Ethan - Bobcat Cub Scout

Yesterday I continued to work on Ethan's Eagle Scout slide show. Here he is as a Bobcat.







Short Ribs in Italian Sauce
modified from a recipe found at: The Italian Dish Blog

This dish is even better made the day before. Making it the day before (or even just early in the morning) allows you to let the dish cool in the refrigerator and let the fat rise to the top, to be easily skimmed off. The original recipe had you cook these in the oven. I did mine in the slow cooker


3 to 3-1/2 pounds of short ribs
salt and pepper
2 tablespoon olive oil, divided
1 large carrot (about 3/4 cup diced)
1 medium rib of celery (about 1/2 cup diced)
1/2 medium onion (about 1/2 cup diced)
3 cloves of garlic, grated or minced
1 heaping tablespoon tomato paste (I used a very small can for a doubled recipe)
1/2 cup red wine
2 cups beef broth
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley plus more for garnish

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.

Sprinkle the short ribs with some salt and pepper. In a large heavy oven proof pot, warm 1 tablespoon of olive oil and brown the short ribs over medium high heat until a nice crust forms. Remove short ribs from the pot and drain any fat from the pot, but don't wipe the pot out. Lower the heat and add the second tablespoon of olive oil to the pot along with the carrot, celery and onion and a nice big pinch of salt and saute gently for about 5-6 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for one minute more. Raise the heat a little and add the tomato paste and cook it for about 3 minutes. Add the red wine and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the beef broth, bay leaves and thyme and stir thoroughly.
Place all of this in a slow cooker and cook on high for 5 hours. You can also cook them on low for at least 8 hours. Add the 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley, stir, cover and return to the oven for another 30 minutes, until the meat is very tender.

Remove the meat from the pot, using a knife and folk separate the meat from the fat and the bone. Shred the meat and st it aside. Strain the sauce in a colander so as to separate out the solid material from the sauce. Add the meat to the sauce and refrigerate, if time allows. This will allow you to remove the fat from the sauce with ease. Heat to serve. I offered it with grits instead of polenta.

Remove short ribs from pot and place in a large bowl and cover. Strain the sauce and pour the sauce into a small bowl. Place the bowls in the refrigerator. After the sauce is thoroughly chilled, skim off the layer of fat from the top. Put the ribs and the sauce into a large saucepan and warm gently on the stove.) Garnish with chopped fresh parsley and serve over polenta.

My Son - The Eagle Scout

This evening Ethan completed his last step in becoming and Eagle Scout. He was both excited and a little nervous. He passed with flying colors. We are so proud of him.

There were only two questions that took him a little by surprise, though he thought they were good ones.

The first one was, "If you had to remove one part of the Boy Scout Law, what part would it be?" Ethan took pause and thought about it for a while. Ultimately his answer was that he would take out "thrifty" as it is the only one that is self-interested. All of the other parts deal with involvement with others.

The other questions, albeit a bit more predictable, also required some thought. "How would you advice a young new scout?" Ethan replied, "I would tell him that there might come a time when it is hard to keep going, but you have to keep going. Later you will be glad you did." That is so true from his own experience. When he was around 13-14 he nearly lost interest. A bit later on his hooked back in and became jazzed about scouting again.

I look at these photos and see the journey he has traveled. He has gone from being the littlest guy in the troop (as you see in these photos from his troop trip to Washington) to the fine young man he is now.

Ethan's Eagle Project Progress Update

Last weekend Ethan was lucky to have good weather. It was cold and a bit windy, but good enough that many people showed up for the next stage of building the pergola.

At this point the holes for the concrete had been dug and filled. Each of the concrete sections had a brace to hold the wood pillars. The boys began by prepping the work site.
Beams went up slowly. Keeping them stable until the entire structure was built was a challenge. Leading and managing the volunteers was a challenge. Ethan wanted to be in there doing the work, too. However, one of the main goals of the Eagle project is to learn how to manage a group of people, which is tougher than it sounds.
There was a lot of measuring and remeasuring to make sure everything was correct before the big pillars were cut.
They also needed to be leveled in several directions and secured so that they did not move.
During the week, some of the kids from school wanted to help with the stuff that needed to be finished up. Here, Ethan works with T. moving the pillar about 2" over. T. is one tough little dude.
The volunteers also made sure that the work site looked good before they closed up for the afternoon.

The end of phase one will be done very soon - it is all very exciting!

