Greetings from Tahoe

Merry Christmas from Lake Tahoe.  We are spending Christmas with Terrys Mom and Bob this year in Tahoe.  Patrick flew in from Atlanta and being on Georgia Time got up early to see the sun come over the hill and caught this gorgeous picture from the window.  I love the icicle..  Hope you all have a greet Christmas.

This is how you do it

As being demonstrated...you fill your cup with two fingers of brandy then hold it under the outflow until the proper mix is obtained...then drink...... but caution......you could break out in spontaneous song....not much appreciated by spectators!   And as I remember it ....a good time was had by all!

The Whole Fam Damily

Melissa, Dan and Granny posing at the apple press.

This picture has 4 generations (minus me cause I am taking the picture) of us.  My grandma, My mom, and my daughter!  Dan is helping chop the apples we are dropping into the bin for pressing.

We even made my 90 year old grandma work at the apple press.  In the picture is also Melissa, Dan and me.

More cider shots

Part of the process is taking the pot with the fresh cider, and transferring it to individual jugs for people to take home. I am doing this and as a bonus you get to drink the foam from the top!  It is awesome.
More crew pictures.  Mom and Alvin are sorting and cutting out buggy spots.  You can see they are neither one too far from the motivational jug of brandy!Here is a close up view of the squeezing process.  We keep a pot under the outflow to catch the cider as it is pressed out.  This is the hot spot for filling your cup.  Nothing like fresh, fresh, fresh cider.

Apple squeezing time!

This fall we had a record breaking apple season! So in the spirit of fall...we made cider! We have a friend down the road that has a press so we gathered apples...invited the whole clan....and had a blast. In this picture you will see Terry at the press, squeezing the cider, Lisa and Mark assisting, Emily watching, Jenny standing by, Damon supervising, Terry Fletcher from Twin Falls checking it out, Lori (my sister from Arkansas) and my Mom cutting apples and checking for bugs! This time we got about 15 gallons of cider to share. What is the best is to hold your cup under the fresh outlet while the squeezer is pressing and then add just a finger or two of brandy.....oh my.....we finished a whole bottle before we got all the apples pressed!! What a day. We weren't done yet. we got the fire pit lit, roasted marshmallows and sang songs while Lisa and Jeanne played guitar...Great end to a great day! Thanks neighbors, friends, and family!

Mom and Seth with an apple treat!
Mom, Lori, and Emily with buckets, wheelbarrows full of apples getting ready to press again. This was a couple days later after the first round....we still had tons of apples left so we had to squeeze again. We got another 8 gallons of cider.

Terrys Commute

I thought you might be interested in commuting to work with Terry this morning. Terry rides his little scooter about 1/2 mile to the warehouse where he picks up his company truck and any supplies he may need and then he makes the 17 or so mile trip to his park. This is one of the views of the road that takes him to his work. It is a little hazy this morning because of some fires burning on the West side of the state, but it still is quite nice as he gets to watch the sun creep over the hill and illuminate the river. On this particular morning he sees some familiar faces in the "traffic". A large Mountain Sheep ram is walking along the road fairly unconcerned with the passing cars. The ram is almost a full curl and is quite impressive to look at. Also this morningfrom across the river Terry spots a sow bear with two cubs enjoying the temperate morning before the sun comes to its full strength today. (But it is too far to get a good picture, sorry) Yesterday the temperature was in the 90's and more heat is expected today. I hope that you all have a great commute to your work this morning!

Cougar is spotted at Granny's

Hey all,
It's been a month or so and been really busy around here. Got most of the house painted, still working on trim cause we also changed out a couple of windows. You all know how home repairs go!!! Great story to relay to you all. (Subtitles for names and such will be provided) This morning at church mom (Dixie) said she had a good wild animal story to tell everyone. We are sort of goofy around here for wild animal stories, good, bad, made up ...it just doesn't matter, we are a captive audience. Anyway, mom (Dixie) says: "I went up to Moms's (granny's house) this morning to visit and check on granny." (Jo (Dixies sister) had come over from LaGrande for the weekend and mom(Dixie) had been out of town on Saturday and had not had time to visit). And Jo had let her little dog Scooter out of the house when Mom (Dixie) went inside. The little dog (he's a terrier) began to bark at the fence out by the gate. It was a weird kind of bark so they went to tell him to hush and when they looked out to see what he was all excited about, there was a cougar about 6 feet away on the other side of the fence. Of course the cougar is fairly intent at staring at the dog at this point and is just sitting there. So everyone crowded around the window from the inside of the house and watched...but Jo was concerned that the cougar might think that Scooter would be easier on the palate in place of the ears and called softly for Scooter to come inside...Well, once the cougar heard voices he high-tailed it out of there. Mind you this is all in broad daylight and Mom (Dixie) had just walked up the hill not 5 minutes before they spotted the big cat watching them. A little freaky even for us folk who live on the edge of the wilderness, but a darn good story on Sunday morning!! For those of you who are wondering, the picture of the cougar is just copied off the internet, no one got a pic of the cat before he left.

