Best Christmas Ever!

Behold our Belgian beer cork Santa! Ho! Ho! Ho!

Old rhymes with mold

On our respective birthdays when we were growing up, my brother and I could choose what we wanted to eat for dinner and we got to kick the Cheerios to the curb and pick out one box of sugar cereal for breakfast on our special day. For me it was cheese fondue and Golden Grahams.

Well, yesterday was my birthday. As you can tell here, I am now old enough to have an adult beverage, though just how old isn't really important. Let's just say that I bring the average age of Melvin up a bit.


So to celebrate my birthday, I decided to do one of my favorite things - cook! I am a total sucker for a bowl of buttery noodles with cheese. So out came the pasta maker, and shortly thereafter we had some homemade noodles which we generously slathered with butter and Manchego cheese. On a side note, your standard clothes drying rack makes an excellent noodle drying rack.


Slightly more complicated was dessert. This is a concoction called Gooey Chocolate Stack from Nigella Lawson's Domestic Goddess cookbook. Basically it's three layers of cocoa meringue layered with chocolate creme patissiere. There really isn't a word to describe this.


So not related to the birthday at all is this alternative to your standard Thanksgiving Day pumpkin pie that I whipped up last week. Pumpkin whoopie pies with cream cheese filling. Recipe here. Mine aren't as pretty as Martha's, but dang were they good. Do you think I used enough cream cheese filling?


And just because he's so nice to look at, here's my sweetheart at the Sod House Museum in Gothenburg, Nebraska.

Long Live Melvin

The adventures have only just begun. Looks like you'll be hearing a lot more from Melvin for years to come!

Big day!

We're glued to the boob tube right now. I made a special apple pie to celebrate this historic evening. Hooray for voting!

We made it!

14 months and 4000 miles later, we are back on the East Coast... wow, so that happened.

After some torrential rains and a few near disasters we pulled into our new home in Haverhill, Mass.

With no real furniture yet, Mel made the most of our hee-uuuge windowsills. I can see a window seat project in the near horizon.



Besides what we could fit into the car, everything we own is still en route. For now, we've got just enough stuff to get dressed and to eat.



Hopefully Kickapoo will take a break from running around like crazy to help us unload. Man, you should see her tear around on the carpet!



More reports and pics to come as we explore our new home :)

Going, going...

The packers packed...


...and packed some more.


And then the movers took it all away.


Well, almost all of it.




With Kickapoo's bunny house on the truck and headed east, she wasted no time settling right in, and leaving me an offering of little round doodies. Special.

Four days to go!

Well, I am happy to report that we officially have a place to stay once we get to Massachusetts! Day one at Acquia went off without a hitch, though it's daunting with so much change. I spent the day in new clothes in a new office with new people, and now I'm having dinner in a new apartment. I can't wait until my better-half, partner in crime and best friend rejoins me. For now it is the adventures of -vin. Here's a quick look at my first day at Acquia:

Can't complain too much about the location of the office - especially in the Fall!



Our new front door.



A quick stop at Market Basket for necessities. Note the sweet convertible that Thrifty Rental gave me - perfect for cruising around... in October.



When in New England...



Dinner and a movie... for one :(



Though, I do have to give a big thanks to Peggy who put together the world's best care package :)

Only four days to go until Melvin is whole again. Mel is doing all of the hard work back in Colorado to get ready for the move - bless her soul! Soon, the movers will arrive to pack up all of our stuff and before you know it we'll all be sharing this new stuff together!

Saturday without My Love

Well My Love, we have been very busy since we brought you to the airport this morning. I did a bit of rearranging trying to clear a space for our things-to-take-on-the-roadtrip pile. Kickapoo discovered herself in the mirror...


...and then thought she'd help with the packing.


Betty came over and helped me pack the looms. I think it took all of ten minutes, a small miracle as far as I'm concerned. I fed her some sneaky snacks and we yucked it up a bit. I will miss her hilariousness. She was impressed with your magazine rack, by the way.


