THE RAIN IS OVER....FINALLY

Well we had the rain..all week..the first couple of days is was nice..then it became dreary..We really needed the moisture so shouldn't complain..We have prediction for more rain this week on tuesday or wednesday and then again on saturday..When you live in the desert RAIN is big news. On thursday it not only rained but we had snow,sleet, hail and of course the rain. It was 38 degrees at 3 pm and 35 at 3:20 pm then at 7 pm it was 40 degrees, just couldn't make up its mind. The mountains all around us are glorious, lots of snow. I love looking at it and not having to deal with it.

Last week went good and I got everything done that I needed to do. The big things were CDAC and making sure the agenda for town board was sent to the county webmaster and then posted on time. I really don't have to worry because our secretary is great, but always feel I need to stay on top of things.

Yesterday I made ravioli..Phill helped by turning the handle on the pasta machine roller..which is alot of help, because the dough gets so long and thin that it is hard to roll and catch at the same time. I made cheese and spinach ravioli. Just dressed it with a tomato sugo..fixed spinach salad and garlic bread. Hans and Shawntell shared in the bounty. The ravioli are easy to make just time consuming. I don't have a ravioli press so I just go around them with the tines of a fork. Here is the recipe if you want to give it a try.

1 cup all purpose flour 1 cup semolina flour
3 eggs,beaten 1 tsp olive oil
2 tblsp water

I put it all in a food processor (kitchenaid would be better but with this small amount of flour it doesn't work well) and pulse until it forms a ball. If it is too sticky add a little flour and if too dry add water 1 teaspoon at a time. Turn out and knead for about 5-10 minutes. Wrap in plastic wrap and let stand for at least 30 minutes. This lets the gluten relax. Cut in 4 pieces, working with 1 piece at a time (keep the others wrapped) run thru pasta roller starting with the largest setting, fold in half and run thru again, do this a total of 6 times. Now reduce setting to next notch and run thru, keep running thru until you only have the smallest setting (1) left. Dough should be thin enough to see you hand thru, about as thick as a dime. You can roll out by hand but it takes forever. When dough is thin enough, spread out on board or marble and add filling, put a large teaspoonful about every 1 1/2 inches. Now take egg wash and brush around all edges, thru the middle, and between filling dollops. Fold in half over the filling, press out the air, take finger and press between filling, cut apart with a pastry wheel, now seal all the edges on each one with a fork.

I made up my own recipe for the filling it should be made before the dough and put in fridge until your ready. Here is the recipe:

1 medium onion, finely chopped 3 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/2 sm. container of cottage cheese 1 1/2 cups italian 4 cheese blend
1 egg, beaten about 6 oz of fresh spinach,
salt and pepper
Saute onion and garlic in small amount of olive oil until transluscent, don't brown it. Chop the spinach and put in with the onions and let it wilt down. Take off heat add rest of ingredients. Mix well and store in fridge until needed.

The 4 cheese blend I buy is provolone, parmesan, romano & asiago. You could use just parmesan, I used the 4 blend because I had it on hand. Just remember when you buy parmesan at the grocery it is in the cheese case and not in a green cyclinder in the pasta aisle.

Phill has done great this week. They did call and tell him to lay off the salt. That is an unreasonable request according to him. I keep after him but it does no good.

We had a visit from Keanu Frost this afternoon. It was great to see her. She is such a young lady and so beautiful. Where do the years go, seems like yesterday she was a little kid. She is leaving thursday night for Kona, to see her family and for Rainier's farewell. He is leaving first part of Feb. on his mission to Africa. I know Angela and Ken are excited that everyone is going to be there.

Well better get ready, going to dinner with Doris and Dick tonight. Take care everyone..Ruthie and Phill

IT'S BEEN A QUIET WEEK

It has been a quiet week and I was ready for it. Phill finally became theraputic so went off the fragmin shots finally. He has been on fragmin since 12/16. Don't know why he has so much trouble with his INR. They called yesterday and said he could stop and just take the coumadin. The home health nurse was here wednesday to draw his blood and bring all the monitoring equipment they have for him. We now have a base unit that hooks up to our phone line, it then transmits his weight, blood pressure, pulse and oxygen reading into town everyday. There is a remote scale, blood pressure cuff and O2 sensor, they can be placed anywhere within 50 feet of the base unit. I didn't know they had such equipment, kinda neat! This is because of his diagnosis of congestive heart failure. They can adjust his doses of lasix if things change too much.

We had lots of rain on tuesday and have prediction of more this week coming up. Hope we don't get any more snow. It is nice a couple of times a year but that's enough.

I ended up canceling going in to the guardianship class wednesday, just didn't feel like it. I tried to get a cold, but took lots of Vit. C and knocked it out quick.

Went in to town thursday to townhall meeting with commissioner, interesting, but too many people with their own agenda. We need to figure out county budget, but everyone just thinks of their own needs and not the population as a whole. Guess that is human nature.

