50 Things Every Young Lady Should Know by Kay West

My 11 year old daughter loves books that tell you how to do things, how to do things right and what is wrong ...she has several of the "Best of Everything" Series so I gave this book to her for her thoughts. After all this is a book for young ladies, and though I wish it were so...I'm no longer a young lady.

When asked for her review, my usually chatterbox child replied "I liked it!". Hmm...not exactly the review I was looking for...I asked for some elaboration. She said it teaches you all sorts of good things like she was never sure what side to put the forks on when laying the table for dinner, now she knows" Ok this is a good start, what else did she have to say? "I should say Please and Thank-you more often". This pleases me. The reiteration by this book of the values we've been trying to instill for so long are is a good reminder to my daughter without me having to nag for once. And I do believe I'm hearing more pleases and thank-you's.

I think "50 Things Every Young Lady Should Know" is a book every young lady should have. It's the kind of book that instills in the reader good values and manners but without preaching. It explains why we should do things and why we shouldn't, for example (I love this one),

" A lady wears sunscreen every day; otherwise she'll look like an old lady long before her time".

The book is written in a light manner but gets the point across. I think it will be a "go to" book for my daughter when she's unsure about how to do something and I think I'll be bookmarking a few pages for her to read!

What's Wrong With this Picture

I filmed this clip just after I fed my sheep the other day, does this put a whole new perspective on the prey model of dog feeding? (For those who aren't familiar with the prey model of dog feeding it is a diet modeled on feeding dogs as they would eat in the wild - a diet made of all raw meat, bones and other animal parts) There were no hidden treats in this video!

I'm glad the dog is enjoying the expensive hay!

Pumpkin Time

Tis that time of year again when all the ghouls and witches take to the roads for that awesome night called Halloween. My daughter opted to be Hermione from Harry Potter, thankfully something simple this year.

We've had a busy fall this year what with closing on our new property (yet it has finally happened- there will be more on that after this weekend when we can finally go see it !), and the fall decor somehow never got out. We couldn't however forego that timeless tradition of a jack o lantern. Our crop was non existent as the plants withered in the August heat so I had to purchase one and really felt bad as I purchased it from Walmart and not a local farm stand. At least the sticker on it said Texas grown so maybe in a small way I supported the Texas farmers?

We carved the pumpkin on Sunday. Katielyn wanted to make a dog face and chose a rather challenging stencil -a dachshund and then on the other side (yes we carved 2 sides of this pumpkin) she opted for a cartoon dog face! Eeks. We got to gutting the pumpkin and I had a thought -can pumpkin guts be used for anything? I usually pitch them in the compost bin. I googled and found a recipe for Pumpkin Gut Bread. Ooh this sounded interesting. So I saved the guts, seeds and the carved out pieces of ears and eyes to cook. Here's the jack o lantern (both sides), not great but not terrible either!

The dogs got the pumpkin from the carved out pieces on their dinner and we got the guts! The ducks will get the pumpkin seeds for their treats.

Here's the pumpkin gut recipe courtesy of Dinasaur Dishes at Foodbuzz.com.

Diana’s Famous Pumpkin Gut Bread
makes 2 loaves

Ingredients

2 cups of fresh pumpkin guts (the stringy part separated from the seeds)
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. nutmeg
3 cups sugar
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup water
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup chopped pecans

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 F. Use your fingers and a pair of scissors to separate the pumpkin guts, making sure they’ll be able to mix well into the batter.
Combine flour, soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar in large mixing bowl. Add eggs, water, oil and pumpkin. Stir until blended. Add nuts. Mix well. Pour into two 9×5″ loaf pans. Bake 1 hour. Cool slightly and take out of pans to let cool on a rack.

I made a couple of changes to the recipe as I went. First of all I didn't have quite 2 cups of guts so I opted to reduce the sugar content to 2 cups of sugar, and I also reduced the oil to about 1/2 cup. I used mixed whole wheat/white flour and left out the nuts (just because I didn't have any). The loaves turned out delicious. When I make them next year I will also reduce the nutmeg -I found it's flavor rather overpowering.

Homemade Lotion Bars

I suppose I don't need to tell anyone Texas is dry, especially in a year of record breaking drought. And hot (another redundant statement I suppose). This combination wreaks havoc on skin. My arms are beginning to look like one of those road maps that has all the smallest roads. You know the kind, lots and lots of squiggly lines. Yup that's what my arms are beginning to look like. And I want to stop it now.

I've been applying commercial lotions but they always leave my skin feeling greasy and don't really seem to do much so I went searching for something that might help. Lotion bars came up in my search and they sounded like just the thing except"Whoa Nelly...they are expensive!" Pricesvary but they average about $10.00 for a 2oz bar. That doesn't fall into my definition of frugality. Hmmmph and I so wanted to try them. So I searched, and much to my frugal little self's happiness lotion bars can be made at home for far less than the cost to purchase them and even better all the ingredients are natural!

