Six-hour vacation

Last week, Don and I did something fun: We took a "six-hour vacation," otherwise known as a day trip.

It was nothing elaborate, just a drive up to a mountain town for lunch and then back again. There's nothing much in this town. It has a population of less than 200. Yet we always enjoy our visits there.

On the way, we passed a corral. Horse trails are not uncommon on the drive up, and this corral was evidently where the animals could be kept. It was wildly overgrown with ferns that had gone golden.

We don't get much by way of extravagant autumn colors in our area, but what we do have is just lovely.

The road took us through some rocky canyon scenery.

In some places, just the tips of the trees were in sunlight.

We stopped along the river at one point and saw a group of common mergansers on the water.

As we climbed in elevation, we started to see more and more tamarack (larch), which holds the unusual distinction of being a deciduous conifer tree. Its needles turn brilliant golden in the fall and then drop.

We followed a small river/large creek all the way up. 

It's a popular destination for fishermen. We saw loads of floats and lines caught on an overhead wire.

This road sign was very accurate.

Nearly to the top of the mountains...

At last we hauled ourselves over the rim to find the town ensconced in an area of broad and beautiful meadows. As always, we fantasize about moving someplace this remote, though at our age it's probably better to be a wee bit closer to medical facilities, should we need them.

We stopped for lunch, a meal that proved to be so large that we had to take part of it home.

After lunch, we poked around town a bit. There isn't much to see except the grocery store, which is exceptionally well-stocked (doubtless due to the town's isolation).

In fact, they had broccoli at a better price than the nearest grocery store to us, so I bought some.

Then we headed back down the mountain. We passed a sign stating "Slide area."

Sure enough...

It was early afternoon by this point, and we passed through an area of distinct haze. Likely it was smoke, but there were no (visible) habitation in the area, so I might be wrong.

Those tamaracks can really pop with color.

The power lines along this route are nothing short of a marvel. Considering the steep and rocky terrain through which we passed, sinking the poles and stringing the wires was an extraordinary accomplishment.

Despite the bright sun, the valley was often shadowed.

We stopped at a bridge over the river. The road looks like it leads to some enchanted dell.

The road follows a creek, which dumps into the river.

Here's the river.

At one point we were stopped by some brief road construction. We landed right next to a patch of cattails.

As we got lower in elevation, we noticed this tall pine towering over its cohorts. 

The lower elevations also had more color.

This time of year, much of the color comes from a tree I've never been able to positively identify. Boxelder, perhaps? If someone knows the species, please post it.

Here's the bark:

And here's a close-up of a leaf:

We've decided we're going to take more six-hour vacations in the future. There are a lot of things to see in this region, and day trips are the way to see them.

Yogurt-making tutorial

After my recent "Dairy Day" post, a number of people had questions on making yogurt. I thought it might be apropos to put up a tutorial on how I make it.

Yogurt, of course, is not much more than cultured milk, so the first thing you need is a culture. While you might be able to get live cultures from certain brands of store-bought yogurt, my preference is to use a Bulgarian yogurt starter culture. Why this particular variety? It's because it can be recultured indefinitely. The purchased culture has five freeze-dried packets of culture, and I've only used one so far because I keep reculturing the latest batch.

I use skim milk for yogurt. Keep in mind that my "skim" milk isn't like commercial skim milk; it's probably more like 2%. All I do is ladle the cream off the top and call it good.

I pour the milk into a two-quart pot and put it over a low heat. Periodically I remove the skin off the top and discard it. I also stir the milk gently every few minutes to evenly distribute the heat.

The temperature needs to come up to between 176F and 180F. This is a slow process (don't crank the heat!) and may take up to half an hour.

Once it reaches this temperature, I turn off the heat and leave the milk alone. I don't stir it at all. It needs to cool down to between 106F and 113F, another slow process (this takes maybe an hour or so). It is crucial NOT to add the culture until it achieves the cooler temperature. I've accidentally killed many a culture by unthinkingly adding it to the hot milk.

By the time the milk is cooled to the correct temperature, it will have developed a fairly thick skin on the surface. Just discard it.

Now it's time to add the culture.

You can just scoop the culture into the warm milk and mix it thoroughly, but it tends to be lumpy no matter how thoroughly I mix, so I've developed a little technique. I use a jar or cup to scoop up a bit of the warm milk...

...then I scoop the culture into the jar.

Using a fork, I "beat" the culture into the milk until it's smooth.

Then I pour it into the warm milk...

...and mix it thoroughly. (No lumps!)

Then I pour the milk into the bucket of the incubator.

The bucket slips into the Styrofoam sleeve of the incubator. I let it sit at least eight hours or overnight (since I usually make yogurt in the evening).

By morning, it's beautiful creamy stuff.

This is where I scoop out a bit to culture the next batch. I also date the culture.

At this point, the yogurt is fine to flavor and use. However sometimes I want a thicker Greek-style yogurt, so I drain it for an hour or two in a yogurt strainer.

You can see how much liquid drains out after just one hour.

This is the result. Now I can flavor it however I wish.

Making yogurt might sound kinda complex, but actually it's a fairly hands-off and simple procedure.