Still life with cheesecake

As has become our tradition, I made a cheesecake for Anna for her birthday. Also lamb chops, with grilled asparagus etc.  This version was lemon, and went nicely with the lamb and a nice Rhône!

Stove story

Our kiddo went camping in the Mojave with a pal for spring break, and had trouble with the newly-acquired stove, which led to Dadly guidance relayed by text message. I drew up these IKEA-inspired instructions for future reference!

Ride Up a Hill

I always need to do a somewhat foolish hill climb around my birthday.  This year is no exception; Pacheco Canyon is usually partially snow-covered in spring.

 

Snowshoeing here and there

We got out for some snowshoeing in the good weather - first up the hill behind Santa Fe, and then a few days later over at Valles Caldera with our friends Robert and Kathleen.

Plumbing

 We discovered that we do, in fact, have water down at the barn; unfortunately it was not in usable shape and I managed to break the pipe in the process of excavating enough to determine how it was put together. We took it as an opportunity to install a proper freeze-proof hydrant, and in the nick of time too as the temperature dropped and we got snow the next day!

Weekend jaunt

 We wanted to camp for a long weekend, but it is winter, so we headed south.

First stop: Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument.  I love that the monuments no one has heard of are not crowded but still cool.

Later we found good BLM camping at Three Rivers Petroglyph site.  We enjoyed the full moon and poking around the 21,000!! petroglyphs scattered among the rocky ridge. 

White Sands the next day was, of course, unreal.  We had good clouds, which made everything more photogenic.

Given that we spent quite a while at White Sands, we decided to stop at City of Rocks to camp, a little short of the next day's destination.  Fortunately there was a good site left amidst the rocks.

The next day Gila Cliff Dwellings was well worth the long windy drive.

And if that weren't already enough weekend fun, we headed over to to see friends just over the Arizona border.  Retirement treats us well.

So many good sunsets

 We are lucky.

What are you doing out?

 I found a friend while making a ski rack.

Snow Play

 We've definitely had more time to get out and play in the snow this year.  Between skiing at the local resort, skinning up the hill on the backcountry skis, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing, there are many good choices around here.