Grilling out with friends

The grill master at work, what's for dinner: curry chicken & asparagus.

We have really been enjoying out backyard, patio and grill. More often than not Brian and I eat outside at the picnic table. We've had friends over a lot for dinner lately. It's great to have the space to hang out with friends outside.
Recently our friends Tom and Erin were surprised that we have an ancient lawnmower. Tom thought it was such a novelty, he mowed half of our backyard!

Tom couldn't resist using our 'ancient' lawnmower!

Thanks for reading, come on over for dinner, you're always invited!

Shoshone Falls

Shoshone Falls

Recently Brian and I got to experience the famous "Niagra of the West", Shoshone Falls. The spring rains and snow melt off were not disappointing! Matter of fact on the drive down we experienced some rain and hail! It was so bad, I pulled the car over and we waited it out. While we were waiting, a motorcycle pulled up and we got to share our car with the couple so they could have some relief from the pelting hail.

What's happening out here....?

Brian wanted to experience the rain first hand, or test out his rain jacket to make sure it's water proof, I'm not really sure, but he was hamming it up for the camera anyway :-)

The falls are natural, though a dam was made there in the 1900s, so that is were a lot of our electricity comes from. Interestingly there was an influx of Chinese who came to work in the Twin Falls area in the gold mines and Idaho had the highest number of Chinese immigrants, but that has since dropped.

The view south of the falls

This summer we are hoping to explore more of the Idaho that we haven't yet seen, and this was on the list. Of course all the photos were taken with my new camera, which I love! It's compact, yet still has the manual functions that are classic to the SLR. Hopefully it will see more use on some trips this summer when my buddy Paula comes to visit!

Gotta love digital, first try just guessing if we were in the viewfinder!

Hopefully Waiting

Tomatoes blooming! Looking healthy and strong.

That goat manure is paying off. The garden is thriving! I've got 15 tomato plants, 8 zuchhini, 5 cucumber, lettuce, carrots, green onions, 2 poblano peppers and lots of different herbs. We have had some nice 70 degree weather, rain and clouds to help them get established, so hopefully they will survive the July heat. I am getting addicted to this gardening thing, I go out to water in the evening and am out to check on them each morning!

Ran out of room in the raised bed, so the zuchhini is in the yard!

Hammock = summer!

We are getting all the use we can of our awesome shaded back yard and patio. Thanks to the English's we have 2 hammocks to hang up! One from Guatemala and the other has been in my car since Cornerstone! Do you remember that dde?

Brian and I celebrated our 2nd year anniversary, thank you all that sent cards, it was nice of you to remember. I took these pictures with my new Canon Powershot G10!

Gardening is hard work!

Goat manure in the Subaru!

My first 2 days off of school, I have spent doing manual labor! It sure has been enjoyable though having the time to work on my hobby :-) I got advice from a friend and looked on the internet and built a raised garden bed on Monday and then filled it with dirt yesterday! Most of you know though, that we don't have a truck, but a Subaru Outback, and I didn't want the hassle of borrowing a truck, so I thought, hey, it's an older car, and it's an Outback! So, I put a tarp down and Sammie and I went to get some 'free' goat manure that I saw listed on Craig's list. Well, it was about a 40 min. drive to get the stuff, and when we got there, it smelled so bad! There were tons of little goats that were so cute. Sammie was a good sport, and we both shoveled manure until we couldn't stand it anymore. Three of the goats were loose and kept wanting to get into the car! They are evidently used to riding in their own Subaru :-) So, the adventure wasn't bad so far, until the drive home, we had to ride with the poo 40 min. back to Nampa! Even with the windows down we were carrying the farm smell with us! For me, I enjoyed it, I felt like I'd been back home to Indiana for a little while. Sammie on the other hand, well, maybe she won't wear flip-flops next time we shovel manure!

Wow, I need to clean out the car

So, the manure is great compost, but I still didn't have enough dirt to fill my 4x8 foot long raised bed. Went to Zamzow's yesterday morning and found out they sell top soil in bulk. So, again, no truck, I loaded up 1/2 cubic yard of topsoil onto some cardboard in the back of the Subaru! I shoveled until my back was on fire, but I got it all in there! Then went to Lowe's in search of a wheel-barrel. After squeezing that into the front passenger side, I finally made it home to unload my treasure of dirt.

