ϟϟ Rattlesnake...it's what's fer dinnerr! ϟϟ

Yesterday was such a nice and different day...very relaxing and refreshing. While we were fartin' around at the lake, we talked about enjoying that rattlesnake pretty soon. Jenn has it in their 'F'-word (Freezer), and we wanted to have it together. We figured we would just have everyone from 'camp' come and try a bit in the next day or so. Everything fell into place to do it tonight, SoulRaven didn't make it but we were sure to save him some. The ladies, Miss Cherry & Jenn, came over with the snake and some yummy veggies.

[caption id="attachment_910" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Making stuff up[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_909" align="aligncenter" width="300"] "Laying it down"[/caption]

We laid the snake meat on aluminum foil and wrapped the veggies in other foil packets, only seasoning them with a small amount of garlic and Bragg's Sea Kelp seasoning.

[caption id="attachment_924" align="aligncenter" width="300"] ♫ This is how we do ♪[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_913" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Looks nekkid[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_920" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Looks interesting, eh!?[/caption]

The meat looks like bony fish meat... piece it together, you got yourself a snake (kinda creepy to look at it like that). haha

I was glad Miss Cherry made it over, she's always so much fun...she even creeped on me! haha

[caption id="attachment_912" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Peeping Cherry![/caption]

We all got a few pieces of the snake along with fresh veggies and Garlic knots that Jenn made...um, yum (even though they weren't cooked all the way...messin' with you Jenn!) Everything was great. They say rattlesnake tastes like chicken, frog legs, quail. I just think it tasted like bony, stringy rattlesnake, ha!

[caption id="attachment_919" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The Fearless Foursome![/caption]

It was a fun night to try something different and I think it's always good to try new things, especially with the journey we went on with these snakes, phew.

[caption id="attachment_921" align="aligncenter" width="300"] That's a wrap![/caption]

 PEACE

Mocked by an Iceless Cooler

 Even with the days being different most of them usually just intertwine into each other and make for one really long day instead of 7 separate days! This week some very chilly showers have been taken, the weather is changing a little bit at a time each day but the winds that come through here can be a bit extreme...especially when you're 'nekkid' and wet!

[caption id="attachment_832" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Clean and pristine jellybean[/caption]

I cleaned our grill...didn't know it was that nasty. We actually had an interesting night the other night, okay... You know how we were trying out that new iceless cooler (Thermoelectric)? Well we bought it last Saturday, we plugged it into our system and it did really good the first 36 hours, it got down to 34 degrees...not too shabby! We did our other errands in Fresno (with sun hitting the solar the entire day) and headed back up the mountain. We kept it plugged in the first night into the next day and woke up to a mostly cloudy day, our solar was on a yellow light just about the entire day...not good. We unplugged the cooler during the night due to the temperatures being much cooler when the sun's not out. The next day was cloudy too and the solar barely caught up to a green light. We went through this for the next few days, plugging this thing in and unplugging that thing, until finally we were at a loss with yellow lights on the solar and having no cold food...we were going to have to return it. I think about the last night or so we were going to cook all of the chicken so it wouldn't go bad and actually J' was going to cook ME dinner! What a treat!! When he went to get the chicken (that we forgot to bag-out into different bags) out of the cooler, I guess it took him a minute to process what was going on. There was chicken juice all over the bottom of the cooler, like 2 inches thick. Thank goodness we just had sodas in there at that point. So he took the bag and rushed it over to the "kitchen" all the while it's pouring out of the bag everywhere...in the van, in front of where we open our side door, all the way to the grill, on top of the table, the grill, the garbage...it was a HUGE mess. He ended up making dinner very quickly due to all of our hundred thousand new yellow jacket friends that wanted to partake in our juice party! We ended up being prisoners in the van for the rest of the night due to the volume of the little buggers. The next morning I woke up and looked straight at the grill to see if they were still around...there were still loads of them, great! I got up, unhooked the grill from the propane and went to the other side of the rocks to clean it. I didn't have anything to really scrub it with, so I just got some of our Simple Green and some aluminum foil (for a scrubbie) and went to town (the foil actually worked). Boy, did she need it too! I figured this would be a good pre-cleanse before we take off in the next month or so anyway.

[caption id="attachment_834" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Pretty darn clean![/caption]

 So after our whole grill-chicken-yellow jacket thing and a lot of cleaning everywhere, we decided that the "cooler" has to go back, it's just sucking way too much power and it's just not for us. We would take it back in a couple of days, all of our meat is already cooked and we were waiting for a package to be delivered to Shaver Lake in the next couple of days so we could wait. The following day was pretty much full of boredom, there are just those days that nothing you do is fun or motivating and you just want it to be a new day or you want to be somewhere or do something different. We went down into the brush and walked around, probably a bit too comfortable with nothing but shorts and flops on. I mean, if there were snakes and goblins anywhere it would definitely be where we were walking, but being up here so long and not seeing anything you get a little too lax I think. We walked around, in bushes, through rocks and their crevices...I was actually pretty proud of myself for not freaking out. I was more scared of spiders than anything because those things are so small you can't even see them half the time then, you look over your shoulder and there they are sitting there, along for the ride....creepy!

