First Mountain Snow & Garden Clean Out, The Case Of the Flying Chicken, Autumn/Halloween Decor, Herb Crusted Pork Loin Roast Recipe

First Mountain Snow & Garden Clean Out- 

Well it's that time of year, our first Mountain snow storm came! We had over 1/2" rain in 12 hours last Saturday. Much cooler temperatures this week. Frost forecast tomorrow night and 37 degrees predicted. No more 80 degree weather! Dave and I went out Thursday night into the veggie garden. He picked all the squash and peppers, I picked the tomatoes. I found that with heavy rain sometimes tomatoes and things will actually crack and didn't want to lose anything. The green tomatoes I'll either leave on the counter to ripen or will go in a batch of Chow Chow, the rest will be used for various projects-

The giant Italian peppers are so huge that they never had enough time to turn red, but they'll be delish anyway! Those are really great to either freeze and use for pasta sauce later or stuffed and roasted like these Stuffed Italian Frying Peppers-

BIG!

The sweet Gypsy Peppers, basically like pepperoncini peppers, will probably be used for Chow Chow and/or frozen with some tomatoes-

Will pick mini pumpkins tonight-

I harvested my last little Lavender re-bloom-

Dave said it's always depressing to tear up the summer garden, and yes it is, but less weekend work coming up. No more watering/weeding and mowing will wind down. The chickens had a great time realizing that there is a lot more open space and started chowing down on some of the squash leaves. 

The Case Of the Flying Chicken-

There's Sunny, one of our younger hens, who apparently can fly even with major flight feather trimming! I kept finding her on top of the garden fence and/or in the main part of the garden. Safety-wise we have several dogs on the other side of our neighbor's 6' fence. I decided to ask Dave to help me add an upper level of spare chicken wire. I think once she gets bigger we can take it down- 

So far it's worked! What a trouble maker! 

Autumn/ Halloween Decor- 

Autumn decor is up, and comforter on the bed! I had a cough/cold for almost 2 weeks and would have gotten it all done earlier otherwise. Luckily real rain feel this weekend! Dave and I put up some corn stalks on the front of the house to start. He got them free from a local community garden. When they harvest the corn they give away the stalks, win win! 

He also put up all our fun Halloween stuff outside-

Not sure if trick or treating will happen in Covid times. We may host a party here for our Grandchildren and their parents. 

I did the inside and much of it thrifted (of course!) -

I added a few things to my home office as well!

Herb Crusted Pork Loin Roast Recipe- 

When we went grocery shopping I found pork loin roasts on a buy one get one free! Basically $2.00 per pound, score. I bought two and froze one. I used one for this nice recipe I wanted to try Herb Crusted Pork Loin Roast  I didn't have grainy Dijon Mustard so I used 1/2 Dijon and 1/2 Spicy Deli mustard. I thought straight Dijon might be a bit too strong. I also omitted the salt as mustard is very salty as it is. I think some people over-salt, and if you do, bummer. If not, you can add some on your own portion. My roast was thicker and took almost an hour longer, so adjust time as needed. I baked some Acorn squash with a little butter and brown sugar to go with it. Perfect Autumn meal! Pork was juicy and excellent flavor. Just make the rub, spread it on, pop it in the oven, set the timer, walk away! Easy peasy. 

Day Trip, Drying Squash, Review Vidalia Dicer/Chopper

Day Trip-

With the smoke coming and going from the California fires we finally had a break last week. A bit of a rain storm blew in last Thursday/ Friday which clear the skies. Saturday morning I woke up and the skies were deep, deep blue. We have been wanting to drive up to McCall for the day, just to get out of town to get a change of scenery. Saturday morning I decided to check the air quality in McCall since it had been pretty bad up there as well. Separate from the California fires there was a fire west of McCall and the smoke is drifting from there too.  Turned out the air quality was great! I asked Dave if he wanted to take off for the day and go to McCall and it was a resounding yes! The forecast was a little bit of intermittent rain coming and going, so we dressed for cooler weather with some possible rain. There were a few storm clouds here and there driving up-

Skies clearing

Outside McCall

After we got into town we stopped at our normal McCall Brewery for lunch. From there we went to Stacy's cakes and got some desserts to take home since they closed in the afternoon. We did our normal Loop driving all the way around the lake and then hit a fun thrift store, Toby's. I spotted a heavy steel Fleur-de-lis hose reel, of all things. I decided to buy it, $8.00, and do something else with it-

Front

Top

Base

I asked Dave if he can have a pal at work use a grinder and remove the two Fleur-de-lis pieces.  That's the plan, then I will re-purpose. More on that project later! 

Lake side, water's low 

Wildflowers in a park-

We drove down the highway on the backside of McCall for a change of scenery. We never did hit much rain at all. I hit a dollar store that's a different chain from Boise's and I found a little lantern for Autumn for $5.00, has an LED candle-

All in all was a great trip, gorgeous scenery and fun! 

Drying Squash-

We had a good harvest of our yellow squash this year. I decided to dry some to use for soups over the winter. I have a nice little Nesco food dehydrator, so I got it out and cleaned it. You could use a baking sheet for this as well. I sliced all the squash up about a quarter of an inch thick then I had quartered it-

After I got all the squash laid out, and stacked I turned it on, I left it for about three or four hours. Next  I rotated the trays. Ran another 2 to 3 hours and it was all done! 

I basically had two large squashes condensed down to 1 quart canning jar. Reminds me of a jar of sunshine!

Review Vidalia Dicer/Chopper- 

I had seen this Vidalia brand dicer/chopper on someone else's blog and thought I wanted to try one. When I made corn relish a while back it took me forever to dice up all bell peppers and onions. I figured it might be a real time-saver and it turns out it is! I was really impressed by the fact is a very, very heavy composite material. It is not cheap flimsy plastic-

Nice sharp stainless steel blades

Comes with two blades and cleaning tool-

Measurements on the side- 

Heavy box- 

I was making some black bean soup for the cooler weather. I decided to use it to test drive by dicing up some bell peppers, tomatoes and onion. Separate from being much faster you also get very uniform size pieces, which is great for cooking. I started off with a bell pepper, a little older, the skin was a little shriveled. Basically I cut it in quarters, took out the seeds and white pithy part-

Just lay down the pepper, close the top down, done!

Worked great for the onions and tomatoes too! 

Washed well but a few bits here and there

Cleaning tool comes with it, really helped! 

Use the tool, rinse well, grid came out clean-

I give it two thumbs up, great for all kinds of fruits and veggies, etc. I used the chopper blade, the dicer is even smaller, will be great for fine work. With soup season coming, and making more homemade salsas, I'm happy! Amazon link on left sidebar for more info!