Stinker managed to incorporate a nice little nap in the sun into his day. He doesn't know it yet, but he's going to love our new windowsills.


Here's crazy for you. Izzy the hater of the kitty carry thing crawled into the bunny carry thing, curled herself up into a ball, and is still sleeping soundly as I type.


Me, well I'm making a bit of dinner trying to use up a bit of this and that before our cupboards are packed up. I'd hazard a guess that you're at the Hampton Toll right about now. Halfway home. My parents are watching the Sox and awaiting your knock at the door. They made you fish chowder, Lucky. The thought of fresh fish and mussels and oysters and lobster is making me dizzy. Yum! You can take the girl out of the ocean...

In closing, My Love, I miss you so much I'm blurry...or maybe that's the gin I'm trying to use up before we move...either way I am missing you.

And just like that...

...we're heading back east. Home. We hit the road three weeks from today. Check out the details of why here. The nice thing about moving so often is that you frequently get to evaluate what you really need to be hauling around and what just doesn't matter. Oh boy. Lots to do. Hooray!!

Elegant dining

With Kickapoo getting smarter by the minute, we needed a foolproof way to keep her and her growing bunny appetite away from the kitty food. Kevin set to work planning an elevated feeding station. What he created was something we almost kept for ourselves. It would have made such a lovely side table.


Now the kitties can eat next to the big kids table. They even have shiny new bowls. Hmm...I think we look like crazy kitty people.

Wait...we are crazy kitty people. At least I haven't gone so far as to weave them a placemat...hmm...

Evening rituals

A few weeks back I taught Kevin how to play backgammon. I picked it up in my early 20's, and didn't realize how much I missed playing until I dusted off my case and set up the board. I will openly admit to a Nomar-esque ritual when setting up my pieces. It's disturbing, but I swear it helps me win. Of course at bat rituals didn't get Nomar very far, but still. Anyhow, if you're ever wondering what we're doing around 7:00pm mountain time, on any given day it looks something like this (insert me on the right).


Kevin has been playing around with updating his website, and it's looking very cool. Check it out. He's so smart. He's also helping me build a website for an idea I'm evolving. More on that at some point in the next couple of months. I have been weaving up a storm. It still amazes me how drawn I am to this craft. I just finished making this big long piece of fabric for my latest project. I'll be chopping it up and sewing it into something else this week.


My brain is now focused on the smell of yummy soup coming from the stove, so I will leave you rather abruptly as I have a date with a very handsome backgammon player.

In Vino Veritas

Last weekend Melvin hit the road to take advantage of the last weekend of their National Parks pass. This time we decided to take the Old Fall River Road - a nine mile, one way, dirt road that offered some pretty tremendous views. We hiked most of the way up to Ypsilon, but the sky was looking a bit nasty, and we decided to turn back when the sprinkles started.






The marmots were out in full force, preparing for winter.


Not ready for the day to be over, we decided to hit the crater at Specimen Mountain again. You may recall that we sat there for what seemed like ages last summer waiting to see the big horn sheep. We are now 0 for 2. Darn sheep.

At least we could console ourselves with BLTs. Our tomatoes. Our lettuce. Very, very tasty. Mmm...bacon.


This past Friday was uncharacteristically dreary for Boulder, and I loved every minute of it. This 300+ days of sun thing is a lot to take. I used to love the sun. Now I mainly try and hide from it.

Well a rainy, 60 degree Friday night calls for some comfort food. Cheesy potatoes, to be exact. And summer squash. These days we eat summer squash every night. We broke out the mandoline, and Kevin started slicing away. It was going so well. Warning, the image after the following image may be disturbing. If you have a weak stomach, you may want to scroll quickly by.


Yes, this is a piece of Kevin's finger. It was a very clean cut, and the patient is recovering well. His pinkie may never be the same, but we've decided that it will be a forever reminder of a very fun night.


