This ranks right up there with one of my favorite photos taken. We were down in Spring Lake, New Jersey wrapping up my Aunt Eleanor's estate. My kids had never swum in the "real" ocean before — the kind with real waves — and they were in heaven. The color in this photo and my quirky little Maia's face. Beautiful.
Start 'em early. That's the way it is out west. One of my favorite rodeo events at the big summer rodeo in Jackson is Mutton Busting where kids ride sheep. Evan wanted to do it two years ago and at 8 he was already too old - by then they're riding young bulls. See below regarding that.
They take their bull riding and bronc busting seriously out west. Like I said above, at the local rodeo you see tiny little kids (boys and girls) in full cowboy outfits being plopped down on sheep and shot out of the chute to do mutton busting. Some of the poor little buggers are crying their eyes out in fear before it even starts, and that’s kind of mean and sad. By the time they’re 8 they’ve advanced to young steers and I imagine by the time they’re 16 they’re riding the real deal – mean, unbroke, raised-for-bucking bulls or broncs. My friend Randy was a bronc busting cowboy for many years and long trail rides aren’t possible for him anymore from all the broken bones and injuries he’s sustained.
However, that didn’t stop me from slapping my young boy on a young steer with Randy’s help these past two summers. Unfortunately I don’t have video of the first year’s ride, which was pretty good. For his birthday this past year I got him a rodeo protective vest and a used hockey helmet on eBay (trying to be at least a little safe here). If you’re looking for a good chuckle you can check out the video of the two rides from this summer. The chatter in the background is me and my daughters Amanda and Maia. The uncontrollable laughter is me. I still laugh out loud when I watch it. Except maybe in the second one when he gets kinda trompled. Does that make me a bad mom? Hey, he was smiling when it was over.
My video capabilities leave much to be desired in comparison to my photographic capabilities.
Evan Rides a Yearling Bull #1
Evan Rides a Yearling Bull #2 – Lyle Lovett we called him – the nastiest cow at the ranch this past summer with a curly hairdo that made him look like Lyle Lovett.
One of Jim’s Christmas gifts this year was homemade terrariums. He loves indoor plants, but isn’t always very good at taking proper care of them. Terrariums are nice because, if they are enclosed (with a lid or have a glass cloche over them) they create their own moisture and pretty much take care of themselves.
First I started at my favorite store, Home Goods. There I found some great containers – even these really big ones – for less than $20 each. Then I headed to the local gardening center and found a great assortment of smaller terrarium-suited plants, like ferns and orchids, live moss and other moisture-loving flowers. I also bought some small pebbles that I washed carefully in a colander, charcoal (not the kind you use in your grill, but the horticultural kind you’ll find at a gardening center), and some good-quality potting soil.
Wash your containers and dry them out carefully and assemble all of your “ingredients” on a large work area.
Start with a layer of the horticultural charcoal at the base of the container. The charcoal is pretty dusty, so pour it into the container as carefully as you can. You only need a thin layer of this. With your hands smooth out the charcoal so it is evenly distributed at the base of the container. Then add a slightly thicker layer of the washed pebbles, and again smooth them out to an even layer with your hands.
Then, again being careful to try and keep it off the sides of the container, place a thicker layer of the potting soil over the charcoal and pebble layers. Smooth out with your hands to form an even layer.
Now it’s time to create your terrariums. I found even some of the tiny plants that I bought had to be split into two or even three sections to have them properly fit into the containers and still allow room for other plants, so don’t be afraid to divide plants up. When you have adequately filled and arranged everything to your liking carefully fill around the plants with more potting soil. I added live moss to cover the soil around the plants. This can be done by just tearing the moss into the sizes you need to work it in around the plants and fitting it together like a jigsaw puzzle. Then water, but be careful not to overwater and flood the container.
Using a spray bottle filled with water I washed down the sides of the containers to get rid of any residue from the charcoal, pebbles or dirt. Now one container I got was a little too small for the height of the plants, so that one had to remain ‘lidless’, but I like the combination of lids and no lids.
