Hawking fun in Terre Haute

We've had lots going on at our house. I haven't had time to blog, but I will get around to it at some point. We are waiting to hear back this week on possible jobs for next year, pursuing a possible adoption in April, and a whole lot more, but in the meantime, here are some pictures from the IFA field meet from Yesterday in Terre Haute.

This is a melding of 4 pictures of Alan's Goshawk "Ghost" as she zips by me and clips me with her wing. Just last week she hit a camera man in the face...a "love tap". I had to change my pants afterward.

Greg's Harris Hawk named Sonora. She is a beauty. 

Sonora has a thing for landing on peoples heads and using them as perches.

One of the times when being bald wasn't such a good thing. You can feel those little needle-like claws "tickling" your scalp through a hat.

I kind of felt like this guy from Labyrinth walking around with that bird on my head. Luckily Sonora didn't start talking to me. 

Sonora showing us how it's done while smiling at the camera.

She finally got a rabbit and was more than happy to eat.

Chuck let me call his Red-Tail, Addie to my fist. She is quite the hunter and I'm totally jealous of Chuck. 

Addie has had a busy hunting season as you can tell by the almost non-existant tail feathers. She doesn't have much of a break left when she tries to stop. 

Me telling Addie that she would be more than welcome to come home with me. I didn't think Chuck would mind if I borrowed her for a while. 

Alan calling Ghost down from a tree. Blow up the image and see if you can see Ghost. She is well-named and hard to spot out in the field. And DANG, she is fast.

Tractors, Winter and Washington

In a whirlwind of craziness we finally made it to Washington. 

Nice 11 degree morning in Washington

B-man has had a great time with Grammy and Papa at the ranch. We took him out to see the horses and he couldn't have cared less about them once his eyes caught hold of the tractors. 

 He wanted to climb up on them and drive them all on his own. Then Papa came up with the backhoe and gave him a ride and he was in love from that moment on. 

Cute Pictures

I had the opportunity to take some pictures for our friends and I wanted to share a couple of the pictures of their kids. "active" would be a mild adjective to use for their little wigglers, even their infant wouldn't hold still, so we didn't get very many. But a couple of them are just precious.

Paper Moon Birthday

Last week was Barec's birthday. He is T.W.O. The child is totally obsessed with the moon. He points at it and in his extatic little voice happily cried, "Mooooo" (Of course without the "N"). So incidently, the party had to be moon themed as well. We wanted to shoot for something a little vintage for the theme and we love a picture of my great-aunt and grandfather posing on a paper moon back in the 1920's. We decided to build a little backdrop with a giant cardboard cutout moon and stars to take pictures with. Juliana made little paper mustaches glued to BBQ skewers for the kids. It was a lot of fun and Barec had a great time with his friends.

Gift bags, invitation, cake and "moon rocks"

The party boy

Barec with his friend M.

Our family

Barec moistening the cake while trying to blow out the candles.

So happy to be dancing with friends

Snarfing down his cake and ice cream

Ryan's Chipotle Beef Chili

I have had a few people ask for this recipe over the last few days so I thought I would post it and share with anybody who wants it. I have to toot my own horn here a little and say that I won the Halloween chili cook-off at church this year with this recipe.

Picture not my own: from Vegetarian Recipes

Ingredients:
2 lbs. ground beef or round roast
2 large onions diced
4 cloves of garlic minced
2 cubes of beef bullion
1 can diced tomatoes with juice (I prefer the fire-roasted kind)
2 6oz. cans of tomato paste
3 chipotle chilis minced (from the can with adobo sauce)
5 cans kidney beans (or mix it up with 3 cans kidney and 2 cans black beans)
2 1/2 cups water
1/4 cup dark molasses
2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
4 tbsp. brown sugar
3 tbsp. chili powder
1 tbsp. ground cumin
1 tbsp. ground coriander
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp. cayenne pepper (half the amount if you aren't very tolerant of spice)
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. oregano


Instructions:

1. Brown ground beef with onions and garlic over medium heat. If using roast, chop into bite-size pieces after browning the outside of the roast.
2. Mix all ingredients in a large cooking pot or crock pot and cook on low for at least 4 hours. I prefer to let it cook for at least 9 hours so the flavors can mix. And it's even better the next day as a leftover.
3. Optional: Add 1 tbsp cinnamon for a Cincinnati style chili flavor. You can also substitute fresh diced jalapeños for the chipotles to change the spiciness of the chili from the low burn that you get from the chipotles to a mild zing from the jalapeños.
4. Enjoy!