Cheese sauce and bread crumbs toasting in butter. We don't mess around.


Mmmm...cheesy potatoes.


Bellies full, we had a bit of wine.


And the kitties watched us get silly.


This bottle of "wine" got tossed. There is most definitely a reason it was on sale at the liquor store over the past few months. Bad wine. Bad finger.


Fun night.

Melvin has been busy

Here at Melvin HQ, we have been busy, busy, busy. We won't bore you with the details, but here is a quick snapshot of the past 30 days.

I whipped up a strawberry rhubarb pie with rhubarb from the garden.


We have been grilling pizza with some regularity, the best one yet just this past week. With squash, onions, tomatoes and herbs from the garden, how can you go wrong?


We chilled out in Lyons for two days at Rocky Grass, and now we can't stop listening to Abigail Washburn and the Sparrow Quartet. Aside from their performance, the other highlight was catching a jam session in the Wildflower Pavilion with Casey Driessen, Ben Sollee, Chris Thile and Noam Pikelny.


Kevin's corn plants are making corn. I think we're up to about eight ears as of yesterday - enough for dinner for two.


The red zebra tomato seeds that I saved last year are making tomatoes, and darn are they tasty. We just hit that turning point where we can pick tomatoes every day.


The bouquet of flower seeds that Kevin gave me last fall, are generating fresh flowers every day, my favorite being the sweet peas.


Kevin also built Kickapoo new digs. She loves being able to come and go as she pleases.


Stinker wasn't such a fan of the heatwave.


My cousin Chris came to visit for a bit. We took him up to RMNP for a bit of a preview hike before we sent him off for a week of camping. He managed to climb Long's Peak without getting sick. No mean feat for a guy who had just days before flown in from upstate New York.




The work and home gardens are both pretty much out of control. These photos are from a month ago - they look even crazier now. If anyone ever tells you that you need a lot of space between plants, I say phooey. Aside from having to move with caution when weeding or harvesting, we managed to pack a whole lot of garden into a fairly small space. That's the tofu factory in the background of the work garden. It makes for an interesting olfactory experience at times.



I've come up with a little ditty about Kickapoo sung to the tune of "The Greatest American Hero" theme song.

Believe it or not, there's a bunny in there
She never thought she could eat such good parsleeeeey
Believe it or not she's alive under therrrrre
Ooooh could it beeee, believe it or not it's Bunnyyyyyy.....


Did I mention that we're knee deep in squash season? We blanched and froze about 20 pounds of squash the other night, and I picked this two days later. See our little soybeans in the right front corner?


In case you didn't think this could get any longer, last weekend, we spent three days camping in the mostly pouring rain. It did clear up Sunday morning, and it turned out to be a lovely day. I should have known when I mentioned the potential rain to my mother, and she said something about hoping it wasn't as muddy as Woodstock, and I said that there was no way it would be as muddy as Woodstock, that we'd be in for a dousing. Mind you, since moving to Boulder we have only had one really rainy day, and by late afternoon on that particular day the sun was out. That was about a year ago. So of course when we have been planning for months to camp out in Lyons for Folks Fest, we were due for a soaking. It's a true test of a relationship when you can spend about 48 hours together in a two man tent and actually come out liking each other more. Aside from the fact that rain is generally a good thing around here, I credit it for helping me sleep through the night. When you're camping in such close proximity to others, a little white noise is a tremendous help at drowning out the snoring and farting going on around you.

Here's Dar Williams singing in the rain. By the time Patty Griffin made it on stage, there was so much rain, I didn't dare take the camera out. Her set was the best of the weekend though, and she played a few of my very favorite songs. Greg Brown and Bo Ramsey drove the rain away for a bit on Saturday night, and were just fantastic and hilarious.


We boiled lots of water for tea to keep warm. Thank goodness for the crappy tarp shelter we erected over the tent. We were actually able to move around outside a bit without getting too wet.


To quote our friend Peter, "Thank you, good bye.".