Friday night we hosted a lovely dinner party celebrating our friend Jill’s birthday a few days late. Terry and Jill, Jeane and Steve plus Geoff and Nancy joined us for a delightful dinner and evening. It’s always so good to get together with great friends. I like to use my crystal, china and good silver. I’m not careful with any of it–all of it goes in the dishwasher with the exception of the wine glasses which are too tall for the top rack. If I had to wash it all by hand the pieces would never be used. This is my paternal grandmother’s silver. I was the oldest grandchild and my father purchased this silver for Grandma when he had his first job–so I inherited it and I love using it!
How many of you have a Keurig? My dear friend Jane gave me a one cup Keurig as a gift for their staying in our motorhome that year at North Ranch. It makes an outstanding cup of coffee. The Cowboy and I love our coffee and between the two of us we drink about five good sized mugs of coffee each morning. We use Kirkland Dark Roast Espresso Beans and a two pound bag will last us approximately 50 days. At $11 for that two pound bag and about $0.03 for the filter, each cup of coffee we drink is costing us approximately five cents compared to the $0.30 per cup using the Keurig! And $0.30/pod is conservative–the good coffee costs more. Don’t get me wrong, I use/love the Keurig–the Cowboy often rises in the wee hours of the morning as in 5am and he starts the coffeemaker. I may not get up until 7am–by that time the coffee has been sitting for two hours and tastes like mud. Rather than make another whole/half pot, I use my trusty Keurig. Then our friend Sarah told me her mother uses a refillable/reusable filter. The UPS man delivered my refillable pod on Thursday and it works very well–I’m a happy camper!
Wednesday while in Billings we stopped at Pierce RV and browsed through various RVs (the reason behind this madness will be explained in later blogs!! 🙂 ) In one slide in truck camper we viewed which the Cowboy declared a “cheap piece of ^#@&” the mattress lay beside the refrigerator and the refrigerator door could not be opened due to the thickness of the mattress. I asked the salesman, “what’s up with this???” You won’t believe what he told me–“fold the mattress.” There was a factory crease/fold in the mattress and that’s what some crazy RV manufacturer expected you to do every time you wanted to open the refrigerator–just fold that mattress!! Good grief, where do they get these ideas???? Have any of those RV designers actually used a RV????
Glorious weather today with a high of about 74 degrees. Nat and Barb came for lunch and when we enjoyed our homemade chocolate ice cream I thought we were going to have to get Nat a blanket–he thought it was chilly! Barb and I thought it was just right!
All these photos were taken from our recent trip to Twin Lakes–the Big Hole valley is famous for its haystacks made using these beaver slides. We did see this one in use, most of the big ranches in that valley have gone to large bales–round or square. We saw lots of crooked trees with these burls–the Cowboy thought it might be caused by the heavy snow load this area sees in winter.
I just can’t get enough of these reflection photos!
Restoration Cowboy Style 
When my father-in-law got older he used to say his internal furnace was going out! That’s where I am now too. It was really hot here and today it cooled off and I had to don a sweater.
Fold the mattress?…they are nuts! I find the coffee not strong enough with those single cup machines. I like my coffe strong enough to have a coffee spoon stand upright 😉
Love your silver.
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We drink our coffee quite strong too Vera!
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Love your Silver and beautiful pics!
No, I don’t think RV designers, manufacturers or sales reps actually use them. That’s crazy, I agree.
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The RV guys are often affronted when I voice my opinions such as “were they blind when the designers picked these colors!!!” But that folding bed took the cake!
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The bent trees at one time were done by Indians as messages of sorts. Either directions or other messages.
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That’s a unique thought–it’s kind of out of style now but the burls were in high demand at one time for furniture making.
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As you were talking about your coffee and the Keurig I was wondering why you didn’t get a reusable “cup.” Then, I came to the photo! I have the single cup Keurig and love it for the MH. It fits perfectly in a corner of the counter that I wouldn’t use. But I use Starbucks pods…lazy! I just don’t think about the cost:)
Beautiful reflection photo!!
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I too will probably use disposable pods in the RV–you can dump most of the coffee out of the reusable pod but some of it gets washed down the drain–wouldn’t want that in my RV holding tank. And you are a Starbucks girl!
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Love your silver …….. so glad you enjoy using it …….I use mine too, it was left to me by my great Aunt.
I use the refillable coffee pod …..works great and much more reasonable……Peet’s is my fav.
Your reflective photos are just breathtaking……thanks for sharing !!!
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I guess I’m that only one out there who didn’t know about the refillable pods. Friends who are big into recycling gave me some coffee pods which could be recycled–they had a little bag for the coffee instead of the plastic pod but the coffee was awful–and I don’t think they were any less expensive. Another expense of the Keurig is the water–the friend who gave it to me said it would last longer if I used bottled water–our water in Montana is double filtered so I use that.
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It sounds like a peaceful time on the ranch! Enjoy the cool weather.
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I think you guys were here for one of those “lovely dinner parties” a few years ago–miss you both!
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I have to pull out my reusable pod so I can enjoy the yummy beans I got from my son’s roastery – usually I’m so lazy about it 😦 Pierce RV took such good care of us, fixing our slide and getting us out in one day. In many of the units we looked at when shopping we were sure the designers had never slept or used the bathroom in an RV!
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We just shake our heads–like the shower in our new to us toyhauler–there is way more than enough room to have made that shower big enough so the average person would fit but no someone thought it would be cute to make a shower only a child sized shower.
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