Lots of Berries

After two days of picking. The final count was approximately 5 gallons of Huckleberries and an extra 4 gallons of Blackberries (we pick the blackberries from the rivers edge on the party boat)
The close up picture is of the huckleberries. Pretty little things aren't they!

Oops! We got a flat.

The beautiful productive berry picking day ended with a hot dirty road side struggle. Luckily we girls are all pretty competent and durable so we all jumped out of the truck and started gettin' r' done. Road side hazard insurance on tires is a must in this country.

Duck Lake in the Eagle Cap Mountains

This is a picture of Duck Lake in the Eagle Cap Mountains. It is about a 25 mile drive from our house and has camping (the primitive kind without electric hookups and satellite tv!) We drove up here to pick berries.

Berries are on!

This past weekend the girls came home from Boise on a mission to pick berries. First we got up at 5:30am to head to the high country for the elusive huckleberry. We had heard of reported sightings and were going to bag us a couple gallons. Unfortunately while picking huckleberries you have to go to some of the most beautiful country you could ever imagine. It was very difficult to concentrate on picking those luscious little purple orbs when all of God's beauty and splendor sits right in front of you!! Somehow we managed. The following pictures are of us in the woods, and our friend Jenny (she shares the same birthday and birthday year as Emily) came along to bag her a gallon or so as well. Notice how purple stained our fingers are as we pick...but equally more impressive is how purple stained our mouth is NOT! No premature munching is allowed. (i confess that i had one or two while picking...but don't tell).

Hummingbirds at the feeder

I've been feeding the wildlife on the deck. This year we have about 12-14 resident hummingbirds that come for the free meal (refilling this small feeder twice a day). They are not as aggressive at the feeder yet because they are nest mates and get along for now. Later in the summer they will begin to be more territorial and I won't see such large groups feeding together. We have Rufus and Black chinned Hummingbirds.

Fishin Time

We usually kick Terry off the boat to fish by himself and he ends up being the dog taxi to and from shore. Pugs Sherman and Hazel are learning to swim, but why get your feet wet if you don't have to!!!

Emily caught "Big Fish" of the day with a 15inch Bass

Sometimes size doesn't matter when your tryin for "Most Fish"

It's easy to catch fish with so much help. Piper is learning the art of fishing from the master!!

This year we've seen two different mama bears with two cubs each from the boat. We didn't get a good picture but her two cubs are in the tree.

The Stromer Clan at the Reunion

The count put the attendees at 130+. Great food (thanks Doug), Great Hospitality (thanks Dean and Debbie) and Great people (thanks all you Stromer decendents).

Family Reunion in Iowa

Here is a picture of Emily, Vivian, Marian and Me...I guess Terry is behind the camera. We enjoyed visiting with family and friends. Dean and Terry are posing on the old tractor at Dean's place. It was a great time!

Melissa's trip to Amsterdam

Melissa went with her friend Jessica, Jessica's mom Paula and her friend Molly. They did the tourist thing and saw the gardens, canals, and windmills along with lots of other cool things.

Term break for Patrick

Patrick is on term break from school in Georgia and was able to make a quick trip home to visit family and friends. We, of course, put the boat on the water and went fishing and swimming. the water is still kinda cool but we had a great visit. Then for dinner we went up to Cornucopia (an old mining ghost town) and ate at the lodge. Great scenery! He is back at school now and will get another term break around Christmas time and will be able to meet us in tahoe for the holidays.

Almost a finished project

As you saw on an earlier post we have been working at installing a hardwood floor in our dining and living rooms. The project is down to the last strips of moulding and one more room to paint. As you all know you can't install new floors with out new paint, new curtains and new curtain rods. I have the hall to paint yet and the door trim as well as the pantry doors. But we can see the end of the project before long.

A new addition to the Family

The kids surprised me with a new puppy. Hazel is a 7 week old Pug. She is a ball of fire and thankfully small because she is very fiesty.

Happy Birthday to Melissa!
This year Melissas birthday was on Easter Sunday so it was great to have all the family (except Patrick, but we thought of him often) home to celebrate two great occasions!

Happy Birthday Patrick!!

We want to help Patrick celebrate his 23rd birthday across the miles to Georgia! So I decided to share his first birthday photo. You can see that he really liked cake! Happy Birthday Patrick! We love you!

Hard at Work

After our relaxing trip to Hawaii, it was time to get home and get some work done! Terry started tearing out the floor in the dining area to lay a new subfloor so that we can put our hard wood floor down. It was quite the chore. First up comes the old vinyl floor covering....then a layer of particle board and then two more layers of old vinyl flooring then absolutely nothing!! Part of the dining are didn't have insulation underneath...you could just look straight down to the earth! So more insulation was purchased...more plywood for subfloor and lots of screws! Here is a picture of Terry measuring and squaring up the plywood subfloor. Needless to say we have had quite a mess going.