Category: House

Consuming a teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper most every day for the last couple of years has upped my tolerance for hot things. I use the hottest barbeque sauce and the hottest salsas I can find, lately.

Today I’m making a large pot of spicy hot lamb stew which I’ll eat over the next few days as I play bachelor. I started out browning some fresh lamb stew meat, tossed in a half tube of Chorizo, a diced jalapeno pepper, some of my kickass Cajun seasoning and some Cayenne of course.

Then I sauteed up my veggies (onion, red peppers, garlic and mushrooms) and then mixed the meat in. Potatoes, carrots and celery were already boiling so I combined everything together into the stew pot and it’s slow simmering now.

Spring is finally here, the property is reappearing from under the white shit, and the mice are running out of places to hide. Piper’s going out once a day now, in the early morning, decapitating the little cute fuzzy things.

Summer is right around the corner, but sometimes it’s a very long corner around here…

If you have any electronic devices that require charging you probably plug them into an A/C outlet. Modern charging systems are basically USB cords plugged into their A/C device and if you pull the USB cord out and ditch the device, you have a better option.

My new Sentey LS-6141 arrived this evening, and I love it. It’s a brushed aluminium USB 3.0 hub that plugs into A/C so you get direct power, with a nice long USB cable that plugs into a USB 3.0 port on your computer. There are ten ports total and three of them are charging ports! I’ve connected and charged tonight my phone, my Nexus 10 tablet, and my Android Fire tablet with this hub, ditching three A/C chargers.

I stuck my mouse adaptor into the far left port and I still have six high-quality ports available, two of which will go to charge my scanner and it’s speaker, which still need a powered USB port to charge, just not as much as the larger devices.

Last Tuesday morning I walked over to the fancy restaurant at the Pioneer Hotel in Laughlin to have Crabcake Benedict. I deferred at the last minute for some Prime Rib Hash (that I regretted) and swore I was going to make my own CC Benny when I got home. Here’s this morning’s creation:

That’s Bernaise sauce btw, not Hollandaise.

Steph got me out of my warm office this evening to look at some tracks she spotted in the yard. They were big, about 5 inches across, and they looked like bear. I dropped the contrast down a bit for this shot and they certainly appear to be black bear tracks.

We’ve lived here for more than a decade and I’ve never seen a bear, even with multiple trips up to Yellowstone. Now one walks through our backyard, and I missed it…

I’ve never really liked rain. When I lived in Seattle raising Riley, I endured it. Now that I live in the Rockies, rain is good. It melts the icy ruts off the driveway, the snow off the roof, and exposes the grass that’s been hidden for months by that white shit. It also opens up more mouse hunting opportunities for Piper!

My snow tires are now off, probably prematurely, but I’ll deal with it. The rain can just keep on falling for all I care and Spring can’t come too quickly.

It’s a nice mellow Sunday around the old homestead today. Piper’s found a dry spot to hunt mice and contemplate Spring, Steph’s making things for a baby blanket and I’m cooking up a smoking pot roast out in the garage.

I’ve got this stew thing down. I start by browning lamb and beef stew meat together in olive oil, adding a little cajun seasoning and a few splashes of worcestershire. I pull the meat out when browned and use the juice in the pan to cook the diced onion, green pepper, mushrooms, cabbage and garlic. The potatoes and carrots meanwhile are boiling in a pot. When the veggies are cooked I add the meat back in.

The potatoes and carrots are drained and sliced and everything goes back into the pot with a couple cups of well water and slow-cooked for a few hours. The shot below is the meat and veggies just prior to hitting the pot.

I’ll add a finished shot later this afternoon. Go Seahawks, wait, Broncos!
Here you go:

Steph bought her own roof snow removal tool from Amazon recently. Today she was out there moving snow around so I figured the least I could do was un-hunker myself from the office and go video the event. Here you go:

Steph’s been freaking out over the amount of snow on the roof, afraid that it’s going to collapse. I don’t share the same concerns but I’ll certainly put my boots on and go outside to photograph it.

She got this long tool from my sister, specifically made to bring snow off roofs, and it worked pretty good. Click the photo below for some more shots…

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btw: my map app continues to improve, click refresh if you’ve been there before.

I opened the blinds at the kitchen window this morning and spotted this little visitor munching on one of our trees.

It’s not too often that I look at our driveway and know that I would probably bottom out my little truck trying to get out. Visions of calling in stuck were unfortunately just shattered by the subdivision plow guy, though.

What’s he doing out on a Sunday anyway? Damn…

I suppose no bird in it’s right mind, assuming they have minds, which I would interpret as a state of consciousness, would want to live in this little house now. Or maybe I’m the one out of my mind for trudging through snow up to my knees just to take this shot…

This is my view from the kitchen window tonight. Icicles, snow ready to crash from the roof to the deck, and blowing snow all around. Must be winter…