food – Page 3 – The Hermits' Rest

What’s the Preferred Beverage of A**holes?

Wait. How do you define a**hole, Suna? Good question, Imaginary Reader!

I define it as someone who can’t wait to get home, where surely there’s a rubbish receptacle, to dispose of beverage containers, instead preferring to toss those containers gaily out of the window of their pickup truck along rural roads.

I wish Red Bull had given this can wings and flown it back in the vehicle.

I’m sure they think the cattle and horses will enjoy stomping on their cans and bottles, and the folks who mow the roadside (often their neighbors) don’t mind damage to their mower blades. No, no. I doubt there’s much thinking involved.

Heck, no one wants to inconvenience a rural jerk. It’s good exercise going down the road picking that stuff up. I should be grateful. But I’m not.

Mmm. Mow this and excellent sharp edges will magically appear.

In the last few weeks I’ve seen so many cans and bottles that I decided to document what my thoughtless neighbors deposited along Milam County Road 140 near Walkers Creek.

I can say that liquor is favored over water, energy drinks, or coffee, the other beverages I found. Oddly, there was only one soda can. Pibb.

There were two miniature Fireball bottles, but everything else was beer.

I’d have been more impressed by Hot Damn.

And I’m obligated to share that the most favorite beer of a**holes who are driving down my road with open containers of liquor is…

Congratulations to the folks at Budweiser! You encourage dangerous and thoughtless behavior in our area more than any other company! And congratulations to the runner up, Natural Light.

I’m glad the drinking and driving crowd are watching their weight. Not really.

The thing is that people drive down these roads hauling children, valuable livestock, and expensive farm equipment. The roads are narrow, poorly lit, and full of wildlife (a beautiful coyote crossed the road in front of us yesterday). It’s hard enough to drive safely sober. And that’s why I call the people who litter with their liquor containers bad names.

Now, I just posted that we should love our neighbors, with no exceptions. It’s true. I care about everyone out here and want them alive and their families safe. I don’t want to read their obituaries.

Daily Bird

There were a lot to choose from today, because I went up to the cemetery and back. I know I’ve probably chosen these before, but the red-shouldered hawks I saw up close made me very happy.

I also enjoyed a tree full of vultures drying off, a great egret with a duck, some bluebirds, and lots of sparrows and pipits.

I watched a downy woodpecker for a long time and saw an owl fly into a tree, but I couldn’t even get one of my blurry photos of them.

Instead, here’s Droodles looking majestic.

The birds made me feel better about all the litter. I’ll bring a trash bag one day next week.

Oh Goody, I’m Still Here, Even though I Skipped Christmas

I skipped yesterday because I just spent the day cooking and being with my current nuclear family. I’m proud I didn’t spend any money on gifts this year or on commercial aspects of American Xmas. I just didn’t want to be all consumerist like I used to be. I did give my son and his partner the thermal stitch hot pads I’d made, though. I hope to take Anita on a trip next year as a gift.

We can fly away, like this red-shouldered hawk.

I didn’t even buy any food for dinner. I cooked a giant pork loin that was in the freezer. Half of it will magically reappear at New Year’s. I made dressing with bread cubes leftover from Thanksgiving and served vegetables and cranberry sauce I already had in the pantry. So there! The meal was just fine, and the conversation, laughter, and low stress among our group was marvelous. Success.

I thoroughly enjoyed spending the day looking at birds, which I did a lot of today, too. I saw pairs of kingfishers and caracaras, which makes me hope they are nesting. And today I got to watch a flock of chickadees eating at the stand of trees near the creek bridge. They are so comical. I heard them make a song I’d never heard them make before, too.

A day off really goes fast if you spend much of it watching little peeping things, and before I knew it, the time for a horse lesson had come. Droodles got to go again, since Apache was on sick leave. He was much better today about bur removal and seemed in better spirits, like his old friendly self.

Not Drew, but fun chickadees.

Speaking of much better, when Sara pulled up with her trailer and Aragorn, all the horses got excited. I enjoyed watching Mabel and Dusty gallop up to the pens, calling out. But after they stopped, I still heard thundering hooves. It was Apache! There he was cantering at great speed to check things out. He didn’t look very lame at all! Maybe his abscess has burst. I’ll check first thing tomorrow, since it was too dark when I got home to look, but he was walking normally. Yay! I may have both my horses back available to ride!

We will be out stabbing our poles at that bull again in no time. (Setting sun lit up the trees.)