For my first try at making homemade lotion bars I found what sounds like a very simple recipe:

Simple Lotion Bars

1 part oil (sunflower, olive, almond etc)

1 part beeswax

1 part butter (cocoa, shea, mango etc)

fragrance oil or essential oil (about 10 drops per oz of oil)

optional: vitamin E oil capsule

Melt oil, beeswax and butter together and add scent if desired. You can always remelt it add more ingredients if it is too hard or too soft. To make it harder add more beeswax; to make it softer, add more oil.

So I set out to buy the ingredients. I found cocoa butter in 1oz tubes at Walgreens for $1.39 so I bought two of those. I had olive oil at home but opted to purchase some almond oil at Target ($6.99 for 80z)-it just sounds nicer than olive oil. Then I hit a roadblock I couldn't find beeswax anywhere, and had to order it online. I found some at Amazon for only $1.99 for 5oz but $4.49 shipping brought it to $6.48 total).

So now with ingredients in hand I set out to make the lotion bars.

First I melted the butters and oil together. For lack of a double boiler I just boiled water in a pot and used a glass measuring cup as the top pot. It sat nicely on top of the pot. I realized after I started that I should have melted the butters together, and then added the oil as the oil was over the heat much longer than necessary while I waited for the beeswax to melt.

This is the beeswax melting in my "double boiler"

Here you can see the beeswax is taking longest to melt

For scent I asked my daughter what she liked. She chose peppermint and lavender -I'm not so sure with the cocoa butter that those were the best choice but we opted for them. I think next time I'll use vanilla or cinnamon with the cocoa butter. You add the oils just before you pour the wax so that they don't get cooked off.

I let the concoction cool a little and then transferred it into the molds. I used a turkey baster to measure out the lotion but will not do that again. It's impossible to clean the wax out of the baster so it ended up being tossed in the garbage. My measuring cup that I used to melt the wax in has a pouring spout and with care that's good enough.

I don't have any fancy molds so I rummaged through my cupboard and found a muffin tin. I tried lining with cupcake papers and without. It's definitely easier to get the bars out the pan with the cupcake papers and it gives the bars pretty little edges to. I also used a teabag holder that I have that is heart shaped. It's cute but it wasn't so easy to get out of this mold and I damaged the edges a little getting them out. I also poured some of the lotion back into the stick containers the cocoa butter came in.

My various improvised "molds". The one with the little pieces in it is just leftover material I later put into a lip balm container and used up first.

Here is the finished product (you can see the damaged edges on the bars that I poured without papers liners.)

I store the finished bars in the freezer as there are no preservatives in them. I think these bars are the perfect texture. They are solid but melt easily when rubbed on the screen without being messy.

The final tally is 6oz of lotion bars for a grand total of $7.12 (I didn't factor in the essential oil cost as I already had that on hand, and used so little). These were very simple to make and I think a great success. I"m using the bars after every shower and on my feet before bed. I think I can the roadmap on my arms is fading and the sandpaper on my feet has disappeared!

There is a predator amongst us...

The other day at 7:00 am when the sun was just breaking the night sky, my dogs who had just gone out for their morning business created quite the ruckus. This was no bark at the horse type "arf arf" but a true cacophony. They were sounding the alarm. I figured probably a stray dog had found its way to our yard. I looked out of the window but couldn't see anything. I looked out the side window and could see something definitely was amiss -the horses were standing heads raised nostrils flared. I went to the next window and there I saw it. Standing right beside my chicken coop not 20 feet from my window was a large coyote. I could practically see the drool on his lips as he sized up my ducks and chickens.

This was no scrawny half-pint coyote. At first I thought it was a german shepherd but when I went outside and it sidled away I could see by the tail and its actions -definitely coyote. If a coyote could be called beautiful this one would be that, but it is varmit to me and no varmit can be called beautiful. This one was so brazen and I'm sure I could here it's "ha ha, I'll be back" as it slipped away into the morning's dusky light.

And back it was. Today in full daylight. We didn't let the chickens out of the coop until about 10:00 am. At 11:00 I heard my young cockerel makes it's first roostery sounds as it sidled past my window with the two ducks hot on its heels. I thought "odd, where's the hen?" I went outside and she was gone. No signs of a wrestling match, no pile of feathers, just a missing hen. Gone without a trace. I think I know who to blame for this. What nerve in bright sunlight to come plunder my yard! And to think it may be this same sod who stole my precious cat.

"You left your tracks in the sand and I know who you are. Oh Mr. Coyote you have such good taste, first my favorite cat, and now my favorite chicken? A rooster who has no use here wouldn't do for you would it? Nah, you want the pretty hen who is just ready to start laying. Oh Mr. Coyote your days are numbered if you come around here again!"

Meanwhile the chickens are cooped up as I'm sure in the cover of the night, Mr. Coyote will be back. I've moved their tractor to an area out in the open away from the trees and in full view of my front yard, in full sight of the dogs, and not totally out of sight of the guardian dog. How I wish I could set him loose to secure the whole farm, but I fear that though he'd do a good job, he too would disappear as how's a dog to know which fence is yours and which is that of thy neighbor? And then who would I have to watch over my sheep? Tis time to set up the electronet around the coop. I hope the remaining fowl have enough sense to stay within it's boundary of safety.

