Monthly Archives: April 2023

Banana Muffins #3

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The Almost Healthy Muffins – I had some bananas that had gotten to too ripe to freeze for smoothies so I decided to make some healthy banana muffins. Typically, I look at several recipes and often blend ingredients to fit my own tastes. In this case I blended a recipe I found for whole wheat banana muffins with a recipe from the back of Bob’s Red Mill Wheat Bran package. I wanted a healthy muffin and was doing well until I decided to fold in three quarters of a cup of Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Chips at the end. The Damerara sugar sprinkled on the top is not necessary but does add a nice crunch to these muffins. I think end results turned out good and these muffins freeze well – enjoy!

Ingredients
1 cup Bob’s Red Mill Wheat Bran
1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2-1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 ripe bananas ( about 1-1/2 cups)
2 large eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup 2% milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts
3/4 Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips
Demerara Cane sugar to sprinkle on top

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees – with the rack in the center.
Grease 12 piece muffin tin.
Whisk all of the dry ingredients in a medium/small bowl.
With a hand mixer on low setting beat the bananas, eggs, vegetable oil, maple syrup, milk and vanilla.
Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
Fold in the walnuts and the chocolate chips if using.
Fill the muffin tins all the way up.
Sprinkle the muffin tops with the Demerara Cane sugar
Bake for 15 minutes / check to make sure toothpick comes out clean.

Adding the Demerara Cane Sugar is not necessary, but it gives the muffin tops a nice crunch, that I like.

I individually wrap these muffins and put in a 1 gallon freezer bag and put them in the freezer. Not exactly sure how long they will last frozen because they’re usually gone in a month or two.

The Healthy until the last moment Banana Muffin #3

Vogel State Park, Georgia

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Dates: April 3 – 5, 2023
Site: 42
Total Round Trip Millage: 207

Vogel State Park, established in 1931, is the second oldest state park in Georgia. The park system of the state of Georgia was founded in 1931 with Indian Springs State Park and Vogel State Park. Indian Springs has been operated by the state as a public park since 1825, making it perhaps the oldest state park in the US.

At an elevation of 2,280 feet Vogel is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains at the base of Blood Mountain. The park lies in the middle of the Chattahoochee National Forest and covers 233 acres with a 22-acre Lake Trahlyta. The lake was built in the 1930’s by the Civilian Conservation Corps and named after the Indian Princess Trahlyta.

Click image for Campground map

Camping – the park provides 103 tent and trailer campsites, most with water and electrical hook-ups. There are 4 comfort stations in the campground as well as two sanitary disposal stations.

Click image for Trail Map

Bear Hair Gap Trail
The Bear Hair Gap Trail is a little over 4 mile loop up and over the lower ridges of Blood mountain. The trail leaves the park and travels onto the Chattahoochee National Forest. It took us a little over 2 hours to complete the trail and you have to cross several creeks. I found the hike to be moderate in difficulty.

Byron Herbert Reece Nature Trail
Mr. Reece (1917-1958) was a mountain farmer and poet. He was born near the base of blood mountain. He received inspiration for his poem from this mountain environment. You access this Nature trail from the Backcountry Trailhead located near the campground. This trail is about a mile long, easy and takes about and hour. There are several information markers along the trail to education about the plants and wildlife in the area.

Barry, Karen and Me
Bear Hair Gap Trail
Grilled dogs for lunch.

Karen and Barry, my sister and brother-in-law, drove up from their house in Kennesaw, Ga for the afternoon to hike and have lunch with me on Tuesday. It took us about 2-1/2 hours to hike the 4.5 miles of the Bear Hair Gap Trail. We finished the hike and had lunch around 1:30PM and they headed home around 3PM.

Pan fried potatoes
Chicken, onion and zucchinni
A nap was needed after the 4.5 mile hike.

Train Set – The Beginning

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In the fall of 2020 I decided to convert the unused 3,000 square feet at our Cedar Shoals location in to a big office/personal space. At the time Pam was diagnosed with osteoporosis. She was in constant pain and couldn’t travel much. I wanted create a space in town where we could all be together and entertain friends. I had the bathrooms, breakroom and general back area all redone and painted. The front area was made into a small theater with comfortable chairs where we could watch TV or movies.

General Area – left door leads to kitchen area and right doorway to the front theater area

I’m not actually sure when, how or why I decided to build a train set. I have always been fascinated and liked trains, but never a fanatic. I remember when our son, Robin, was young we surprised him at Christmas with a train set built on a 4’x8′ piece of plywood. I worked on that train set at night for weeks in the back of our frame shop on Cedar Shoals Drive – and had a lot of fun doing it.

One side of train 3.5×16
Base of train
Room for train set

The Table
With some advice from Mr. Lewis, from Memory Station train store in Watkinsville, I decided to build the table 7ft wide and 16ft long. A width of 7 feet gave me a enough room to use the largest size curve pieces; 072. My reach is about 3-1/2ft, so anything much wider than 7ft I would have trouble reaching the middle. I built 4 – 3-1/2 foot x 8 foot sections then screwed them together to create one big 7 foot by 16 foot train table. I built the height at 36″, standard counter height so I wouldn’t have to bend over much. I painted the whole base black. For the top, I used 1/2 inch plywood then topped the plywood with a 1 inch thick insulation foam. l

The Walls
One things usually leads to something else. Once I got the train table done, I realized, I could no longer stand the exposed insulation on the walls around the table. I decided build walls 8 feet tall to cover the insulation.

The Layout
It took some time and playing around to finally decide on the type of layout I wanted to create. From the beginning I knew I wanted to run at least 3 trains and have 2 levels with a tunnel.

Electrical
I knew there would be a fair amount of electrical work to be done in building this set and I was a little apprehensive because I was a little afraid of electricity and what it can do. I met a new friend Greg, at Memory Station, who lives close by and knows a lot about wiring a train set. He came over several times to help and give me pointers. It also turned out that his wife and Pam knew each other from 35 years ago – small world.

Terrain

I was glad to have some help from Robin, Andrea and Greta on creating and painting some of hills and mountains.

Barkerville

In February 2022, when Pam got diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, I quit working on the train set. Now, almost 13 months later, I’ve half-heartily decided that I want to finish. It make take several years, but I’m okay with that.

More progression posts to come….