More Christmas Cookies

As I was baking, I took some pictures of the Chocolate Cherry Cookies in their three stages of production. I think they look so pretty and holiday-ish in the first phase. The first photo is after I have mixed up the batter and formed round balls and place on a cookie sheet. Then you make an indentation in the top of each ball with your finger and place a Marschino cherry that has been drained and blotted from the juice on each cookie.

In the next step, I take a spoonful of chocolate mixture and place on top of the cherry/cookie. (The sauce is made from chocolate chips, condensed milk and a few spoonfuls of the Marschino cherry juice--it stays very thick and does not run, even in the baking process). Then its into the oven and the final result. The only trouble with these cookies is they tend to dry out pretty fast, since the dough is thick and stiff. I find them fun to make and it usually takes me about a half hour preparing time to do a double batch. (Not including baking time). The cherry in the middle makes a nice surprise to most people when they bite into one for the first time. They taste really yummy!

Christmas Cheer....Cookie Version

One year in a fit of temporary insanity and a heart overflowing with Goodwill Towards Man (in this case my neighbors and friends), I decided to make Christmas Goodies for them. When you start something like this it behooves one to think ahead....far, far ahead, and see if this is going to become a 'tradition' or is it just a 'treat'. As usual I did not think ahead, and when people thanked me profusely for the goodie baskets I was happy and inadvertently started a 'tradition'. Now unless people are 'feeding me a line' it seems the Sugar Cookies are looked forward to, fought over, hidden and scarfed down quickly in quiet, secluded corners--so as not to have to share. The first few years I had a good variety of cookies and candies....but all anyone could talk about was the Sugar Cookies. So, after a few years of baking a variety, I have finally settled on just a few items---all cookies (or bread). The two that have withstood the test of time, are of course the Sugar Cookies and the Chocolate Cherry Cookies. I also bake soft raisin cookies, peanut butter and chocolate chip (or M & M) cookies to round out the baskets somewhat, even if the receivers wouldn't be unhappy with a basket full of Sugar Cookies! Occasionally I will try something different if a recipe catches my eye.

Now the Sugar Cookies are just that---SUGAR (with a little of the other stuff thrown in)! They are one of the easiest cookies to make and I use a 'no roll' recipe, even though I do roll them out and faithfully cut out shapes that nobody can tell what they are (or could even care as they sink their teeth into them). What makes these cookies really taste good are the powdered sugar icing. Again simple---margerine (or butter), powdered sugar and a little water to make it spreadable. Of course food coloring is added to make them look festive. Sometimes they don't look that great, because I gob the icing on nice and thick, but people don't seem to care. These cookies are so sweet that it would be best to ration yourself to one...or two.....

These cookies aren't hard, but very time consuming---especially putting the icing on. This is why the baskets don't have just sugar cookies. Takes to long, the icer needs variety.

I tend to put everything off to the last minute, so it becomes quite a baking marathon towards the end. The part I enjoy the most, is finally assembling the baskets and delivering them. They look festive, and getting to visit with my neighbors and friends for just a bit is always a treat. Now, I don't do tons of these ----just 7 or 8----depending on if I add anyone to 'list'. Through out the year I'm always on the lookout for decorative tins, baskets or whatever that will make a good tray for the cookies. This year, I was short on containers, so ended up buying one official decorative plastic basket thingy, and about 4-5 small paint buckets. These cost less than $1.50 each and can be re-used for lots of things about the house. They usually come in bright colors like blue or orange. To round out some of the baskets I include some packages of cheese from the local cheese store, or some homemade bread from the bread machine. This year a friend from work gave me a large roll of clear fancy cellophane so I was able to wrap the baskets all up fancy at the end.

As I'm doing the baskets I usually make one extra for the "Christmas Stranger". :-) I started doing this a couple of years ago for no reason I could think of at time. However, my water quit working on Christmas Eve, and I expected not to have water til well after the holiday(its a long story so I'll only hit the highlights!) The pump guy was called, and wonder of wonders he called back shortly and said he was on his way. I was so happy. It turned out the water was frozen up in the wellhouse, and although he didn't think thats where it was frozen--he thought it would be in the maze of pipes between there and the house. He ran the torch in the wellhouse and happily that solved the problem. He refused to take any pay for this (even though he was making a 36 mile round trip) but I was able to practically throw a tin of cookies in his truck before he drove off! He did say he wouldn't refuse cookies.....

There is also the Christmas Eve Plate that gets filled at the same time as the baskets. This is the tray I take to our Christmas eve gathering at Mom and Dad's. Now, last year, I had boughten a slightly smaller platter---the other was huge and a bit flimsy. I didn't think anyone would notice. They did. "They" informed me, that did I think they would not notice that I had shrunk the size of "their" Christmas platter???? Oops....