Drew’s lesson showed he’s feeling better, but a bit out of shape. There was some huffing and puffing in his part, which looked so endearing. I enjoyed watching Tarrin work with him and got to ride a bit myself, which I was glad for, since riding makes my back feel better. Aragorn is also making some great progress as well. I enjoy watching Sara’s lessons. We each benefit from what the other is learning.

Bonus enjoyment came when we got to watch the sun setting right as the full moon was rising. We all got to enjoy that!

It’s good to be back rambling along.

Bring Home the Groceries (and good news)

List your top 5 grocery store items.

It’s funny that this prompt came up today, because I haven’t had much time to go grocery shopping and ran out of one of my most precious items: coffee creamer. I just love how long that stuff lasts, which real cream does not. And I actually prefer no sweetener in my coffee, but that Italian Sweet Cream sure starts my day off well.

Today’s sunrise also started the day off well, so well it still looked good around 8:30.

What are my other four top grocery items? They squash my self image as a healthy eater. I’m afraid it’s Coke Zero, pop tarts (fruit), cheese, and yogurt. I assure you things like salad greens, tomatoes, onions, and tuna are also present. I eat a wide variety but need my emergency pop tarts.

I could eat dandelion greens in an emergency. We always have them.

On to the good news. I may have mentioned that Drew, the gray teen horse, got kicked in the head by Fiona the donkey a few weeks ago. Since then he hasn’t liked having his head touched, which created a problem due to his habit of eating among cockleburs, which got all over his forelock, the “bangs” on the front of a horse’s head.

This is on a day when I got some of them out.

He had been picking on the other horses, acting unfriendly towards me, and shaking his head if I put on a halter or bridle. I could barely ride him, so I mostly have been doing stuff on the ground. Well, today I had extra time, so I got him some hay, groomed him, and then tried but removal again.

Yesterday, while waiting for Sara to come look at Apache, he let me get all the burs out of his tail, which looked sort of like a mop in the process of being wrung before I started. I took that as a good sign.

So today I started on the part of his name farthest from his face and moved upwards. There was some gnarly stuff in there, but I gently separated the mess (wearing my gloves, of course). I gave him lots of rest time and much hay. When I got to the hard part, the top of his head, he got agitated. I had carefully put a web halter on at its loosest setting, but his head still itched. Poor guy.

I eventually got ALL the burs off. I think he eventually figured out I was helping. When I was finished he let me rub all over his little fro. Burs are like tiny hair curlers. Then he let me rub on his face, where the cut had been and I’d spilled oil the first time I’d de-burred him. Wow!

His reward was getting to graze in the round pen.

He was still agitated when we got to Tarrin’s for a lesson. He was hard to lead and his ears were back. So Tarrin did some cranial-fascial work on him and slowly he stopped head tossing. He had obviously been injured and knocked out of alignment. Probably had a concussion or hairline fracture, poor guy. Maybe that has taught him to avoid Fiona’s hooves. He seemed much happier when his skull and jaw were realigned.

Tarrin then worked with his behavior and got him more settled after realizing his back end also hurt (I’m guessing from rearing and kicking with Dusty). By the time she was done, he was paying attention to her nicely, doing good lateral movements, and acting sweet again.

She told me that if he starts acting mean again that he must not feel good. I’ll bear that in mind. He just needs to be walked over poles for the next week.

Yes, it’s true. Neither of my riding horses can be ridden right now. Apache is no worse, and I am to start soaking his feet in epsom salts and water to try to draw out his abscess. He does get to be set free of the pens, though, because walking is good for him.

And he will have pain meds for a few days. That boy is on a LOT of medication!

I feel bad for both of them being in pain, but I think Droodles is gonna be better soon. Hope Apache is just a few more weeks to get better.

And the sun sets on another day. Birds tomorrow.

Thanksgiving Cranberry Recipes

I just noticed in my stats that certain posts are getting lots of hits. Since US Thanksgiving is coming, I should reshare my two recipes using whole cranberries. Make a double batch of the first one and then make the second from leftovers:

Whole berry cranberry orange sauce (so easy – you can omit ginger)
Cranberry bread pudding

I also make really good cornbread dressing that also has some breadcrumbs in it. When affordable, I add oysters. This year I am trying smoked oysters, from a recipe in a magazine.

I believe these are among the few things I cook well other than New Year’s dinner as my family ate it. Maybe I’ll add black eyed peas and collards to my collection.

I do love cranberries, to get back on topic. Anita’s making a cranberry dessert for us on Thursday. I can’t wait. And oops. I forgot to get a can of the sauce other people eat. No worries. The local grocery store will have tons of it.

Available at your local store. Interestingly, the whole berry sauce is sold out at Amazon.

