Cookies and Gutters, and a Big Honkin' Egg!

It rained allll weekend, so I didn't get outside to do any work. Work desperately needs done outside, so....

Instead, I baked cookies! Not all weekend, of course. I found the recipe for 'Chinese Gingersnaps' online. It calls for 1tbsp of white pepper, 1/2tsp of cinnamon, 1/4tsp of cloves, and 5 whopping tablespoons of freshly minced/ground ginger. If anyone wants the recipe I'll post it, just let me know.

I decided to halve the recipe (I didn't have enough butter) and it still made 56 cookies.

I topped some of them with green sugar, some with regular sugar, some with nothing, and some with finely-minced candied ginger.

Guess which ones I liked best?

Matt went morel hunting Sunday morning. Didn't find any that were pickable yet. Soon. VEEERRRYYY SOOOOON.

There was a kitty hiding behind the tree, Max was going nuts here.

We went to meet a friend of Matt's for coffee, then after we got back we decided that we had to clean out the gutters. In our nice clothes. With the hose. And the muck. Did I mention our nice clothes?

Max helped, though, by barking at the drainspouts. You see, around here chipmunks like to hide in our drainspouts, so he had reason in his mind to bark at them. He also has the habit of grabbing onto them and pulling them off the house. The drainspouts, that is. Not the chipmunks.

He also helped by grabbing plants and pulling them out of our way roots and all. Very helpful, our Yorkie. Fortunately, the plants were already long dead, so no harm was done.

You can see ^ Matt's legs on the ladder, and Max at the far left of the picture, barking.

And here's a close-up of Max staring at the black water coming from the drainspout.

I also recently purchased a treat for myself. It is a peanut butter meltaway egg from Sarris Candies in Pittsburgh. It weighs 1 pound. It is everything I thought it could be. I figured it out, the entire thing is 2300 calories, 143 grams of fat.