Donaldson Crew Adventures

Noah joined the x-country running team at his local middle school this spring. He ran his first race and placed 9th overall in boys out of about 60 kids!

Hunter went to Texas over the spring break with friends of ours- The Kerr Family. There were hunting wild hogs and turkeys. Hunter got a big Tom while there! His first wild game. Really proud of him. Kevin

I have wanted to build an outdoor stove for some time. Over spring break I found someone giving away free bricks in town so picked up a used iron gas stove cover and made this design based on a video online. My first version used some thin metal mesh that melted on my first try so upgraded the mesh to hardware cloth I had in my shed. The metal mesh allows air to be drawn up from under the burn to keep the fire burning hot with only small pieces of wood.

Gardening in central oregon is difficult so I wanted to try sprouting seeds to eat just on our kitchen counter based on a video I saw online.

I grew up eating bean and alfalfa sprouts my mom got at the store but they were always expensive and never lasted very long. I figured if you could grow your own they were be fresher and cost a fraction of the store cost.

The process uses 1 quart mason jars with a special lid that lets the water to drain out- that’s it. I ordered a 1lb seed mixture online that includes broccoli, clover, radish and alfalfa. The process: you soak the seeds overnight and then on ‘day one’ you drain and rinse the seeds. You do this rinse process just twice a day (takes about 2 min) and in 6 days you have a jar full of fresh sprouts ... using only 2 tablespoons of seeds. The jar should be away from a window during the process. On the 6th day you can put them in the sun the green them up. They can be eaten immediately!The seed mixture was really good. The radish sprouts gave it a bit more of a kick which was nice.

While winter was a bit of a dud in town, the mountain got lots of snow this winter. The older boys had their first warm spring like day recently and used the calm weather to hike up beyond the summit chair to the true summit ridge.

(Hunter on snowboard in orange jacket, Noah on skis with green jacket) 

We got some sourdough starter from our friend. Kelly has been feeding it. Last night I mixed up a batch, let it rest overnight and we baked it today in a dutch oven. It looks good, hopefully taste good as well :)

I got a set of wood carving knives for Christmas. I pulled some wood from the wood pile - Some old juniper fence rails that I cut up in the fall for firewood. Super dry as they were likely 30 + years old. I used a hatchet to split off some thinner pieces. The first one I carved was the spoon. From there I did the spatula a week later and today I tried a fork. The spoon came out of a different block of wood so it’s interesting how much darker it is than the other two that came out of the same block.