June 22 Spanish food extravaganza at Jack and Sandy’s

Wonderful get-together — massive amounts of food — gorgeous day in a beautiful setting

When I said there was a lot of work involved in preparing this year’s Spanish specialties, I wasn’t exaggerating. Helping with the final prep are Linda in the background, Robin in white top, and Katharine

You can see Jack’s paella in the round pan in the foreground — he was having a discussion about the subtleties of Spanish cooking with Nancy H, who walked through part of Spain on the Camino

The scene from the far side of the pond

There wasn’t a huge amount of shade once you left the shadow of the house — luckily, it’s wasn’t hot

The pond from the upper deck of the house — by 2 pm, only two people had gone in swimming

I don’t have an official head count — Sandy said 50 people RSVP’d — by the time Tiger and I left just before 2, the head count had climbed to the middle 40s and people were arriving steadily — Sandy and Jack cooked enough food for 60 people just to play it safe.

Our official nature photographer Annie was at the party and taking shots, but when she got home she discovered a problem:

“My photos were horrible and I finally figured out why. I looked at the lens and it was covered with some kind of “goo”. I couldn’t tell looking through the view finder but I sure can tell after downloading on the computer. Hopefully, lens cleaning did the trick. Sorry I can’t contribute to the hike report.

“As usual, that sure was a nice party at Sandy and Jack’s. They sure are generous people! We took some things home with us and will have them for appetizers.”