I'm Baaack........

Well the holidays are over and all those cool posts I wanted to put up, while they were still pertinent, are still only thoughts in my head. However.....I think I will post them anyway, although most of us are a bit thankful Christmas is past and now we can begin the big Organize My Life phase that comes around the New Year. I managed to get some picture taking done in the throes of cookie baking and basket assembling, so be forwarned, if you have fell off your cookie high and now are in sugar withdrawal--you might not want to see them.

We had a good Christmas here--lots of time spent with the family and of course opening gifts. We all usually assemble at my folk's house on Christmas Eve and enjoy opening gifts and informally pigging out on sandwhiches, chips n dip and all those 'party' type foods. On Christmas day we all head out to my sister's house, where she fixes a very festive full course meal. The table always looks beautiful with candles, table cloth, and individual place tags. My sister is very 'Martha Stewart-ish' and could make something beautiful out of gunny sack and pine cones! :-) We spend the day eating, opening (more) presents and visiting. After all the 'social whirl' we head home, usually all tuckered out and hoping for a nap! This year since Christmas eve was on Sunday we were able to have the Christmas program at Church during the morning service time. We all had a good laugh when one of our members asked---aren't we having a potluck meal after the service? We all quickly shook our heads and looked at each other with confusion. This lady then said 'well, I wondered where all the food was when I took my baked beans down stairs!'....and it seems she had told her entire family as well---I think they were going to have beans and taco salad for lunch! ;-) They all took it well, but I doubt she lives it down anytime soon.

While opening gifts on Christmas eve, it seems my niece inadvertently got one of my gifts (or this is the story) and began opening it. She was pretty thrilled with the blank VHS tapes (although confused), but her face was priceless when she spied the two galvanized buckets in the bottom! :-0 After some flurried conferring and shushing, everything was stuffed back in the bag and handed over to me! I really like my galvanized buckets. :-)

Merry (late) Christmas everyone!

Rams....looking for a home

....preferably with lots of pretty girls!

I've decided to go ahead and offer both Redford and Drake for-sale. Drake is already listed but I haven't gotten Red up yet. These are both lovely boys, and completely unrelated to each other. I had thought to keep Red for awhile yet, but since I have three of his daughters now and hopefully more in the Spring, I've decided to go ahead and list him. His job is finished here. I really need to reduce flock numbers and will be searching for a new ram for the fall of 2007, so the ram flock definately needs to be decreased.

Minwawe Redford (Windswept Sundance x Minwawe Daylily)is a 2005 registered Shetland Moorit Smirslet Sokket with a lovely crimpy fleece. He really surpassed himself with his offsprings fleeces. They are so soft and lovely, you just want to sink your hands into them. He is a lovely mannerly little guy, who doesn't seem to have a mean bone in his body. Of course he is a ram, but all in all, if they were all rams were like Red, I'd be happy. He is halter broken as well. He has nice wide horns, and decent conformation. He is on the small size for those who like the smaller shetlands. He produced one krunet and a musket flecket when bred to some of the girls last year. With more spotty genetics he would likely produce more color. Red is a proven ram and I have photos available of last years lambs. He was the only ram I used this year, so I'm excited to see what the lambs look like in the Spring.

Fairlight Drake (Fairlight Jeffrey x Shandrew Rouen) is a 2005 Musket Blettet who has a lovely long soft fleece. A very nice ram overall . He has great conformation, lovely correct horns, and a correct tail, all in a soft oatmeal color. He is not overly aggressive nor is he extremely friendly. I have not used Drake for breeding purposes, but I think he would be able to improve fleeces, tails and conformation for you. He is from a lovely line of Shetlands and I'm quite pleased with the way he is maturing. He has some strong lines of Shaela in his background as well as kraiget markings.

If anyone is interested, please email me privately and I will answer any questions etc.

Its hard to list any of the sheep for-sale, especially when they are friendly and mannerly but necessity demands that I thin the flock a little. Hopefully someone out there is looking for a couple of good looking rams to add something to their flock.

Its Gone!

Thankfully all but in a few sheltered spots the snow and ice have melted. I am very glad. This week the temps promise to rise into the 60s. This is good too. Of course with all the rain, and then melting snow and ice, it has become very muddy and sloppy. All in all though this is a good thing (I keep telling myself as I knock off giant gobs of goo from my boots), since we really need the moisture in this area.