Not Just a Cat

She came to us just about 3 years ago in a bittersweet time -our beloved Aussie, Selby who was only 12 years old had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only weeks to live. We were making the best of our last weeks with her living each day as if it were her last not knowing how many tomorrows we would have.

We had decided that barn cats do better in pairs and had decided to get another kitten to keep our little orphan kitty Tootsie company out in the barn. I had seen an ad on Craigslist for some super cute looking kittens and decided to go see them. It was kind of odd when we went to see her. We knocked on the door and said we were there to see the kittens, the little girl who answered basically shoved the kitten into Katielyns arms and then we were sent on our way. No small chat was exchanged, just a rather cold "here she is" and we were seen to the door. I'm not even sure if we really had a chance to say no!

Baby "Amy"

We christened our new addition "Amy". She was supposed to be 6 weeks old, but did not look a day over 5 weeks, if that. There was no way she was going out to the barn to fend for herself, so she was ensconced in the house until she grew up and was big enough to become a barn kitty. Annie our youngest Aussie was quite taken with her, and Amy, the kitty, with Annie. Annie became her foster Mom -the little kitty even tried to suckle on Annie. She would climb up onto Annie and snuggle into her fur. And Annie was ever so gentle with her licking her clean. I was almost afraid Annie would lick her bald! We never had any trouble finding the kitty, she'd either be snuggles with Annie or Annie would be following her around, sometimes with a look on her face that said "Could somebody please control this child?"

Amy and Annie Snuggling

As Amy grew up it became apparent that she really wasn't barn cat material. She lacked the lithe action of a barn cat, and for a cat was rather clumsy. She would jump up onto my desk, and miss, and fall to the ground taking with her an avalanche of papers. She'd then get up, shake, and strut off as if saying "no-one saw that, did they?"

Amy and my daughter became bosom buddies. When I'd go into Katie's room at night to read to her, Amy would follow and jump onto the bed, purring like a finely tuned sports car. It was as if I were reading to them both.

Nobody who came into the house could ignore Amy. She'd jump up onto our dining room table and proceed to lie down on anything they had brought with them. She loved to crawl into boxes of papers my accounting clients brought with them. And my assistant, Ronda's laptop carrier-that was a truely beloved spot to hide!

Typical Amy squishing her pudgy self into a tiny space

As Amy matured she really became a pretty cat, with long mottled orange, amber and white hair and sporting the stripes of a tabby within her calico coloring. Her big eyes expressed her amusement with life, and her long eye lashes made her irresistible.

Sadly this past labor day weekend, it seems Amy slipped out of our lives. We're not sure what happened. We always brought Amy in each night. I used to jokingly call her "coyote bait as she is so happy go lucky and totally unaware that danger could lurk around the next corner. I can envision her now strutting up to a coyote and saying "Hi, I'm Amy". Sadly that vision may have come true. One evening she was here and then the next morning her presence was missed. We think she must have slipped outside unbeknownst to us.

We have posted fliers around town, at the schools and put them in mailboxes. I asked the mailman to keep a lookout for her as well as all the neighbors. I've walked our acreage and all the adjoining parcels, and nary a hair to be seen. I've looked up every tree and crawled under anything that a cat could possibly use as a hidey hole. The shelter and local vets have been alerted to her loss and an ad placed on craigslist and in the weekly newspaper. It seems that she's disappeared without a trace.

On one of the days shortly after she disappeared, my husband (not a cat lover) told me "It's just a cat" -he's lucky I didn't divorce him on the spot. More false words have never been spoken. Amy truly was not "just a cat".

I keep hoping to her scolding "mrow" in the morning, telling me off for leaving her out so long, but alas, each morning there is silence. I look out on the back porch where she'd pat at the door knob wishing she had thumbs, but there is no Amy there. I beg the phone to ring with someone saying they have her. As each day passes my hopes fade a little more but they won't die. Just today I was reading on Google about a cat that was found in NY city 5 years after it had disappeared from it's home in Broomfield, Colorado. Can you imagine that? The cat was 1600 miles from home, if only it could tell it's story, what a tale it could tell! Truly inspirational.

We've only had Amy just shy of 3 years, but how she has woven her little self into my daughter and my hearts (and Annies too). Amy wherever you are, you are very missed, I truly hope there are more snuggles in our future.

How Quickly they Grow

I was just out taking pictures of our not-so-little-anymore ram lamb as requested by his new owner. It's amazing how quickly they grow. Here he is:

And this is our ram lamb we purchased in April. I just love this guys expression -he has the sweetest face.

And this is Jasper now about 8 months old. He's pretty good with the sheep -he just has one he can't resist "playing" with. We work on that daily. Next step will be chickens...that'll be fun!