Apple Festival at the Tuckers house!

The kitchen where the canning happens!

Shanae & Krysta with their apple butter.

It was nice and chilly fall weather for our day of canning. I made applesauce in the crock pot and apple butter on the stove and some of my students came over to help me can yesterday. We sipped on apple cider and steamed up the house with the boiling canner on the stove. It helped warm up the house since we hadn't turned on the heat yet :-) We finally did this morning when the house was 60 degrees! So, anyway, canning!!! This is so much fun and a great fall activity. I had no idea either that homemade applesauce was SO good, and easy! Peel and core the apples, put them in a crock pot, w/ some sugar and cinnamon and let them cook, mash them and they become delicious goodness! Thanks girls for coming by, let's do it again sometime, or make Christmas cookies!

Crater Lake

Brian and I at our first view of Crater Lake

One of the many views of Crater Lake

Dannie, Connie & their twin boys

Brian being dramatic during our hike up Mt. Scott

This post is late in the making. We went to Crater Lake in August for the first time. It is beautiful there! We also met up with a friend of mine from Buena Vista CO that I hadn't seen in 10 years! We met each others spouses for the first time and caught up on our lives. It was a cold and windy at night where we camped, 32 degrees one night, but fun weekend! We hiked the tallest mountain in the park and had a great view of the lake. Dannie amazingly made it to the top with an extra 40 lbs of goodies! The weekend we were there just happened to be the free National Parks weekend, what a blessing! Come visit us, we'll show you around our beautiful Northwest!

Art Retreat in the Sawtooths - 2009

This was our 3rd annual art retreat. We went back to Camp Perkins south of Stanley about 20 miles. It was a great weekend with lots of games, kayaking, volleyball, hiking, and laughing. Thanks to all the students who went, and the faculty that made it great! Enjoy the pics. Most of these are of the cyanotype that we made. The last 3 photos are by Cassie Carlson, thanks Cassie!

Fun in Indiana

We had fun playing with Photo Booth on my computer, so here are some silly shots of us!





You could spend hours making faces at the computer for some really fun laughs! This was one of the mild ones!

New Website: www.jamietucker.net

New website: www.jamietucker.net

I have a new website with current work from the photo project "Chinglish" that I shot when I was in China last year. All the work was shot with 120 medium format film, with a Holga and Diana + camera. They are all Silver Gelatin Prints which I printed myself in the darkroom. I am applying for shows and trying to land some exhibition opportunities. If you have any leads, let me know! Thanks for looking.

Berry Picking!

Freshly picked blueberries & strawberries

Last week I went with some friends, Ben & Brooke to the Berry Ranch. I picked 9lbs of strawberries and 7lbs of Rocky Mtn. blueberries! I forgot my camera when we went picking, so I didn't get pictures of the fields. The ranch is north of Nampa and you could see the Boise mountains on one side and the Owyhees on the other. It was beautiful!
My grandma Hunt always made Strawberry freezer jam, so I thought to keep the tradition going, I would make some too! I made 2 batches of jam, and only lost 1 jar (so far) to Brian sleep eating :-) It's apparently as tasty as my grandmas! I made a blueberry cobbler and then froze the rest for later snacks.
Idaho has a wonderfully fertile valley here that with the help of irrigation growns tasty fruit and produce. Cherries are in season now, and soon blackberries and red rasberries. Hopefully we'll get to go peach picking in late summer!

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!