Lets Cook

 This past Christmas, Cupcake gifted a new Blackstone griddle to Lawman. Our plan was to put a ten foot deck on the Bitch Barn and use the griddle down by the ponds. The people who gave us estimates on the deck fell through by spring, and we refuse to beg people to take our money. We changed up and decided to see if the griddle would fit in the new 5th wheel. We have room for a dozen griddles. If we didn't mention it last week, we love the new rolling hotel suite. 

In Cupcakes former life, grill construction was not an option. Nobody in her life was willing to put in the work. Lawman has no such flaw. Less than one hour later, we were up and running.

After he got the griddle put together, he hooked up the tank to it and seasoned it. So we're ready to cook anytime.

After we seasoned it and it cooled off, we put her away in the pull out storage area.

Now that we're ready to cook and camp, we needed to get a more permanent parking spot. Lawman got on the gravel list and delivery came Friday morning.

Lawman wanted practice hooking up and unhooking, so he moved the wheeler until after the delivery, then parked it back in it's new home. This made coming and going much easier. We're ready to roll now.

Non camper related things, we got word that friends of the family were under the weather, so Lawman whipped up a lemon pound cake for them.

Then by the weekend, our new neighbor's house renovations were completed, so he made another duck egg lemon pound cake as a "welcome to our hood."

We ended the week with a nap.

K&K

So, We did a Thing

 That's what all the cool kids say on the interwebs when they buy a car or a house. We kinda did both. It's a house on wheels, or as our bud from the People's Republic says, "A rolling hotel suite."

We've been talking about buying a new camper for a few years. The Boy and The Girl are off doing their own thing these days, and one of our dreams is to travel to the land of Lonesome Dove drama, Montana. But we knew we would need a larger camper to travel across country. First step: The Truck.

Second step: 5th wheel.

We bought "Deathstroke" three years ago, because Lawman always wanted a dually, and Ford had the best 5th wheel towing rating. The plan was to pay him off, then use the truck payment money to buy the 5th wheel.

We had a plan to start looking at campers in the fall, checking out the new year models, and getting on the road by spring of next year. Cupcake had a couple of days off for Easter, so we decided to use the free time to dip our toe in the water and see what was out there. 

The first place we stopped was "Family RV" in Salem. We wandered around the lot looking at the outside of the 5th wheels, but we were drawn to the biggest one on the lot. Kenny brought keys out and opened it up for us. If we had sat down and wrote out everything we wanted in a camper, this one would have been custom made for us. Endless storage. King bed. Full size shower. Washer/dryer. Full size oven. Full size fridge. Two fold out queen beds. Heck, it even has massage chairs that recline.

We looked around at a couple of other lots, a few different models, but none of them matched the first one. We decided to pull the trigger and bring it home. We just sold the old camper, and planned on putting the new 5th wheel in the same spot. The old camper was 30ft, the new one is 42ft. We had plenty of room behind the old camper, what could go wrong? 

It didn't fit.

We put it in the driveway until we can get a load of gravel or millings to the house so we can make a new spot. Apparently millings are all sold out and the gravel crusher at the local quarry is broken. 

We got it set up and started filling it up with everything we think we will need. Our first trip is planned for next month to shake it down and figure out if we need anything else.

Full size shower

Double sink

King bed, master bedroom

Walk in closet

Living room

Full size fridge

Full oven

Island and counter space

The Dudley twins working out which bed is theirs

Fireplace all lit up

Reclining heated massage chairs

Lawman added a personal touch.

The guys down at Family RV were so good to us, we decided to take them some eggs and jelly. Then Lawman broke out a brisket and smoked it up for the guys lunch the day we brought the new addition home. We are still working on a nickname for the camper.

We ended the week with a nap.

K&K

Country Life

 Lawman lived in the big city for almost 20 years. He got use to hearing sirens, helicopters and random gunfire from time to time. Retirement to the country, now we wake up to guineas, coyotes, and occasionally, cows in the front yard.

Lucky for us, their owner has them bucket trained. It's just a short walk back to their side of the fence.

And it's garden season here at The Acre. Pop plowed up our gardens about a month ago. This week, neighbor Zach came over with his tiller and worked up the gardens for us.

The Dudley Twins inspected his work. They approved.

Last week we mentioned that our duck eggs didn't move very well. We hit on an idea to use up several of them. Every morning, Cupcake fixed them scrambled eggs and we usually have leftover green beans, carrots, something from the night before. Reading the ingredients on dog food bags, we see chicken and rice is a common ingredient. So instead of ten cups of dog food every morning we do eight scrambled duck eggs, leftover veggies, one cup of brown rice and two cups of dog food. 

This particular morning, we had leftover salmon from the night before. They really liked that. We decided that we cook more for them than we do for us.

We did some baking this week. The neighbor lady across the street from us offered Cupcake a couple of paintings. Cupcake swapped her a batch of Lawman's choco chip cookies.

Then she said she read about us baking with duck eggs, and wanted to try a pound cake made with duck eggs. Lawman went to work.

DeNephew Henry came over this week to help Pop with some brush, so we fed him dinner before we sent him home. He enjoyed the lemon pound cake so much, he took some home with him.

The Boy enjoyed the pound cake so much, he requested a lemon pie for this week. Once again, Lawman went to work, and a few more duck eggs went in the mix.

None of that "crazy granny" store bought pie crust

We ended the week with baked donuts, and a nap.

K&K