I’d also bought a really beautiful orchid that was too tall or large for any of the containers I had, so off to Home Goods I went again and found the perfect one. This one did not have a lid either, but the size and shape were perfect.
These were a pretty simple project that are doing really well in his office. The orchid, over 2 months later, still looks amazing. The lidded containers create this moist, humid environment and are thriving. The two with no lids are thriving too. If you’ve got a plant lover in your life, think about this for the next gift-giving occasion.
There's a great coffee shop in Lexington where Amanda goes to school called Third Street Stuff that is pretty funky and has this great graffiti wall outside. Amanda and I love to go there when I'm visiting. There's this great little gift shop in the front of the store that has the most peculiar things.
This is Chow Mein. She is a Black Tailed White Japanese bantam chicken that my friend Sue gave to me. I just love her. She’s a pure white with a beautiful black-tipped tail that stands very erect.
A bantam chicken means that she is a small variety. They lay tiny eggs that aren’t even the size of a standard “large” egg. I use two bantam eggs to equal one normal egg, I have had great experiences with Bantam chickens and love their small stature. Some of my favorite chickens have been bantams.
She is a survivor. When my goats left for their summer “goatcation” at my friend Kelly’s house while I went to Wyoming for the summer last year, my entire flock was killed within a week by either a fox or a raccoon. We don’t know what it is about the goats; whether they physcially ward off predators or just their scent keeps the local predators at bay, but since I’ve gotten my goats my predator loss has been zero; an unexpected bonus that I’d never heard about.
Somehow during this massacre Chow Mein was the only one to survive. We didn’t know this at the time though. My daughter, Amanda, who was home working for the summer, saw her several times over a couple of weeks but never was able to catch her to feed or contain her. Jim saw her once or twice as well but never for long. When I returned to Connecticut at the end of August I got several calls from neighbors that she’d been spotted right around the corner regularly. Sure enough, she had made her new home in the wooded area of a neighbor’s yard. Somehow she had survived two months completely on her own and was looking quite well. We tried every few days to capture her, but every time we tried, she would fly way up into a tree completely out of reach. Now chickens don’t really have a lot of flight capabilities and are technically considered flightless birds. They can catch a little air and fly very short distances, but Chow Mein was really flying (for a chicken) a great distance — high into the trees at night to avoid predator attack. It was really quite remarkable.
Although the goats had returned I did not yet have any chickens and thought I would just leave her be until I got some new ones. Shortly after my return I did find about 9 adolescent chickens that somebody was looking to get rid of. Once I had them settled in my kids and I went over to her new wooded home and after lots of running around and tree climbing I did manage to catch her and bring her back home. I really thought that it would take several days of her leaving to go back to the woods before she settled back into her coop, but she seemed more than delighted to be back with a flock and rarely leaves the confines of the fenced area. Nor does she let her diminutive size let her get pushed around; she completely holds her ground with the big girls.
Recently Chow Mein has become “broody”, which means that she wants to hatch some eggs. Now this is a natural thing for chickens to do, but I haven’t had too many that get broody. One of my favorite other bantam chickens, Mrs. Pocket, was also an extremely broody girl.
Unfortunately, because we don’t have a rooster, our eggs are not fertile. Chow Mein could sit on these eggs forever and they will never hatch into chicks. She doesn’t know this though. Anytime she lays an egg she gathers it into her “clutch”, and any time any other chicken lays an egg she rolls it right under her and adds it to the clutch. This afternoons count had it up to 13 eggs. Now a bantam chicken is not capable of laying on 13 bantam sized eggs, let alone a mixture of bantam eggs and full-size hen eggs. This does not seem to deter her though.
Chow Mein is collecting every egg laid in the coop and trying to stuff them under her little bantam body without much success.
I moved her off of them to much cooing protest today just to show you how many eggs she it attempting to cover.
That's a lot of eggs!
Once I let her go she gently rolls them all back under her as best she can.