I went through the whole storm and aftermath, carefully tottering around trying not to fall, only to develop a 'duh' moment and go striding out to feed Eddie & Sue (chickens), without stopping to think that there might be some re-frozen ice patches after the thaw. One foot hit the ice, then the other and I did a complete flop up into the air--bucket and feed flying. I landed mostly on my left side, where I wallered around in the ice and mud for a moment or two, thinking I had seriously hurt myself. I ended up pulling the muscle in the back of my leg, but it has healed quickly and I only notice it when I have been sitting for awhile and then stand up. The bucket was not so lucky and did not survive the fall. It was a galvanized pail and one I use to do chores everyday. The bottom sprouted a hole along the seam, so its next life will be as a flower pot. I'm hoping they are still making these galvanized buckets, since they are 'just right' for chores.

Both batches of sheep (the girls and Blue (the merino ram) and his buddy Lanny Wilson) now have big round bales out again, and the weather is warm enough that ice isn't piling up in the water tubs. I think after today the hoses will unthaw and maybe I won't have to carry water for a few days. Things are definately looking up!

I'm posting some pix taken the next day or so after the storm passed through. It was beautiful. I took the dogs for a walk in part of the cedar grove and they and I had fun looking (me) and sniffing (them) at various tracks. Some were turkey tracks, and perhaps some coyote (or a large dog). The coyotes have been very loud the last week about dusk. If you've never heard coyotes sing, it can be quite an exprience. Simply saying they are 'howling' doesn't do it justice. Sometimes they sound like a siren in the distance, or a woman being murdered, or perhaps someone being gagged and strangled....they get quite creative in their 'songs'. I'm sure if you didn't know what it was, it could be quite frightening! I enjoy their songs, as long as they keep to themselves and leave my sheepies alone.

Cat Tails

The boys in the house are still adjusting to life as 'brothers'. Well, Meshach is adjusting , Sage just goes on his merry tormenting way. Actually he is doing pretty good, although once in awhile still getting a terrible ornery spell. I'm sure they are growing pains. I weighed them both the other day, and Meshach is 10.5 lbs while Sage is already a little over 8 lbs (okay, he is up to 9 lbs--I re-weighed him!) I'm pretty sure I did catch Meshach playing with Sage the other night. Although it appeared on the surface as if he was running for his life, with Sage hot on his tail, a closer look revealed a certain look of excitement about his eyes, and a jauntily held tail. He would deny it of course.

For Sage, walking through a room is so...so...common... especially when you can leap from perch to perch, run and almost fly! Unfortunately with his bulk he lands rather hard, causing things to get knocked about and making an incrediable amount of noise.

Now, to the title of this blog. Sage seems to have a 'proportion' problem. His tail is too long for his body! It just keeps growing and growing.. a very pretty tail, all fluffy...and long. Finally I measured his tail just to make sure I wasn't imagining things---sure enough his tail is 14 inches long, while his body length measures in somewhere around 12.5 inches. I measured Meshach's tail too, just for comparison and his was at about 11 inches. (See first picture) As you can imagine, 'the tail' is always getting stepped on, rolled over (with the chair) or caught. So far, no damage done, just lots of meewy squawks about it. My biggest fear is that Sage will grow to fit his tail! I think he might be part Mountain Lion!

Some of Sage's newest favorite things to do this week (besides pounce on Mesh) are running full tilt and crashing into the glass door to try and scare the outside cats---he then tries to beat them up through the glass---bang, bang, smack. The oustide girls are not impressed. He also loves boxes, and papers to rip up as he hides in the boxes. Climbing ladders. Playing with a hard piece of dog food...for hours... Having the covers thrown over him while I'm making the bed. Oh, and I mustn't forget the feet biting. He loves to bite his hind feet. Well, attack would be a better word. He attacks them, bites them, and rolls around 'killing' his own hindfeet. (See last picture)

Meshach's favorite things are to chase five seperately thrown bits of dry cat food for him to chase and 'kill' in the morning, getting two tiny teaspoons of canned cat food--once in the morning, once at night. Laying in front of the woodstove, getting on the keyboard when I'm typing, and sleeping under the covers when its cold. (Don't all beds have big lumps in the middle of them?)

Another thing about cats...I thought they 'hated' water? Nobody ever explained that to my cats, I guess. It all started around here with Shadrach--a huge lynx point siamese mix cat. He was quite a character, and quite ornery (the stories I could tell about him!!). He loved getting up in the bathroom sink and drinking out of the faucet. When he was about a year old I got a kitten for him to keep him company. So teeny tiny not quite weaned (I didn't know this at the time) Meshach joined us. Shad towered over him, but they had a special relationship from the first, they were buds, and Shad "raised Meshach up in the way he should go". Everything Shad did, Meshach had to do, only take it to new heights. Drinking out of the faucet became a competition---and now included the bathroom tub faucet as well. Shad tragically died when he was only 4 years old, and Mesh was devestated, as was I. Fast forward 6 years.....Sage enters the picture. By now, Meshach has fine tuned his water addiction. He now drinks out of the bathroom and tub faucet, any buckets that are filled and sat on the floor, my water bottles (he actually drinks from a little trickle I pour out--kitty lips don't touch the bottle), or any unattended beverage he can find on the nightstand. He gets pretty mouthy about it all too, if I don't move fast enough to turn on faucets, or spend too long getting myself a drink! So here comes Sage...unaware of the lure and attraction of water. That lasted about two weeks, until he suddenly realized something big was up with the bathroom sink....so he jumped up to see what Meshach was doing....and well the rest is history. Another water obsessed cat. He has had a bit of learning to do though---like don't get IN the shower.....

