In preparation for the upcoming 3rd annual SC Campground Cookoff, here is my latest creation. It is a Grilled Apple Pie. Look closely, there is even more! It is an apple-pecan smoked, caramel apple, Wisconsin cheddar pie. Quite the mouthful to say and hopefully to eat. :-)

The contest rules state the recipe has to be original and can only be cooked over charcoal or open flame. No gas! The big kicker is that the whole thing from the time you light the fire to finished product is only 2 hours. Personally, I think that limits a lot of good grilling ideas. Although, maybe it adds to the creative aspect.

www.SCCAMPGROUNDCOOKOFF.com

This is my entry. If I could do both an entree and dessert, I would have done salmon smoked over a cedar plank with a cherry, molasses, honey glaze.

Happy grilling!

This little guy was on the front porch to greet us when we came home from a night on the town. We had been to see Toy Story 3 and then to dinner. Wasn't expecting it to be dark when we arrived home, so didn't leave the porch light on. Fortunately, the driveway light uses a light sensor to automatically turn on and gave enough light to see something was on the porch when I approached the front door.

He is an Eastern Black Rat Snake. They are not poisonous, but not what you want to walk up on in the dark. They eat other snakes and rodents. Looks like this one had some meals in the last several days based on the lumps in his body. I guess the porch was a nice warm dry spot to camp out for a while. The markings on his back are many time mistaken for Copperheads, but his head definitely is not a Copperhead shape. Our first snake! I got a shovel and coaxed him on his way. Hard to tell with only a little of the rocking chair in view, but I estimate him to be 3-4 feet in length and about the diameter of a shovel handle. He can grow to 8 feet in length.

We were invited to dinner a few nights back and our part of the meal was dessert. A recent issue of Taste of Home had these little treats highlighted as a light Summer dessert. They are watermelon replicas in personal sized form. The outside is a lime that is hollowed out and filled with raspberry sorbet. The seeds are mini chocolate chips. Very easy to make and very yummy!

This is our 4th Anniversary pie! It is called the Ultimate Caramel Apple Pie. Found the recipe on Food Network from Tyler Florence. Well worth the time to make it. The caramel sauce really made the pie very tasty. A friend of ours said it was better than his mom's. Oops! Won't mention names to protect the innocent. I made a little heart with the extra dough to put on top.

Here is the link to the recipe for anyone wanting to try. I used 2 Jonagold, 2 Royal Gala, and 4 Granny Smith apples and doubled the caramel part of the recipe. For some reason, mine took longer to bake and then just to be sure the apples cooked all the way through, I put the foil topper back on and turned off the oven letting the pie cool with the oven. I took it out of the oven the next morning since it was already 12:45am when I finally turned off the oven.

For my 38th birthday, Christie picked out a nice Belgian Waffle maker. This is the first waffle I made. Sweet potato waffles with bananas and maple syrup. Very tasty. I also got a cool new memory card for my camera that breaks the ties to the computer except to write about the pictures. The memory card has built in wireless connectivity to my home network and automatically uploads any pictures on my card even as I take them directly to my computer. No more taking the card out or making sure I have a cable to connect to the camera. Just turn on the camera and away they go.

Thank you to everybody who sent me birthday wishes and cards. I had a great birthday!

I went out to Christie's old house a couple weeks back and took some photos. It was fun to imagine Christie as a little girl running and playing out here in the rural part of Fountain Inn.





This is one of the big old trees that Christie used to play under when she was a girl. It was so big, the only way to fully capture all of it in one frame was to turn the camera on angle. I thought it made the tree even more interesting.













The other cool find was Christie's old tricycle parked under one of the other old trees. Sometimes our memories fade, but generally there are things like this tricycle even though tarnished is still highlighted in color. The joy that simple things bring...

These are Christie's edible Snowmen craft for the kids on their last day of school.
We like the hat on the last picture best. He looks like he has hair coming out from under the toboggan.

Carlson Family Thanksgiving 2009 at Dave and Rachael's new house.

Best part about carving a pumpkin is the roasting of the seeds after you scrape out its innards. A little Kosher salt, a little shaking to mix and roast at 350 for 20 minutes or so. Turn off the oven and let the seeds cool off with the oven. Remove when cool and enjoy!

Here is the 2009 Halloween pumpkin carving. Came out pretty nice and the kids loved it.

Charlotte has been busy since her last laying of eggs. This is one of the times I was fortunate enough to capture her in action. This insect was unfortunate. The images you are seeing were taken within a 10 second time frame. She quickly wrapped him up and set him aside for a tasty snack. After this, she proceeded to rebuild the web where he damaged it.

Hey Mom, this is the Swedish Rye bread I called you about. It turned out good, but not as good as what you made at home. We froze one loaf and have been snacking on it this week. I would like for you to send your recipe to me again. I apparently don't have a copy anymore.

With Fall just around the corner, memories of Grampie's pies have been coming to mind. Just the other day, I was able to make a pumpkin pie. A little nutmeg sprinkled on top and it felt like Thanksgiving. This was from the last Thanksgiving in Florida.

Sure enough, about 2 weeks ago, she built a sac one night and attached it quite securely to the glass and door frame. The egg sac is about 3-4 feet off center of the main web, but still very accessible by Charlotte. The heavy concentrations of silk that look like small cotton balls are attaching points to the glass. She reinforced each guideline with a strong footing. Ultimately, the sac is suspended in the middle of an intricate network. In approximately 150 days from the first of August, the little ones will find their way out of an overcrowded temporary apartment. Instinctively, by throwing out a single strand of silk they will take flight in the wind to a new home of their own beginning the process their mother did the season before.

It has been a while since we last spoke, but life has been full. One of the things we have been experiencing together is the growth of another life. A couple months ago we had a squatter come to make her home on our glass door leading out to the back deck. If you don't recognize her, she is a writing spider just like Charlotte in Charlotte's Web. True to the story, she has been eating well and growing in size.
Christie researched her and found out that she will rebuild the web every night and eventually an egg sac that holds approximately 1000 baby spiders. She potentially could produce 4 of these before the Summer wanes to Fall. First frost will typically take her life, but a legacy of hundreds will be protected in the sealed igloo so meticulously built 5 months prior. Their father will never be known by them. He is only in the web long enough to mate and then head off in search of another Charlotte. In his pursuit of other Charlotte's, he forgets to eat and usually dies of starvation. Occasionally, this makes for the meal of his last partnership.

to be continued ...

I am switching back to the simplistic ways of blogger. Shame on me for trying something different and expecting it to be simpler. So now my website is just that, a website. My blog will be the family side of me. News and photography and home and ...

Who doesn't love a nice Iris now and again? A whole patch of these showed up in the front landscaping last week. Very pretty. Every 2-3 years, iris bulbs can be split apart to produce even more the following year. I only uploaded one variety, but it looks like we have two varieties growing. The other one is solid purple and a little smaller flower although the stem is about 6-12 inches taller than these.

Three generations! We took Nanny to an assisted living center. She siad she was ready to go home to see her mom and dad and husband, but if she had stay here a little longer, this place would be nice. She will miss her home, but she seemed to enjoy the new place too. Lots of new faces and activities. Pray for her as she settles in and gets to know some new routines. Up until last week she was driving her car. Pretty good for a 91 year old.

God creates so many neat and interesting textures.

This is the Easter cross at Christie's parents church.