it was a little colder up just a little higher. So the mountains are all very white on top. And I saw two coyotes together earlier today. They both looked young so I wander if they are two siblings from the litter of eight I was able to photograph this past spring.

Leaving the Tiny House For A "Micro House"

If you are interested in a tiny house, you are probably busy looking at plans, layouts, building methods, how to pair down your stuff, etc. But once you finish all that, hopefully what you are left with is more freedom. More free time, money, mental space, and so on. Some people love to travel with their free time. Not me so much. Some love to stay home and garden much of the time. Which I do. But I also love to backpack in the wonderful scenery around my house.

Meet my micro house, a whole 34 square feet. She weighs a bit under two pounds, no big pickup needed to move at all! And shared with my former room mate, Beth. We split up as room mates when I moved into Fy Nyth. But we still enjoy backpacking together. 

After about 35 miles of walking through scenery like this, we left the trip a day earlier than planned due to Beth having a pretty bad rolled ankle. Which happened on an (almost) flat level stretch of trail. Not on any of the steep or dangerous places where we were before that.

But before that, we climbed Fremont Peak. This is the view from only half way up.

Here we are both trying to not blow off the very top of the mountain in the 50 mile per hour gusts. 13,745 feet above sea level. The highest I've been on my own feet.

This shot give you some idea of how steep the climb up there was. Those lakes are almost 3000 feet below us right here.

This was just part of the 360 degree view of peaks from the top. 

This is an amazing world. Follow your dreams and if there is something you want to do, go for it! Don't spend the rest of your life wishing you had.

Mini Morning Mirrors

After a full day of rain the day before, I awoke to these lovely water drops adorning everything in my garden. Sights like these are the second best part of gardening I think. Right after getting to eat things out of the garden!