At least its never dull around the house with those two little rats...er I mean cats.

Still digging out....

and frankly pretty tired of it! I really feel for the people that got the ice and snow in really large amounts. What we got was enough to slow things down and make it very difficult for awhile. This last week has been tiring. After the ice/snow storm it stayed very cold for a few days, then we had a brief warmish day or two (30s), that started things thawing, then a very cold couple of days (close to zero at night, high teens during the day), so anything that had melted a little froze into a glaze of greasy ice. Paths are like skating rinks, paths besides the paths are almost as bad (time to make an even newer path!). Its really hard to think of everything before one of these storms hits, although there are always the basics you should do--like have plenty of water on hand (which means every bucket and container in the house is sitting around full of water), make sure you have ample feed for the livestock and yourself, candles, kerosine for the lamps, any medications you or the critters need, and an alternate heat source if the electricity goes out (I have wood heat, so as long as I can carry the wood in, I'm good!) There are alot of things that I didn't think about though. I did think a little ahead and managed to wire a couple of the inside gate panels up out of the snow, as well as take the hay panel off the stack (which was almost gone) and wire it up on the fence out of the snow, so it wouldn't freeze down. I didn't think about every stinking gate/panel/bucket/tub becoming ice bound.....for a week. I spent the first day (luckily off from work) digging out the gates and unfreezing the latches just to get out of the yard, and into the livestock pens. Many of the gates still only open enough to squeeze through, but at least they are opening. I had the vet out yesterday to health inspect some of the sheep who are sold and traveling out of the state. I didn't think about having to dig out the cattle panels to make the catch pen work, until late the night before! Putting ear tags in when it is this cold is also a challenge. Luckily I only had three that needed put in and also luckily the manufactorers think ahead and include a handy little tip sheet in the box on how to make the tags work in the cold weather (you put a bottle of warm water in side a bucket with the tags and let them warm up so they become more flexible and expand). Yesterday I was finally able to dump some of the water tubs to get rid of the big pieces of ice. Most of the tubs are black flexible rubber and can be banged and pounded on to release the ice...unless they are frozen to the ground. My arms, back and legs hurt from hauling so much water and breaking ice in the tubs for the sheep this week (until yesterday even the outside spigot was frozen up), and creeping along, every muscle tense to try and keep from falling. Of course some of the soreness might be from catching and worming/tagging reluctant sheep yesterday too.....

Unfortunately the sheep had just enough hay in their round bale to last them about a day into the storm. After that I had to feed my square bale hay (expensive, much too good hay that I use for the ewes just before/after lambing), to the girls and rams, which involved alot more work, and creeping around on the snow/ice. The sheep were very happy though.

Today (Saturday) its warming up and we are suppose to get some really warm weather this week--40s and maybe 50s. I spent the morning working out in the barnyard, unloading feed into the chicken house, putting out mineral blocks for the sheep, putting straw bedding in the dog house and chicken house--all things that needed to be done, but were put on hold with the storm. I enjoyed the feeling of not rushing, the smell of the frozen barnyard waking up to the warm sun (yeah I know--believe me, its a farmer thing),the critters moving around enjoying the same sunshine. I also finally got some sandbags for my truck and some sunflower seeds for the birds (been feeding them allstock!). The birds are very happy today and singing and puttering about.

I'm still tired from the week. :-) If this post seems rambling and doesn't make much sense, it might be because thats about how I am at this point. At night after getting home from work and getting chores done, I would come in the house, eat supper, do a few household chores, then plop down and work crosswords and watch t.v. If I was lucky I make it til newstime, but the last few nights, I've dozed off before 8! I even fell asleep during some of my favorite shows....(does anyone know how CSI ended on Thursday???)

I think its gonna get better though. At least a break to re-group and rest up! I wish I had Boone, the dog's, energy and enthusiasm for this kind of weather. He really loves it and runs and plays like an idiot, falls, jumps up, runs some more, falls.....you get the idea. Nothing mars his good time!

Hope all of you, especially those with livestock, made it through this early winter storm okay.