a peek inside the fishbowl

We visited my mother’s place on Saturday. The weather was gorgeous – perfect for a drive along twisty highway seven.

My mom has a pretty acre near a lake. It is a very scenic and restful little spot. The girls enjoy poking around and finding stuff:

One of the best features of this place is a great big fire pit. It’s dug deeply into the grass and is surrounded by a ring of rocks.

My mom’s place is pretty woodsy. (Some of you may recall my annual moaning about the Annual Raking of The Forest) and some of the leaves and twigs she cleans up end up in said fire pit.

It’s not time for The Annual Raking just yet, but she had a sizable pile on the go when we arrived. It hadn’t rained in these parts for about a month so the pile was crackling dry, made entirely of leaves and twigs. It needed to be burned down before dinner, so I crumbled up one piece of newspaper, lit one match, and WHOOSH, there goes the fire. Thank god I managed to hold on to my eyebrows. I have never seen a fire burn so high and so hot.

Once our mini-inferno died down we roasted our dinner, which included sausages, veggies, and POTATOES we had grown ourselves.

These babies were planted earlier this year. Potato farming was a first for us. It was very exciting to pull them out of the ground. The girls loved it. There was a lot of “LOOK AT THIS HUUuuuuuge ONE” and “LOOK THIS BABY POTATO!”

It is kind of neat to see, firsthand, where our food comes from, and get our hands dirty doing it:

We wrapped our special organic potatoes in foil and buried them in the hot hot ash to bake for about 90 minutes. They were delish. The irony here is that neither girl actually likes to eat baked potatoes. (I know. I can’t believe it either.)

Afterwards we played with fire. Not exactly safe I know, but it’s fun to poke a burning stick into the fire then and watch smoke rings curling off of it:

We drove home in the dark. Only stopping at Silver Lake to stretch our legs and gaze at the stars up above.

All in all a very good day.