Book Report: The Simple Art of Rice

Few things are as frustrating as reading a cookbook all about a specific ingredient, knowing full well that you are completely out of that ingredient. But I did it, I read this fascinating rice cookbook in one of the very few times in my adult life that I was out of rice.

I thought there was another giant bag of rice in the freezer, but there wasn’t. Luckily, Lee got me some Basmati rice today when he grocery shopped. But now that I’ve read The Simple Art of Rice, by JJ Johnson (with Danica Novgorodoff), I know I need more kinds of rice, like my beloved sushi rice, brown rice, and black rice.

I discovered this book the way I discover so many, on an NPR interview. It’s a good thing I’m not in the car listening as much as I used to, because I found two books in one day driving to and from College Station.

Anyway, this book is gorgeous, with lovely photos of the rice dishes from many cultures as well as elegant watercolor illustrations by the co-author. I love a substantial hardback book.

Most importantly, the content is interesting, with a nice mix of rice history, stories of cultural ties to rice, some science, and a well rounded collection of recipes that Johnson collected from workers at the many restaurants where he’s worked.

Now JJ Johnson is a famous rice chef, but I enjoyed how he didn’t re-do traditional recipes, just added a little to some. I enjoyed learning African, Asian, Caribbean, and American traditions and how they are interrelated, often due to the forced African diaspora to North America and the islands around it.

Most of the recipes would be easy to try for the average cook. They all sound very flavorful. Some call for special ingredients from cultures whose grocery stores are not near Milam County, Texas, but maybe I can get some in Austin. I expect I’d be the only one to eat some of the ones I’d like to try most, because they’re full of cilantro, very hot peppers, and the dreaded curry. But that would give me more leftovers!

I suspect my family would love some of the desserts, though. And dishes I know they love are in there…with so many variations of beans and rice! We eat that!

All in all, I had a blast reading the stories, interviews, and cultural nuggets in this book. The recipes are like a delicious bonus! This is a great addition to any collection of cookbooks, especially of home cooking.

This visitor to the ranch is glad there were no turtle gumbo recipes.

Cooking, Bletch

Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.

I’m sure I’ve had plenty of cooking fails, but I must admit that meals I cook don’t stick in my memory, good or bad. It’s just not a part of my life that I think about much.

Cooking is something I did a lot of in my younger years. I enjoyed it when I was trying new things and feeding my kids. I’m grateful that the kids’ dad ate pretty much anything I made and seemed to like it. That encouraged me. He ate a lot to fuel his cycling and running.

Something I cooked in 2015. I recognize asparagus.

I don’t have as much fun cooking today, for a variety of reasons. We rarely are all home at the same time. Lee has started wanting to eat at 5 pm or earlier, like the old people we used to make fun of with their Early Bird Specials. The other man here works late and often eats around 8. Then there are all the things various folks can’t or don’t want to eat, healthy eating choices versus other choices.

Aha! A thing I cook well. Pork loin, Brussels sprouts and potatoes.

Every so often one of us will cook a nice meal, and we all enjoy it. I’m quite fond of everyone’s choices. Mostly we just scrounge, as we call it.

This looks icky. 2016 meal. I like beets.

What was the question? Oh yes. I asked Lee if he remembered a particularly icky meal, and he said he couldn’t remember exactly what it was, but that we threw it out and went to a restaurant. That sounds bad.

One cooking error I remember was when I was in my twenties. We made a huge batch of ice cream, and when it was finished we saw the bottle of vanilla extract, which hadn’t been opened. Luckily, the iced cream was still very good.

I’m pretty sure I made banana bread with no sugar once, too.

I make a lot of bean soups. 2019 at my house with Anita.

Sorry this was pretty dull, but hey, I committed to answering each WordPress prompt this month!

My actual day was mostly quite fun. Work was interesting and full of good conversation, and we went and looked at a potential house to renovate later.

I wonder how many meals this oven baked before it conked out? (From the house we looked at)

One negative part of the day was that I got my flu shot for this year, and got it on the wrong arm. No horse lunging today! I also have been enjoying a fever. It’s a tiny price to pay for no flu.

The other negative part was that a swarm of tiny biting flies attacked me this morning, when I was wearing shorts and had exposed arms. They hurt almost as badly as horseflies and it lingered. The stiff breeze seems to have blown them away.

I’m sure the cows are grateful for the breeze. They are eating sweet honey locust seed pods.

Just in case, I put fly spray on all the horses. I’m sure glad I have such a friendly herd that come right up to me and let me spray them.