A Boyhood Dream Comes True

When Ethan was a tiny boy he loved his "Hard Hat Harry" videos. He could watch heavy equipment all day. Yesterday he started his Eagle project (YEAH!)It started out with Ethan learning how to drive a Bobcat from the rental location to his school.

He was practically giddy when he got to drive that thing. He kept telling me how driving that Bobcat was a dream come true. It was fun to see!

He has been working on this idea and plan for over a year. I have been so impressed at all of the people, both those who know him and those who are new to meeting him, who have stepped up to help make this dream, this plan a reality. In addition to his dad and scoutmaster, many people in the community have offered assistance. The man at the wood forest products company where he will buy his lumber has met with him several times to make sure everything is just as it needs to be. He hooked Ethan up with a man who builds decks and pergolas for a living. He met with Ethan on many Sunday evenings to help ensure that the structure would be sound, safe and last a very long time. (He says that most of the plans published in magazine would not pass code.)That has been a really learning curve.

Ethan is going to build a 30' x 15' pergola on the west side of the school.

These are the drawing he made on Sketch UP. I think they are super cool, completely to scale, all the way down to the size of the bolts.


Ted came down from Bailey (about an hour away, I think) to run Bobcat to drill out the holes. Here Ethan and Ted discuss the location of the holes near the building. I am thankful that he was willing to spend three hours on a Saturday to help out our boy.

Then the boy scouts had to clean up the holes. Long ago this was a river bed so there were tons of rocks to be pulled out an hauled away. This week the holes will get inspected and hopefully they will pour the concrete footers next Saturday.

It's a big day in our household. Ethan came back from a week long stay at Boy Scout camp and Ellie raced in the Colorado State Time Trial Championships.

Ethan has way more fun at camp than he had expected. He went down focused on earning three of the badges he needed in order to get close to being able to work on his Eagle.

Ethan was part of Super Troop since his own troop was not attending camp that week. Super Troop is made up of various boys from different troops. The boys stayed in canvas tents, most of them sleeping on cots. Ethan did not have a cot, which was only a problem a during the few nights that it rained. The end of his sleeping bag got a little wet during those nights.

After getting set up at Camp Vasquez, he was elected as the troop leader by his peers. Period 1 he did Environmental Science. Period 2, just down the mountain, was Communications at Camp Hollywood (the building with the computers and technical equipment). Then they had a lunch break. Period 3, Emergency Preparedness, was back up at Camp Vasquez. There was really not a lot of down time, but the boys still found time to hang out, teach each other card games (like Blind Man's Bluff.)

The theme this year is a western theme which means that there were fake gold nuggets that the boys earned, found and traded for stuff. One they had a big party with the everyone at camp. At one point, a troop leader, John, pretended to be a bandit. He came into the party, shooting his gun and dressed from head to toe in black. He was yellin' that Sheriff Kelse had stolen his town, his people and his gold. They lock hands and got into a finger duel with the bandit flipping Sheriff Kelse over. The sheriff won and put the bandit in stockades where the boys could throw stuff at him. The camp staff had erected an entire ghost town for the occasion. During outpost on Thursday night a bunch of the boys set up an economy. Some of them formed companies and went out to prospect for interesting rocks. Some boys prospectors, some where miners and a few were bosses. They included Ethan, Ryan and Andrew. They had a pretty good business going. The camp staff found out what was happening and told the boys that it was against "Leave No Trace" to do such things, so they could not take any away. A few boys tried to set up a black market. At one point the workers revolted and Ethan had to make an official statement on behave of the other bosses that there would not be any black market activities. On Friday night Ethan learned how to make a money's fist knot from a staff member. There was also a flag ceremony where Ethan was awarded the Baden Powell Award for being one of the best scouts who models living by the Scout law. He also received a Ranch Award. The staff liked Ethan so much that they tried to convince him to come back down and be on camp staff. Ethan was very pleased with the offer, but could not accept the offer as he starts work with Jeffco Open Space on Monday. On Saturday Ethan came home happy, but tired and hungry. There had been a black bear about 40 feet from his troop tent area. He stayed up much of the night to make sure the bear did not attack. He had been alerted that the bear was in camp. He was looking out and could not see it in the dark of the night. Suddenly a camp truck drove up and started honking. It turns out that the staff was chasing it out of camp and back into the wilderness. It was a lot of excitement!

Ellie had a great time racing. She had a very competitive group this year with several girls who left from the race to go to Nationals in Bend, OR. She placed 5th, but was within less than a minute than the person who came in third.