Photo Friday: Our Moab Adventure Part 2

Posted on October 11, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

Last month my wife and I made a trip to Moab, UT and today I want to share a few more photos from our trip. We spent three days hiking at Arches N.P., and on the third day we visited the Devil’s Garden Area where several arches are located. Skyline Arch is one of the larger arches we saw, and is so named because of its position on the horizon. We were able to walk to the other side of the arch as well, where the view was just as impressive.

trail to Skyline Arch

my wife and I at arch

other side of Skyline Arch

Another arch in the area is the Pine Tree Arch, which was visible on a short hike that led to it plus the Tunnel Arch.

Pine Tree Arch

Tunnel Arch

We spent the next day exploring petroglyphs around the Moab area. Most were fairly easily accessible, and some are thought  to be as old as from 6000 B.C. The more recent ones are likely from the 450-1300 A.D. time frame.

ancient petroglyphs

more petroglyphs

Moonflower Canyon petroglyphs

On  our last day there we visited Canyonlands N.P. We did only a bit of hiking there, including a visit to the popular (and large) Mesa Arch. There were so many people there when we arrived, it was hard to get good photos! But patience paid off, and another couple took our pic, and then we got theirs while the crowds were gone for a bit. The view through the arch is pretty amazing, and popular to visit at sunrise. We opted for an early morning time though, and were back in Moab in time for lunch.

Mesa Arch with crowd

us at Mesa Arch

view through Mesa Arch

That’s all the scenic photos I will share, but I do want to share one of our more memorable meals we enjoyed while in Moab. We love searching our local pizza places when we travel, and found one with a wood-fired oven we visited one day for lunch. Antica Forma serves Italian food, and they make their own mozzarella cheese in house. They also stretched out the pizza dough while we watched. The pizza was fresh and flavorful, and the crust had a thin bottom and crisp crust. We enjoyed watching the chef roll out the dough and make our pizza. We love arugula on a pizza, and these were piled high with it!

pizza at Antica Forma

I hope you enjoyed this travel update from our trip to Moab, and I’ll be back soon with Harvest Monday!

 

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Harvest Monday October 7, 2024

Posted on October 7, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. Harvests are definitely slow here this time of year. I got a bit more of the summer planted lettuce last week, this time one head each of Cherokee and Slobolt. Both of these had gotten a bit long in the tooth but were quite edible. We’ve been enjoying the salads lately, though there will be a gap in the harvests since the next round of plants is still quite small.

Cherokee and Slobolt lettuce

I got another nice harvest of hot peppers, a mix of Aji Rico and Sugar Rush Peach. I’m making hot sauce with the Sugar Rush Peach and pickling the Aji Rico peppers.

Aji peppers

And I also found a Sweetie Pie pepper to go with the hot ones, though Mad Hatter next to it is actually not hot if you remove the seeds and membrane. The red ones are guajillo peppers I dry for chile powder, and the one Will (EightGateFarm) won a blue ribbon for recently. Mine will definitely not win any awards, but they will make tasty powder all the same.

sweet and hot peppers

I let a couple of the Tromboncino squashes to mature, and cut them last week. I put a yardstick in the photo for reference since the squashes are huge! In the past I found the mature Trombo a bit blah in flavor, but I wanted to try it again and see what I think now. I’m also thinking bland is not a bad thing if I use the pureed squash in my morning fruit smoothies. These two weighed a bit over 13 pounds total.

mature Tromboncino squashes

And I got one more mature Centercut squash which weighed over seven pounds. These are my favorite for turning into pumpkin pie and other sweet dessert treats.

mature Centercut squash

In non-harvest news, I baked another batch of Ligurian Focaccia bread last week. This is my favorite focaccia recipe, and I make it with a 50/50 mix of Caputo Pizza Flour and King Arthur All-Purpose flour. I also drizzle it with a Ligurian olive oil before and after baking. The recipe I use is from Salt Fat Acid Heat.

Ligurian focaccia bread

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And please check out what everyone is harvesting!


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Photo Friday: Our Moab Adventure Part 1

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

Last month my wife and I made a trip to Moab, UT to visit Arches N.P. and other sites. We have been planning to go there for years, and it was truly a great trip that we thoroughly enjoyed. We stayed there for seven days, and there was so much to see we could have easily stayed several more days to do more sightseeing. Today I want to share some of the many photos we took of this lovely part of the world.

Arches National Park

Arches N.P. is using a timed entry system to help control visitor’s traffic, and we had several early morning entry passes for our visits. The Moab weather was cool in the mornings, but it quickly warmed up so we were happy to do our hiking early in the day while it was still cool-ish. We visited Arches three days in a row, and saw a lot of beautiful scenery there. The rock formations are amazing, and many are named attractions like the Three Gossips and the Courthouse Towers. The first part of the park includes those two plus the Park Avenue trail and Balanced Rock.

Three Gossips

Courthouse Towers

Park Avenue viewpoint

Balanced Rock

That first day we visited the Windows Section to see Double Arch, which is an amazing formation that was formed by water eroding it from above into two separate arches. There were a few folks climbing up into the arches themselves, but we were content to view from up close and not do any damage to the rocks or ourselves.