That’s it. I’ll leave you with one more meal from my handy photo search for “food” tgat brought you today’s pictures.

New Year’s dinner, 2021. My favorite meal to cook. I do usually add pork loin for those not fond of black-eyed peas and collard greens.

Food: I Am Fond of It

What are your favorite types of foods?

Oh gee, it would be easier to say what I don’t like. That’s tripe, brains, and green bean casserole.

Well, it says “types of food” in the prompt. I’m that case, I’d say I like fresh food minimally seasoned and not full of fat. From that I guess you can figure out that classic French cuisine is not high on my list of cuisines. Too many sauces and other adulterations.

What I love is Japanese food, which is fresh and simple, and dishes that would count as part of “the Mediterranean Diet.”

I even have sushi undies. Hey, at least I didn’t show the matching bra. Thanks, MeUndies.

But honestly, I like most food. Variety is fun, especially with vegetables. I love them. Meat is fine, but I don’t need it every day. If I was cooking just for me, I’d eat more fish and chicken and less beef, pork, or venison.

Lest I sound overly healthy, I do love ice cream, Blue Bell, of course.

I had good food this weekend. The Italian food served at the 50th anniversary party we attended last night was very good. My favorite was the mushrooms in the chicken Marsala. Ooh there was a lot of flavor.

And this morning I enjoyed a nice Mexican breakfast at a San Antonio favorite, La Familia. We were joined by a friend I’ve known since I moved from Texas and her high school sweetheart boyfriend. Eggs and green salsa go so well together.

I’m impressed I managed to write anything on this topic. I’d rather be telling you that rain lilies and sprigs of grass are appearing back home at the ranch.

In the desolate sand are two rain lily sprouts.

Old and Frustrated

How are you feeling right now?

For September I’ve decided to do an experiment. I’m going to answer the daily prompt that WordPress keeps asking me to respond to, and see how it fits in with what I want to talk about.

Something is blooming on September 1, at least.

So, how AM I feeling today?

Mostly I’m feeling very old. This has been a hard few weeks among my circles. Today another wonderful friend and role model, Norma, died after a valiant struggle to recover from infections. She was a wise breastfeeding advocate, a wonderful writer, and a font (fount?) of humor, especially Jewish.

Yesterday there was another loss close to our family. It reminds me of all the things that you leave behind for others to deal with. Oh please, family, pick a few things you like and auction the rest off. Just scatter my ashes around some trees. I’d like to help.

Yeah. I’m old. But I don’t feel like it. I have so much more to learn. Sigh. I hope my friends who’ve passed (as well as me) get a chance to come back and learn more. Maybe I’ll be a horse.

I still have so many cute horses to pet and tell them they’re good. (I’m doing that here, as Drew stops like a champ.)

I’m also frustrated. But that’s temporary. It was one of those days where whatever I tried to do didn’t quite work out. For example, I missed my 10am meeting, thinking it was at 11. Then I showed up a half hour early to lunch with Anita. At least lunch at the coffee shop was great!

Soup I had for lunch, and plug for the coffee shop.

And I didn’t get upset about this (on purpose, since horses can tell you’re upset) but the darned horses opened a gate and got out TWICE today! It’s no trouble to get them back in at meal time, but when I was relaxing in the pool and looked over to see Apache walking up to the chicken house, I was not amused.

Mmm. Lots of green grass over by the septic field. It’s a place I’m not supposed to take them, but they took themselves.

Note that it’s much harder to entice horses away from what they perceive as better food after they ate their rations and supplements. Still, I was very surprised to see Apache, Mabel, and Fiona come when I called. Dusty came close, so I haltered him and got him in.

I found Droodles hiding between the tack room and Kathleen’s RV, where the grass is quite nice, because it’s shady. He indicated that he’d like to stay, but accepted a cookie and a halter, so I succeeded in not losing my cool (once, a little — I’m human).

I put a bungee cord around the gate they keep opening. I’ll be interested to see how it holds up overnight.

I’m sure the horses are just as annoyed with me as I am with them, because I didn’t give them a bale of hay today. That’s because as I was moving their saddles back to the tack room from the horse trailer, my wagon blew a tire. I can’t carry hay. I’ll empty the wheelbarrow and use it in the morning. I’d love to use the utility vehicle, but it’s bed is full. Woe is me, ranch lady problems. But, hey, I can now open the shipping container doors to get hay out and have figured a way to get to more bales, so I’m a semi-competent ranch lady.

