Sweet Love and Ginger

Camping/hiking

Brody Stories: Hiking Abraham & Ellen VT

By

This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

Oh! Hi again! Hi Hi HHIIEEEE!

In case you didn’t have the pleasure of meeting me before,
my name is Brody, I was adopted by my mom and dad not too long ago, and most
of the time they are the best parents in the whole world.

Ya know I really love that they love the outdoors as much as
I do, but sometimes my mom is a little too crazy about it.

Last weekend best friend Baxter came over to my Grand-momma
Chucks house and spent the night so that our moms could take us hiking the next
day.

I was so excited I got up a couple times in the night and my
mom had to put me back to sleep, but eventually she finally got her lazy butt
up and we drove all the way up to Bristol VT. We left Baxter’s moms car in Jerusalem at the Jerusalem trail head
and took my mom’s car to the Lincoln Gap Trail head. The road up there was
REALLY steep, and Baxter and I were all excited because we knew we would get to
play in the woods soon.

The Lincoln Gap trail up to Abraham was super easy for me, but I had to
keep going back to check on my mom, she’s a lot slower than I am. I had a
little trouble with a couple of the scrambles, but I got through them all on my
own, and after 2.6 miles we were at the top. We had to go on the leash then
because of the vegetation up there, but that was ok, I was ready for a snack and
a little break, plus it was pretty.

 

Next we hiked along the ridge, for about 3.7 miles. It was
pretty easy and a nice walk, Baxter and I had a good time racing up and racing
back to our moms. We got to take little a break near Sugar Bush, and a quick stop to read the sign on Lincoln peak, then by the
time we finally hit Mount Ellen I was starting to feel tired. Luckily Mom took
a break and I got to take a quick nap in the soft grass before we started to descend
the 4.3 miles down the mountain. The first part was pretty rocky, and steep,
but then it flattened out some and was easy downhill walking the rest of the
way out.

When we finally got to the car our moms told us that they
were left the keys in the other car, so we had to keep walking down the road to
the country store and wait for my Grand-momma to come save us. She’s the best.

It was a lot of fun, and also super tiring. I did nothing
but sleep on the way home, and all the next day. Mom was pretty much there with
me since we hiked a total of about 12 miles (including the 1.4 to the store).
 

Welp that’s all for now! Have a great weekend!!

Oh P.S. My mom wants me to give a shout out to Carrie for some awesome pictures of me!

I LOVE Camping

By

This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

All Chuck wanted for his birthday was to go camping for a long weekend.
We were lucky enough to have this beautiful lake all to ourselves for four whole days.
There is something so inspiring about being in the wilderness out of touch with “real life” for a while.
This is why I love backcountry camping.

A Mushroom Hike

By

This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

Last
weekend I went camping (shocker) with my parents. During the trip my mom wanted
to hike into this lake to this one rock where we took a family picture 10 years
ago, so obviously we had to oblige.

 

It
must have been all the rainy weather that we had up till now that sparked all
their growth, because I have never seen so many mushrooms in one short .7 mile
jaunt into the woods. It was startling!

These ones were only about the size of my finger nail.

Nature is amazing!

Camping

By

This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

Camping is like the best thing you could ever do, and doing
it with friends is even better; even especially when it rains.

There was lots of fishing, puppies getting in trouble
playing and beers. Not to mention all the amazingly delicious food cooked over
the open fire, a great new wine that Joann brought us; and though Patrick’s
Fish may have been smaller than Chucks, his was much more delicious, so were
the bacon hot dogs his dad got us. Oh and Momma Chuck thank you so much for
coming by and bringing us all the things your son and I forgot to pack in all
our excitement to get out there.

We tried to get Brody to be a water dog, but it appears he
would much rather be sitting in the boat than in the water, so maybe he will be
a good fisher dog instead.

And sorry some of these pictures are fuzzy blogger is giving me issues again. I jsut don’t understand it!

A Weekend in Wine Country & French Onion Casserole

By

This post may contain affiliate links. I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

 

 

 

 


So last weekend, I FINALLY made the trip out to visit one of my good friends from college in Ithaca NY. It was a blast! Brody and her 1 year old puppy Baxter are now pretty much best friends.

This is in the heart of NY Wine Country, so of course we drank a little wine, visited a few waterfalls, and went to farmers markets. It was great just being able to catch up and playing with our pups. They were so spoiled the whole time. They had all kinds of fun on nature trails at the dog park, and just in the back yard. Little Brody was so tired that he slept the whole way home, and then for the next 2 days as well. The little guy was barely playing at the end of it, but he would not take a nap no matter how hard I tried.
 
Now while I was gone I wanted to leave Chuck with a hearty dish that he could eat over the weekend, and thought a casserole would be perfect. I wanted something French Onion style but aside from green bean casserole, and minimalist French onion casserole there was really nothing, and definitely nothing hearty enough to keep Mr. Meat and Potatoes satisfied for an entire weekend.

So of course I improvised.
I still wanted something meatless (generally speaking) because of this whole quest thing that I have been on to make vegetables our main focus, but I added some pasta (surprise!), and a few vegetables that I thought would go well with the flavors. These made for a pretty hearty casserole in my opinion, and considering that Chuck now wants me to make it once a week I think it was a hit.

French Onion Casserole
3-4 large onions, sliced thin (I used white & yellow)
1 tbs oil
1 tbs butter
1 tsp salt & pepper each
1tsp thyme
2 tbs flour
1 large carrot, shredded
2 cups of beef (or vegetable)broth
(1 tbs soy sauce if using vegetable broth)
1 cup frozen peas
1 ½ cups frozen French cut green beans
1 lb pasta, cooked aldente
¼ cup shredded mozzarella cheese
2/3 cup shredded gruyere cheese
Sprinkle parmesan cheese
In a large thick bottomed sauce pan heat oil and butter, and layer in the onions with salt & pepper. Sauté, onions for 1-2 minutes, until the edges begin to brown, and reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 20-25 minutes stirring occasionally until the onions have become caramelized. Bring the heat up to medium high and stir in the thyme, carrots and flour. Continue to stir for 1-2 minutes until well blended, and deglaze with broth. Allow the broth to simmer for 3-5 minutes, while stirring and scrapping browned bits from the bottom of the pan. As the sauce begins to thicken mix in peas and green beans and cook until they have softened. In a large baking dish toss together the vegetable mixture and cooked pasta. Top with both mozzarella and gruyere cheeses, and sprinkle parmesan on top. Place in a preheated oven at 400 degrees and cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and bubbly. Serve warm.