beyond hats

Somehow last week I mustered up the courage to start looking at knitting patterns for things beyond hats. I decided to start small and knock off a baby shower gift at the same time. I found a simple sweater pattern and whipped up a sweater (size 6 months) in under a week.

From Knitting

It came out much better then expected and I've got to go through my yarn stash to see how big my next sweater will be...

Dzia Dzia comes to Telluride

Billy flew out to Colorado in May then he and Jon drove down to Telluride to see the Colorado version of campchaos for the first time. As luck would have it we were having fine spring weather...the kind that drops over a foot of snow and takes almost a full day to melt off the sidewalks. We had a good visit and made it up to the Telluride Historical Museum which was a highlight for all of us.

 Thankfully the clouds went away and we were able to get a few shots of them on Colorado Avenue in front of Ajax Mountain.

freegrass'n in Telluride

Telluride has a full summer calendar- not just this year but every year. It's an expensive town to begin with so sometimes we skip these events- plus Bluegrass sold out months ago so it was an easy choice to skip out. Meghan and Sam got tickets for Yonder Mountain String Band on Wednesday and Friday passes at town park so they pulled into town on Wednesday with Kaya and Echo in tow.
We did hit some free Bluegrass events and also enjoyed the acoustics of the box canyon from above. 

a three hour tour...

Friday night we pulled outta town and camped in the mountains above Telluride. Our neighbor always jokes with us that we're packing for a three hour tour as we load up dog food, sleeping bags, the tent, tripods and other gear.
We camped above Telluride off the Last Dollar Road... which is the same road that once killed the midpipe of the Subaru's muffler back in April of 2006. The moon made a good showing as it peeked through the aspen trees and the puppies toys created streaks across the dark sky. You can see those here...


Sunday we loaded up the dogs and headed up towards Alta Lakes so the dogs could get some much needed time in the sunshine. We headed up the road and found it mostly melted.... mostly. The 4Runner cleared most of the hard packed snowbanks easily... until it didn't. Dave backed up and did a second take....and the undercarriage came to rest on the glacial mound of snow and ice while the tires spun deeper in the softer snow. Somehow the avalanche shovel we keep in the truck wiggled it's way into summer storage and we found ourselves working at the ice mound with our axe and Mayhem's chuck it stick. One was very effective while the other was just good for throwing tennis balls. You can view all the good times here...

The phones worked fine and Dave called Emory who came to the rescue with his 4Runner and two young labs. Emory had two shovels and the boys were able to dig the truck out quickly. Cheers to friends with four wheel drive, shovels and time on a Sunday afternoon.

Trout Lake and Balloon Festival

The dogs had their first serious swim day this weekend and enjoyed the frigid waters of Trout Lake. Both boys swam until they shook. It jumped from winter to summer in the span of a week and we're now enjoying daytime temps in the high 60's to low 70's and went from snowy days to sunshine.

This year marked the first that we witnessed the Balloon glo on Colorado Avenue in Telluride. We each grabbed a camera and captured the shots. Dave used the D100 and the tripod while I used the Nikon S6000 and just clicked away.

mountainfilm in telluride

this is the first mountainfilm that we've been able to share with a visitor and Sara dived into it head first. The festival still has another day to go but so far we've seen 26 flicks (anywhere from 4 to 80 minutes long each) on topics ranging from the climbing photography of Jimmy Chin to truck farms (seriously, only a guy from MA would think of a farm in the back of his dodge ram in Brooklyn)

We enjoyed some time down by the river between movies on the first nice weekend we've had all year.

And headed to town park for some movies under the stars with friends after the sun set with a few light sprinkles.

Chaos Cookies- sans gluten

Today I took a break from baking for humans and made some cookies for Chaos and Mayhem. It's not the first time I've made them but it's been a while and it was my first time making them gluten free. We've banned gluten flour from the house as it gives me a migraine to bake with it and Dave isn't much of a baker.
I'd love to give credit but the recipe has been in my book since at least 2006 and I have no idea where it came from. We've dubbed them Chaos Cookies and they were very well received by a tough panel of judges, Chaos, Mayhem and their friend Stella.

Chaos's Gluten Free Dog Cookies

Ingredients
1 cup flour (I used my old batch of Gluten Free Featherlight)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup milk
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix Flour and baking powder then add peanut butter and milk. Combine then roll out on floured surface to 1/4" thickness. Cut out your pups favorite shapes or keep it simple. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown. Cool before serving to your pup! Keeps best in fridge or freezer.

I've found that a simple shape makes for the best cookie cutter. We had a skinnier dog bone cookie cutter but found that the bones broke easily. I also made some triangles for smaller treats for toy stuffing.

 The judges all agreed- they loved the peanut butter flavor and the smells that came out of the kitchen. They couldn't even tell that the cookies were gluten free.

Rock on....

Saturday we loaded up into the 4Runner with both two and four legged friends and headed back out to Clay Creek for some more time climbing. The weather was immensely warmer and I'd guess that it was in the 70's plus radiant heat from the sun.


 I managed to start a hat during our drive and adventures on Saturday and finished it up on Sunday. It's fun to be back in knitting mode again especially since we've had a foot of snow fall just today...