Family shots

We decided to use the new camera to try to capture some shots of the kids for a Christmas card. One indoor and one outdoor. Will didn't last long for either one so we likely won't get a family picture with him smiling until he is a little older...or happier.

Fun with the new camera...

So we decided to go ahead with the D80 purchase. Since digital cameras have made film cameras nearly obsolete we have only used point and shoot digital. I have missed having a really nice SLR for creativity and better shots, so we decided to go with the Nikon D80. So far we are super impressed but have not used to even close to the full abilities. Here are a few shots we took the day the camera arrived.

Saturday Morning Fun

So thanks to having a dog who is bred for ratting, Sam showed us that we had some rats visiting at night and hanging out in our rock wall. He has been running straight to the rock wall and sniffing like crazy. When I sprayed water in it, I saw a huge rat run into another crack of the wall. I decided to go buy a live trap so I could make sure he had that "ratter" instinct. Sure enough! Here is a pretty funny video of Sam having his way with a little rat. We're hoping to catch the bigger one soon.

Campout with Ben and the scouts

I took Ben camping with the scout troop. He turned out to be a mountain goat in training. On Saturday when we woke up we went on a 10 mile hike and Ben hiked the WHOLE 10 miles! He kept pace with the fastest scouts and kept a better pace than most scouts! He didn't complain even once (unlike the scouts) and didn't ask me to carry him at all. He is a great hiker!

Here he is eating some trail mix at mile post 4.

Here is a short video of Ben running down the trail. It was a beautiful area!

Halloween Costumes

Here are some pics of Will, Lauren, and Ben. Rachel was already out of her dinosaur costume by the time I got the camera out.

Will made a very cute little lamb.


Lauren dressed up as Glenda, the good witch of the north!

Ben wanted to be a punk rocker. I think he is a cross between Kiss and Pink.

Kermit

I saw this cute little frog in the shingles of Sam's doghouse. Here is a closeup of him. He was a brilliant green color. Unfortunately for him, Miss Piggy is in our freezer and often ends up on the grill.

My new blog

I decided to start my own blog, so I didn't have to clog the family blog with my food pictures. To start off with, I want to show some of the food I have made on my big green egg. I have only had it for a couple of months, but so far I have made chicken (whole indirect and quartered direct), beef short ribs, baby back ribs, hamburgers, steak, brats, pork steaks, pork shoulder roast (4 of them!!), cedar plank salmon, shrimp, and I have smoked about 120 lbs of salmon. Here are of a few of my pictures.


Here is a pork shoulder roast. I put it on around 11pm on Saturday and cook it all night. The rubs I use on the roast make for a pretty tasty "bark" layer on the outside.

About 12 hours later, the roast looks like this. I take the internal temp to 190.

Here is the finished product all pulled apart. It is amazingly tender and moist. It makes the best pulled pork sandwiches I have ever had!

Here are some beef short ribs. The top 3 had a rub, the bottom 3 were marinated.

Here is the finished product about 3 hours later. I learned with these that beef ribs need to be cooked at a hotter temp to break them down thoroughly.

Check out this tomato harvest. I had amazing tomatoes this year despite the super cool June. I ended up with some blossom end rot, but for the most part the fruit was amazing. It is now October and I am still pulling off quite a bit of fruit. My newest thing is to dry them out as sun dried tomatoes.

That's it for now. More to come.