Not very egg-citing

Since it snowed this week, which was very welcome, it wasn't an overly exciting week. I find it sad that Easter doesn't get as much attention, hype, or excitement as the other holidays. Oh well.

I only went running on Saturday, and I ran to Ensign Peak, which I do a few times a year, usually after a period of wet weather, since the trail dries faster. There is a steep trail above Ensign Peak, and the last few times I have gone down it, then taken a different way back. This time, I ran up the steep trail after I reached the peak. I've done that before, but it's been a few years, so I was happy to see that I could run up the whole hill without stopping. I haven't always been able to do that, and it was comparatively easy this time. (It helped that it was cool and overcast.)

Not a great picture, but you can see the trail I ran up.

Looking down at Ensign Peak after I ran up the hill

I was also happy to see the flowers of early spring and mid-spring.

Glacier lilies, one of the early flowers

The pink flowers are longleaf phlox. 

The first arrowleaf balsamroot I have seen this season. It is more common after Easter.

In the afternoon, I raked up some pine needles from the front yard, and I found a few bones.

Last fall (I think November), I found an owl pellet in the driveway, and I'm sure the bones are the leftovers from that pellet. It was in the driveway until it snowed, and then I found the bones where we pile the snow. I thought I took pictures of the pellet last fall, but now I can't find them.

I haven't spent much time on Facebook this week, which is a good thing. But its algorithm wants to show me more posts on my phone than on my laptop. I rarely look at posts on my phone (in 2016 I kept accidentally clicking things, including sending friend requests to strangers), but the computer only shows me a few posts from several days ago. I wouldn't mind if Facebook dug its own grave, even though most of my pageviews for this blog come from there.

My parents got back from their three-week trip Saturday, so Easter was a little more subdued this year. Which is fine. We got lots of Easter candy. It used to be that I would make myself sick on Easter because I wouldn't eat any candy after the holiday. So I only had Easter weekend to eat all the contents of my Easter basket. But four years ago, I decided to allow myself to have leftovers. That has made Easter itself less sickening, and it also makes the rest of April less depressing because I still have candy.

We colored eggs, and I did six.

Most of them didn't turn out quite how I hoped

I also was in charge of dessert for our small family Easter dinner. I made apple crisp using the apples we canned from our (neighbor's) tree last fall. For the topping, I put in carrots, nutmeg, and cloves in addition to the usual cinnamon. It was good, but I didn't like it as much with the bottled apples. (Last spring I made the same carrot topping for a crisp made from frozen cherries, and I liked it better.) 

I also used my ice cream maker to make carrot ice cream. I added more carrots than the recipe called for, and it definitely tasted like carrots. It was OK. I don't think I'll make it again, at least not this recipe. But I'll still work my way through the rest of it.

And I ended the Easter season by watching Rise of the Guardians, which is very clearly an Easter movie even though people forget that.