Suna and Skippy the Butterfly

Yesterday, I was floating in my pool float, a thing I do most days after horse activities. There are often various insects in the pool. So far it’s mostly been flying ants, pill bugs, and scorpions (which float to the bottom). For a while there were tiny moths and crane flies. I’d never seen a butterfly, though, until I saw one floating between my legs.

I first tried to shoo it under the float, but it wouldn’t go anywhere. So then I scooped it up with my hands. I saw that it was a fiery skipper, a common little visitor around here.

As soon as my finger touched the butterfly, it took hold of it. At first, Skippy (I got to know it so well that I named it) didn’t look too good. Its wings were wet, its abdomen was droopy, and its legs were flat. Poor waterlogged little thing! I felt the least I could do was let it recover a bit.

This may be my only other non-blurry photo of one of these.

So, I floated around, sipped on my water, and watched Skippy. The first thing Skippy did was stick out its proboscis and drink some water off my finger. That was fun to watch. Soon, the antennae started moving a bit. I thought maybe Skippy was ready to get off, so I tried to encourage it to go onto the patio by shaking my finger. Skippy held tight.

So, fine. I watched the clouds and birds, and kept floating. Soon, Skippy’s abdomen raised up and looked perkier. Its legs unfolded a bit, and it moved around a little. That was encouraging.

I’d say it took another ten minutes before Skippy started walking around on my finger. I guessed it was waiting for its wings to dry about. I enjoyed looking at its big black eyes and checking out the little bulbs at the ends it each antenna. This was about as good a chance to study a live butterfly as I will ever get.

Suddenly, Skippy pooped, or peed, or something. The abdomen bobbed up and down a couple of times, and poof! Skippy skipped off across the grass, headed towards the trees. I think helping this creature made me feel better about not helping the armadillo yesterday.

I also saw this most excellent beetle yesterday, good ole *Enaphalodes taeniatus.* A beetle this cool deserves a fun common name and a long Wikipedia article. But nope. These mainly live from around here south into Mexico.

Today was a fine day. Horses were great, other than Apache not wanting to get caught. It’s hard to catch him, since all three other horses and Fiona come right up and mill around me. It’s pretty comical. They think they should all get treats for being so good, I guess. Fiona just about glues herself to me and Dusty is not much better!

The most fun thing today was that I picked 5 cups of mustang grapes across the road from us. I’m sure Hank across the street thought I was crazy for standing in the heat picking weeds. I thought he wasn’t wise to be jogging in a heat advisory, so we’re even!

Fresh grapes! I had to dodge a lot of garden spiders to get them.

I cooked the grapes with a bunch of sugar and a little lemon. When grapes popped out of their skins, they looked like floating eyes (great Halloween trick, because it sort of looked like eyeballs in blood). Luckily it all cooked down.

Eyeballs had not appeared yet when I took this.

After it was cooked, I strained it through a mesh colander and got pretty purée. It thickened well in the refrigerator, and it was delicious over vanilla ice cream. The color was bright fuchsia. The sauce is tart but has a nice grape flavor, too. If I was good at canning, I’d have made jam.

That was a great ending to a pleasant evening of swimming and eating sloppy joes with friends. Now on to another work week!

Still Cold. Alive.

We are all alive! Me, Lee, the rest of the local family, horses, dogs, and chickens. It’s a lot worse in other parts of the US, so I’m thankful for my knowledge of how to dress for really cold weather and that it only got down to 10° F last night.

I brought the chickens fresh water and received cold eggs is return. The horses appreciated me opening up their water troughs and giving them some energy-filled food. My snow gloves made that hard, so I ditched them. I’m glad Fiona has extra food dishes, because hers blew into the next field. Yow. So much wind.

Our heat stopped working, just like last year, so I went up to the landing and finished my work where the sun was shining. It confused the dogs. Then we went shopping for holiday food in the warm car. We had fun!

We figured the propane would get better soon as it got a little warmer, which it did. We weren’t alone. The same thing happened all over the area. It’s not like we suffered! We have dogs and many handmade items to keep us warm. And whiskey.

So, I went in the kitchen to pour myself some medicinal Jameson’s Irish whiskey with a little water. Then I sat down to crochet on my unfinished Christmas gift. First, I checked Facebook. Guess what the first damned ad I saw was for? Jameson’s!!

Can one of my conspiracy theory friends explain that? I didn’t SAY what I was doing. I haven’t mentioned that stuff, perhaps ever, except when Lee tells people he prefers Clontarf instead. (Which is why I am drinking the perfectly adequate other stuff.)

That was today’s mystery. Tomorrow’s big agenda includes cooking pork chops. I lead an exciting life when the polar winds blow.