She gently rolls them back under her.
I don't know how she's managing it, but somehow she's covering all 13 eggs.
It’s breaking my heart to know that all of this setting will produce no chicks. I got on eBay yesterday and managed to find some Japanese Bantam eggs that I won. When they arrive I will take these eggs out from under her and replace them with the fertile ones. It will be so much fun to see her with her hatch her own little chicks!
I bought my first spinning wheel today! I though a close up of a sheep's wool I took at an agricultural fair I attended seemed appropriate to honor that occasion.
I took this photo one night during our dinner break at the Learning to Spin Yarn Class. There's nothing spectacular about the setting, but the light was beautiful and I thought it was really pretty.
This is a picture of my butt.
Now there’s nothing extraordinary about my butt. What is extraordinary about this picture of my butt is that they are wearing size 8 jeans. I haven’t seen a pair of size 8 jeans in awhile now.
To celebrate fitting my fat ass into a pair of size 8 jeans again I bought this pair of butt-kicking new cowboy boots.
I love them!
Yeehah!
I took my first western riding lesson EVER outside the state of Wyoming today. It was also the first western lesson ever by someone other than my friends Randy or Terry. It went well and India and I had fun. In looking through my photos tonight though and deciding which photo to post, this one reminded me of all the reasons I love riding in Wyoming so much. Those amazing views.
I’ve been cooking since I could stand on a stool and reach the stovetop. My first love was always, and still is, baking.
My parents divorced when I was 8 and my father got full-time custody of me and my sister. He was a carpenter, so while he worked full-time, he left early and was home by 4:30 or so. We generally shared the cooking responsibilities.
My stepmom brought this recipe over to me a few months ago. She had actually just made it and thought I might enjoy seeing it in it’s original form that I had written up for her so many years ago (like probably 38 years ago!). Please notice how I spelt autumn on the recipe. Judging from the spelling in the recipe and the quality of the quality of the handwriting I’d say I was probably 10 or 11 When I wrote this down for her. I don’t remember if this is a recipe that I made up — it’s kind of hard to imagine that at that age I had that capability, but I cannot give credit if credit is due here since it was so long ago. You can see that the recipe has been well-used.
I have actually several times over the past few years thought of this soup, as it was a regular in our house as kids, but never seemed to find a recipe on the internet that tasted quite the same.
I made this last night, and I did make some revisions to the recipe from its original form. In the end though it tasted just as delicious as I remembered it to be. It’s a really easy soup to put together, I got enough to make two meals for a family of 5 for dinner and even though there’s lots of veggies in it, the kids still love it. Well, India’s so picky she complained a bit, but she complains about any new food. It’s a great weeknight family meal. It’s pretty quick and easy to prepare, makes a lot, and served with a slice of crusty french bread it makes a delicious meal.
An original recipe by Crafty Farm Girl © 2011
Yield: 8-10 services
2 pounds ground beef 85%-87% lean works best
1 cup finely diced yellow or spanish onion
1 cup finely diced carrots
1 cup finely diced celery
1 1/2 cups idaho potatoes, peeled and cut into small dice
1 28 oz. can petite-diced tomatoes with the juice
2 35 oz. containers low-sodium beef broth
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated pepper
2 teaspoons Kitchen Bouquet (can usually be found by the worsteshire sauce or gravy at the grocers)
2 cups water
Wait – I forgot the celery in the first shot as it was in the sink to be washed.
Cook the ground beef in a large skillet over medium-high heat, turning to cook evenly a few times, until cooked through but not browned. Drain in a colander.
While the beef is browning put the diced tomatoes, beef broth, water, salt, pepper & Kitchen Bouquet into a large stockpot on medium heat and bring to a boil.
Add the drained ground beef, diced onion, carrots, celery & potatoes to the stockpot.
Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for approximately 30-45 minutes on low heat until the potatoes and veggies have been cooked though.
Delicious. Homey. Simple.
If you try it, let me know what you think. A great quick and easy meal.
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