[caption id="attachment_838" align="aligncenter" width="225"] In the brush[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_839" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Bug in the brush[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_840" align="aligncenter" width="300"] A different view of our camp site! From down unda'[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_841" align="aligncenter" width="225"] She's so cute![/caption]

After our hike through the woods, we sat for a little while longer and then J' wanted to go for another round of walking...probably the most "exercise" he's gotten in one day in a while (all he does is work!). We were just going to walk up to say hi to SoulRaven but when we got there, he wasn't there so we kept walking down to The Passion Post where "the town" was a buzzing! Everyone was there sitting around, chit-chatting.

They had all gone down to Shaver Lake for the day...our invitation was lost in the mail I think! It's all good, they invited us to go with them this coming Tuesday which I'm super super duper stoked about, I've been wanting to go to the lake this whole time but it's kind of hard with one vehicle which, even if I could have it for the day, would not be driving out of here myself...not on these rocks! J' always wants to work and I tell him he needs a mental break sometimes but he never wants to take it, so I'm stoked to go play with the other kids in the neighborhood, get some good sun and just take it all in from a different perspective! Oh and Miss Trish got us some awesome seasonings, what a sweetheart thinking of us like that! Thanks Miss Trish...love ya doll!

[caption id="attachment_844" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Our food even gets yummy stuff![/caption]

 We are planning on Fresno tomorrow to return that cooler so wish us luck and I'll let you know how it goes and what we get to put in its place. Tata for now my peeps.

PEACE

Enough, I say...E-nough.

Not much is going on but I figured I'd write anyway...I can always find something to write about! We need to find some more creative food/meal ideas. Here's an example of our meals throughout the day. Breakfast~ Oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon added to our liking, sometimes butter if we have it on deck. Lunch~ pre-made tuna sandwich; chicken salad from can sandwich; peanut butter & jelly sandwich which I cannot eat Peanut Butter anymore...yep, it's a stinker. Dinner~ if we didn't have one of the previous sandwiches for lunch, we will make it for dinner, sometimes we dive into our Mountain House for a deluxe meal. I'm just telling you, this girl (pointing to me) needs to eat more than that a day, okay! My metabolism is faster than a cheetah trying to tackle a zebra! Right now we are pretty much eating what we had stored at our house before we left or stuff that was in our cabinets. A couple of weeks ago we bought some spaghetti noodles and sauce. The sauce is long gone but we have been using the noodles to mix with other things we have like, white chicken chili or this other chipotle chili we have. We are running out of food, but we are also running out of ideas. I have been looking up recipes but I'm running into a couple of problems; 1~ the recipe calls for either baking or refrigerating or both during or after cooking/baking it. 2~ We would love for meals to go a long way, but we only have a cooler that uses ice, our 2 blocks of ice seem to be gone within 3-4 days. 3~ I don't want to buy a bunch of ingredients I will only use in the one recipe. 4~ I'm not a creative cook, I cook out of necessity, not out of a fun time. We both want to either grab and go or like ten minutes max on things...I'm willing to change this... if necessary. I have been looking into different types of milk, mostly soy or almond milk that does not need refrigeration and trying to find recipes that I can make without throwing the cookware at a tree...I told you I'm not a cook! haha We have been eating cup-o-noodles (sounds tasty huh?), the easy mac and hamburger helper mini's...I think we may just start buying regular boxes of mac 'n' cheese now that we are sitting still...the noodles are always still crunchy in those little things because we don't have a microwave. I would love to get some kind of meat. Right now, that would be amazing to be grilling up some chicken or something...yummy! And my body is always craving fruits and veggies. I would love to have a salad every single day, like I used to make back home...I can make salads! I have been having dreams of gorging myself on salad, I think it's time! Miss Cherry gave me a couple of pieces of fruit a couple of weeks ago. Eating that peach was almost orgasmic and the plum was pretty good too, she got them from the market here at Shaver Lake. You know they are good when they are grown right around the corner, literally. They smelled so good, I couldn't stop smelling them, Miss Cherry said, "I'm sure there's more if you want some." haha Like I'd never seen a peach in my life! It was pretty funny. With the whole eating thing, it's a lot easier for J' to eat than me...he'll eat just about anything. Me...I'm a picky eater but for a reason. My stomach does not digest foods the same way as everyone else, there are certain things I do not like and certain things my stomach does not like, then there's both. For a while now, I get sick everytime I eat peanut butter. I thought it was just something else I had eaten with it...I LOVE Peanut Butter. I stopped eating it for a while and the other night I had a peanut butter sandwich, and not that much so I wouldn't be that sick...low and behold, there I was... sick. I told J' to not let me have Peanut Butter again, no matter how much I said it wouldn't affect me. Eggs do the same thing and there are others but I'm not going to list all of my problem foods...bor-ing. So if I could get some recipes or ideas for stuff you don't have to put in the oven, rather not have to melt anything and all of that on the stove-top either, but I guess I might have to do some work, not refrigerate then I'd be golden. There has to be something out there than just bread that we can eat for a snack! haha I think this is the sadest post yet! As I'm posting this, a friend just sent me a link that is on this very topic. So with that I'm out!
PEACE