Slowly but surely

What seemed like a LOT of dirt, quickly dissapeared into the resesses of my raised bed. I mixed the soil with that great smelling goat manure, and shoveled and filled the bed. I was a little short and had to dig up some dirt areas along the fence line to fill it. I also had some well rotted horse manure from a friend of Brian's at work that I was able to mix in. We should have some really great soil to grow all our plants in!

Yeah, a filled garden bed!

It's a good thing I was too tired to plant my garden yesterday, it got down to 33 degrees last night! Pretty chilly for the tomatoes! It will have to wait a few more days, I'm doing some photo demos as local high schools this week. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the adventure!

Blurb books

My Digital photo class put together a photo book for our final project that is being printed.
The link is: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/665830
You can preview the first 15 pages of the book, or even order one!

Rhea Porter, Krysta Jacobson, Nikki Shipman, Allison Dietz and Shanae Galloway

International Pinhole day!

Jamie Tucker, self portrait, image from handmade camera 12 pack soda box, using photo paper, 30 sec. exposure

NNU's art club sponsored an activity on International pinhole day! We made our pinhole cameras, then took pictures with them. Many others from around the world made images as well, check out www.pinholeday.org to see them. Look under group>NNU Art club to see more of ours. Thanks for looking!

Texas, SPE & Spring!!

Christy at the Botanical Gardens

Not a lot happened in February, but March and April have picked up speed like they do every year. I'll fill you in and post some pictures. We had spring break a few weeks ago and I was able to go to the Society for Photographic Education Conference in Dallas, TX. Normally, I'm not a huge fan of TX, but a great friend of mine who was a Jman with me in Guatemala lives there, and we got to spend a few days together! What fun!!! I am reminded of how blessed I am to have such great friends, even if they live far away.

Christy & I at the Botanical Gardens

The Photo Conference was wonderful, I learned so much and had 3 portfolio reviews of my China work. I also met some new folks and traded business cards. I met 2 ISU alumni who knew Fran and Donna Dene, how cool! Christy and I ate some real TexMex, laughed about past adventures and caught up on todays. Spring was already in full force in Dallas, so we enjoyed the Botanical Gardens in Ft. Worth before heading to the airport to return to Boise.

Spring tulips

Spring has arrived in early form at home now! I am so excited to have a garden growing in the front window, and dreaming about planting everything outside. I'm sure I will kill a few things, but what joy it is to see little tomato and lettuce seeds sprout into seedlings! There is a creek/canal near our house, and with that brings lots of ducks. So, we have had ducks in our yard for awhile. I'm sure there will be little ducklings sooner rather than later :-)

Lettuce seedlings

I have a small garden plot out back and some flower beds in the front that I will use to plant tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, chives, squash, cucumber, oregano, parsley and basil. Hopefully something grows from all these options! We are all enjoying the yard, patio and garage. We grilled and ate outside at out picnic table for the first time last week!

Backyard garden

My students and I are looking toward summer as we all do this time of year! We have about 3 weeks of classes left, May 7th being the last day of finals. So far, I don't have any huge plans for summer break, except to rest and do some camping! To help with spring fever, my photo 1 class took a field trip to the Old Idaho State Penitentiary this past week. It turned out to be a great 70 degree day.

Inside the Idaho Pen

Megan, Jared, Allison & Cassia hamming it up at the Pen

On some other news, Brian and I are going to be planning a trip, though not until Oct 28th. We got concert tickets to see U2 in Vancouver British Columbia at their last concert date for this tour!!!! We can hardly believe it! We have never seen them before, and are really excited to see them in the Northwest.

Sammie is doing well, she is looking forward to her graduation May 27th. She's been helping me with cleaning and cooking. She is now a master chef or 'Little Chef' as we like to say. We have both realized the wisdom of some of my mom's recipes, Salmon Patties & Porkchops & rice, they are easy, fast and taste great! Thanks Mamita!
Love you all, thanks for reading, the sun has come out and has turned this rainy day into one that is calling my outside! Until next time, hope this finds you all well. Let me know you've been here and how you are. xoxo