Succulent S'mores on Sunday

For about a hundred years now, I have been 'Going on the Hill'.  I have 'Gone on the Hill' on my family farm with my grandparents, my parents, my siblings, my kids, my grandkids as well as a parade of extended family and friends throughout the years.  We have extended the coming together for weddings and wedding receptions and even funerals by 'Going on the Hill' for a picnic.

'The Hill' overlooks the Yellowstone River valley.

I guess going on 'The Hill' became official when we permanently laid an old steel tractor wheel for our fire ring and things grew from there.  The tables wear out and get rebuilt.  The chairs (tree stumps) rot and get burned and more are made.

We eat and eat and eat. 

We play cards. 

We play games. 

We drink. 

We cook "The Hill" hamburgers and have even known to have flameless martini picnics when the season was dry and we didn't want to chance a forest fire. 

The rest room is somewhere beyond the bushes.  The horseshoe pit always gets used.  Nowadays, we have to have all 4-wheelers on deck for the young people to ride up to 'The Hill'.  The rest of us pile in the back of a pickup with the groceries, old sleeping bags softening the trip, beers in hand.  Great views and great memories and great conversations occur just coming and going from 'The Hill'. 

Sometimes, we can see the local volunteer fire department wandering our direction because in the dark summer evenings someone has seen, from afar, a flame on 'The Hill' and reported us.  Most often, we are home before that, dowsing our fire meticulously.

We've encountered a bear, lots of deer and a variety of other wildlife on 'The Hill', including ourselves.  We even shared our Hill picnic area with a teepee that my cousin set up there and left for a long time.

Hill hamburgers, Grandma's potato salad and potluck after that.  And s'mores.  Always s'mores.  I don't like them (not a chocolate person) but I love the marshmallows roasted just right.  But.....

just last week when we went on "The Hill" (this trip triggered by west coast nieces/nephews home for my brother's birthday), our s'mores rose to a whole new level.  Take a look.

The view from "The Hill" looks out over the chickenfarm where I grew up, and beyond that is my husband and my fields.  Beyond the horizon is land we used to own with my brother-in-law.

The S'more cooking crew

Our fire pit captured

by an old tractor wheel. 

We even have a hook

on which to hang a

bean pot or coffee pot,

concrete rebar holds

the cooking racks

over the fire.

It all happened by accident. 

My nephew saw the strawberries

sitting there as he was

about to eat his S'more.

The experimenting continued. 

Next were gluten-free S'mores

(no graham crackers);

the strawberries and chocolate

stuffed inside the roasted marshmallow.

One of the gluten-frees and

her masterpiece. 

So, what do you think?  Shall we patent?

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