Double Arch from distance

Double Arch

We also visited The Windows Section of the park on the second morning, and it includes the Windows arches and the Turret Arch along with the Double Arch and a few other attractions. We did short hikes to see both of those arches. Most of the hikes we did on our trip were from 30 to 60 minutes long, so we could easily do several in a morning before it got hot and we got tired.

the Windows

trail to Turret Arch

Turret Arch

We also visited the much-photographed Delicate Arch that second day as well as the Wolfe Ranch area, which has some well-defined petroplyphs. The Wolfe Ranch was inhabited by homesteaders back in the early 1900s, and it is hard to imagine anyone living in such a desolate area. These glyphs, depicting a hunting scene, were drawn by the Paiute and/or Ute Peoples who are indiginous to this area.

Delicate Arch

Wolfe Ranch cabin

petroplyphs at Wolfe Ranch

Since I’ve got a lot more photos of our visit, I’m going to break this up into two parts and share the rest of the pics nest week. I hope you enjoyed this travel update and I’ll be back soon with Harvest Monday!

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Harvest Monday September 30, 2024

Posted on September 30, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. I’ll start this week with a weather report, since it is big news in the U.S. The remnants of Hurricane Helene dumped quite a bit of much needed rain on us here. It rained pretty much non-stop for 48 hours, and we got just under four inches total. Thankfully there’s been little to no damage around here and we are lucky because so many others were not so fortunate. It might help the summer veggies a bit, and it will definitely help the fall plantings. The weather station tends to under report rainfall, and I dumped 3.8 inches out of my official CoCoRaHS gauge over the period.

weather station console

As for the harvests, they are slowing down but there are a few new items in the mix. I cut the first batch of the fall planted turnip greens last week to use in a dish with scrambled eggs and other veggies. Topper is a fast growing turnip that makes greens in a short period of time (40 days for this batch). This variety doesn’t make edible roots, and in our garden makes tender leaves with a mild flavor. These had a little bug damage, but no signs of bugs themselves thankfully.

Topper turnip greens

Other harvests included a few small fruited tomatoes, and a cutting of parsley and chives to go in tabouli salad we had for lunch one day.

late September harvest

tabouli salad with curried chicken salad

I’m still getting quite a few hot peppers from the garden, and last week I harvested Aji Dedo di Moca, APS Aji Red Sweet and some gaujillo peppers for drying. It has been a good year for the hot varieties but not so good for the sweet ones.

Aji peppers

guajillo peppers for drying

The summer planted lettuce is giving us enough for salads now. Cherokee is a summer crisp type that I’ve grown before, and it did well this time around. It’s nice to have homegrown lettuce in any season, and especially now in hot weather.

Cherokee lettuce

And speaking of lettuce, I just started seeds for the fall plantings last week. They are coming up now and I will thin them to one plant per cell soon. Next up in my seeding plans are arugula, mizuna and bay leaf kale.

lettuce seedlings

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And please check out what everyone is harvesting!


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Harvest Monday September 23, 2024

Posted on September 23, 2024 by Dave @ HappyAcres

It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. We continue to suffer from moderate drought conditions here, though we did get a few showers yesterday. It wasn’t enough to make a real difference though, and I continue to use the soaker hoses as needed to keep the fall crops going. I did manage to get a few more pole beans picked though, before the vines completely dried up. And I found another mature Centercut squash to bring in and finish curing.

harvest of beans and squash

The hot peppers are still producing loads, especially the one Sugar Rush Peach plant that I started last year and overwintered indoors. I have gotten five pounds of peppers from that one big plant! I also harvested more of the Aji Rico and Aji Colorado peppers, plus a lone Biggie Chile. Most of these will go into hot sauce, and I will dehydrate the Aji Colorados for chile powder. And in case anyone wonders – I make a lot of hot sauce! And since I usually make a ‘thin’ sauce it does take a good amount of peppers. The fermented hot sauces keep well for at least a year or more, and I think they actually get better with a bit of aging.

assorted hot peppers

The container eggplants are still yielding a little bit of fruit, and we’re enjoying every one we get since the in-ground plantings are struggling with the dry conditions. We’ve gotten over 20 pounds so far, which is a bit more than last year.

eggplant harvest

The Aji Delight peppers are producing well for me this year, and these peppers have the usual flavor of a C. baccatum variety but none of the heat.

Aji Delight peppers

We use the Aji Delight peppers much like we would any other sweet pepper, and I roasted some of them last week along with the eggplant. It’s a simple treatment – just olive oil and a little salt, but when the veggies are fresh and homegrown I don’t think the flavor needs a lot of enhancement.

roasted peppers and eggplant

And last but not least, the late summer planting of lettuce is slowly growing and I cut a couple of heads of Tehama last week. The leaves aren’t quite as tender as those grown in cooler temps, but it was quite tasty in a salad I made yesterday for lunch.

Tehama lettuce

In non-harvest news, my wife and I made a trip to Moab, UT last week to visit Arches N.P. and other sites. We had plans to go there last year, but I came down with pneumonia and we had to postpone the trip. It was well worth the wait though, and we enjoyed hiking and sightseeing at several locations. I’ll share more photos later on, since we took a LOT of them!

hiking to the Turret Arch

Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And please check out what everyone is harvesting!


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