Lazed around all day and then went out to dinner with Doris and Dick. We sure enjoy their company all winter while they are here. Middle of march will be here before we know it and they will be on their way back to Florida.

Liz and I have been trying to get some help with keeping NV Energy from building a power plant about 2 miles from town. They are going to capture gases from the Kern River pipeline pumping station to generate 6KW of power. It will be an unmanned site and they will have some very dangerous chemicals stored there. If they should have an explosion it would blow cars off the highway 161 coming from Jean to Goodsprings. BLM seems to think it is all okay. We are having trouble getting correct stats and the support of Clark County. Maybe we are just 2 crazy old ladies who don't want any changes as was stated in the Las Vegas Review Journal a year ago. We don't think so, but we sure have trouble getting people to see things our way. Of course over the years we've won lots of battles of this sort, so will just have to wait and see. We are really afraid that they have bigger plans down the road as they are putting in 148 fiber optic lines. UNLV only uses 1 fiber optic line for the whole university system, now why would they need that many lines???

Next weeks calendar is fully penciled in so guess I'll be busy. Everyone take care and let us hear from you. Ruthie and Phill

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

Well, I fell down on the job with this blog, I was so busy before Christmas that after all the hub bub I became a slugbug. We had a wonderful time at David's. It is so much more fun when you have little Santa believers around the tree. I am sure we filled the landfill in Pahrump with wrapping paper, ribbon and boxes. Of course Carley (9 months) enjoyed all the paper and boxes and was not happy when they were taken away. Everyone arrived by 6:30 on the eve before and we all enjoyed corn chowder made by Mark and Belinda. We played games and visited until the wee hours and then slept for a couple of hours before the kids got up and chaos reigned.

We did not have the traditional meal but instead Belinda's dad did 15 pounds of carne asada and we fixed all the trimmings. Phill was pretty much down all the time or else he would have stood over the shrimp and cocktail sauce and the rest of us would have done without. I did give him a few. We left about 3 pm. Christmas day so I could get us home before dark. I don't like driving up over that mountain in the dark. Mark stayed all week so he could have lots of time with his grandchildren. I guess they all had a ball.

I am trying to get things done so I can move Lulu in here with us. She is getting pretty bad with some dementia. I have her coming here to the house twice a day for her medicine. She gets confused and doesn't remember if she has taken it or not, so she takes it again. Before I took it away from her she took 7 days worth of doses in 4 days. One day she wants to move back to Canada, the next day she wants to move to California with her son, the next day she begs me not to let anyone take her from Goodsprings. It is sad as she has always been so active. Her 18 year old cat had to be put down a couple of weeks ago and that threw her for a loop. I am going to a guardianship class on wednesday to find out all the pitfalls, etc.

We learned last week that the daughter of some friends, Cindy and Russell Greathouse, was killed in Delta. Josie was a deputy with the Millard County Sheriff and she was gunned down by 2 guys she had pulled over. They were both illegals and the shooter had been deported 2 times but keeps getting back in the country. To make it doubly sad their son Ryan, who has had drug problems for years, had just finished making a drug transaction with the shooter. I feel so bad for the family. Ralph if you read this go on to ksl.com and on their search engine type in Josie Greathouse Fox and read about the funeral and look at the pictures. They had the funeral in the new Stake Center, which was just dedicated a couple of weeks ago, and the news said it took 1 1/2 hours for the procession to go from the churchhouse to the cemetery which was 1 mile. People in the community lined 350 East from Main to the cemetery holding large American flags. The pictures are quite spectacular.

We saw Phill's doctor last tuesday and he said that the pathology report showed that he did not get all the cancer. He suggested 3 things: 1> operate again, but some chances of nerve damage, 2> try radiation and 3> wait for awhile and see what happens, as basal cell is so slow growing. We decided to wait. Phill didn't want anymore radiation after the last go round cost him a kidney, he's afraid on his face it might effect his hearing or his brain. So we will go back in 3 months and they will see how it looks.

Oh yes, I must add that Carley is taking 5 or 6 steps by herself. She'll be running all over the place by her 1st birthday on March 2nd. She is sure a cutie, of course all our babies are cuties!!!

Last week was busy with doctor, CDAC meeting, forum on healthcare with Sen. Reid, shopping with Lulu (that is an experience) and our monthly dinner with church friends here in Goodsprings. I had it pretty easy in the cooking department. We ate out tuesday after doctor before CDAC meeting, thursday after healthcare forum with Claude and Liz, friday after our shopping ordeal with Dick and Doris at the Gold Strike and then saturday night we had our monthly dinner, or course I had to make a dish for that, but put on some stew in the am and let it cook allday. This week I only have to go to town 2 times, wednesday for the guardianship class and thursday a town meeting with our county commissioner.

Guess I better get some shut eye, hope everyone is happy and healthy.

Ruthie and Phill