We're melting! We're melting!

T requested Ginger-people bars - post-holidays the gingerbread flavored marshmallows were on sale for $.75/bag, so I picked up a bunch.  

Every time I make them the witch's plaint from the Wizard of Oz runs through my head.  "I'm meeeellltting....".

It really is melting here... mornings are crunchy, but my midday the snow has that slippery, wet feeling to it and the driveway is sloppy.

They're predicting a chance of rain for Thursday, and then it's back into the depths of winter for the weekend.  I hope we get more snow!


Yesterday I worked on the chicken house, restacking all of the wood that's been stored inside it outside, raking out packrat nests and moving all the other odds and ends that have accumulated.  It finally got too dusty to breathe, so I moved down to the barn and worked on that.

Down there, I acquired an audience.

What'cha doin?

For now I'm hauling the manure over to dump next to the granary in what will, if all goes as planned, be tilled for a melon/squash patch next spring.
 

Cat 1 came to see what I was up to via the barn window.  He tried sitting by the muck bucket, but after a couple of frozen horse apples bounced off his head, he moved over into a spot of sunshine by the door and gave himself a bath. 

Thunder came in to see what I was doing, checked out the bucket to be absolutely certain nothing inside was edible, poked the cat to make sure he wasn't hiding anything tasty, then migrated back around the barn to watch me through the window.

You work, I'll watch

Next trip to Orschlens, I'm getting a wheelbarrow!
 
T and I checked out the loft over the weekend.  It's not as full as he remembered, thank goodness! There's some old alfalfa, and some straw bales along the back side and one wall, and someone stored a bunch of windows along the other wall, but a large portion of the floor is clear.  It's really dusty. 

We'll back a truck in below the loft door and shove the bales out, and I think we can use them for mulch.  The windows... not sure if we can use them to make hot boxes for the garden, or if we'll end up just hauling them to the dump.  Anybody have any nifty ideas for old screens?

Also up there, hanging from the rafters, two complete sets of harness.  I think it's too old and cracked to be saved, unfortunately.  But I'm going to see what I can salvage.

Remnants of the old days

Since the horses have been using the barn to loaf in, today's project is getting the mangers cleaned out.  That way, if it's really nasty I can feed them inside, not on the floor.  And there's more cleaning to be done in the chicken house.

A bunch of cows were shoving one another around their water tank when I finished up in the barn, and when I checked sure enough, the tank was empty.  The guys have only been filling it in the morning so that it doesn't freeze solid at night - no heater, so it saves them from having to break ice all the time.  There's another big tank clear on the other side of the pasture, so some days the cows don't come in to this one at all.

I turned the water on for them and Cat 1 and I hung out on top of the well house cover in the sunshine while they drank. 

Pet me!  Pet me, pet me, pet me!

Definitely not a bad way to spend an afternoon!

Cookie Jar Gingersnaps

When I was in grade school back in the not-quite-dark ages, we used to get these saucer-sized, rich-with-molasses and rolled in sugar, crackle-topped cookies every now and then for dessert with school lunch.  I loved them. They had that crunchy-stiff outer edge and a slightly chewy middle... yum. Once I learned to bake, I started looking for a recipe and this one is about the closest I've found.

It also has the benefit of being relatively quick and doesn't require a lot of complicated fiddling.  I don't make them hand-sized, because that's a LOT of cookie - and the big ones don't fit in a normal-sized coffee mug. ;-)

Cookie Jar Ginger Snaps

Cream together

• 1/2 c. soft shortening (butter flavor Crisco works well)
• 2 c. sugar 

Beat in:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c molasses (blackstrap, or the darkest you can find unless you like a lighter cookie)

Sift together... and then add to moist ingredients and blend well:

• 4 c. flour
• 2 T. ginger
• 1/2 t. salt
• 2 t. cinnamon
• 2 1/2 t. baking powder

Roll into balls the size of a walnut.  Roll in white sugar.  Place 2 1/2" apart on parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Bake at 350' for 12-15 minutes.  Store in airtight container.  Yield: 4-5 dozen.

Molasses-y goodness

My sister always asks for these in lieu of a Christmas present; she's the sugar cookie baker in the family, so we swap! They're good right out of the oven, but the spices get stronger as they're stored - so they get better and better until they're gone - they keep well and they don't crumble when packed up and sent USPSing across country, either. 

Enjoy!!!

Weekend Update

Cookie Jar Ginger Snaps

Holiday baking has commenced.  Two Swedish Tea Rings dropped off, and the and second round of Cookie Jar Ginger Snaps are ready to go.  I love the smell of the house during the holidays.

Rolled in sugar

Hot out of the oven

We had about 1/2 an inch of rain the other night - the horses were all proper mudballs in the morning, but the ground and all the vegetation is surely happier for it.  I wouldn't have minded if it had kept up for all of the next day, too.  Unfortunately it didn't.  The horses weren't entirely pleased to be kept penned up in the corral with hay until afternoon to give the orchard pasture a chance to dry some.  Every time the house door swung open Sunny would whinny notifying us that, "Hey, you've forgotten us down here!  We want out!"


It was still damp even yesterday when I went down to snip off some more spindly trees along the orchard fenceline.  I'm making progress - I've done most of the way to the barn now, although there's still work for T to do with the chainsaw.

Cat 1 joined me to supervise, yammering away the whole time.  He's nothing if not vocal.  He's still a youngster, definitely a tom, and was likely someone's pet at some point.  He worked his way closer and closer and finally got up the courage...

Once he'd had his ears rubbed I couldn't keep him out from underfoot - I almost dropped a tree on him a couple times.  Finally the horses came over to check out what I was up to and after Sunny snuffled him over and got slobber on him and Thunder almost flattened him, he retreated under the pear tree to complain at the lot of us.

Cat 2 is still running off whenever he spots us getting closer than 20 feet or so, and there's an even shyer, big fluffy grey cat that showed up briefly over the weekend.  Finding some outside cats is not going to be a problem.... keeping track of them all, however....

I have the majority of the tub surround tiled, along with the sink backsplash.  Hopefully we'll have a working shower before company arrives for the holidays, but it still has to be grouted, so we'll see.

Last night when we went down to bring the horses in, only Amyra and Rufus appeared.  T called, I called... finally a crashing and thudding, and the errant pair trotted up over the edge of the creekbed both with grass still hanging out of their mouths.  So at least a couple of them have figured out there's edible stuff down there. 

This morning all of them but Amyra were standing in the barn when I went down to let them out, so they've figured that out, too. 

T pulled the cover off one of the old well pits yesterday so we could see how deep it is.  Fairly deep, with a bit of water in the bottom from the rain.  And it also had snakes.  T says just corn snakes. 

They eat mice and bugs and aren't poisonous.  But I still wouldn't want to run across one unexpectedly, and I sure won't be picking them up. 

They look a bit too much like rattlers at first glance.  And I'm not sure what the green one is.

And that's the news from here for the last couple of days.

Cookies!

Not the horse kind, either.  Although the day is young yet...

Yesterday I made my annual batch of fruitcake.  Don't hate - my family likes it!  I have an ancient Betty Crocker cookbook I inherited from one of my grandmothers, and it has a whole page of fruitcake recipes.  I always use the base recipe, but depending on what a) sounds good at the moment, and b) what I have handy... I end up with something different every year.

This year I went dark.

In addition to the traditional
citron, candied cherries and pineapple pieces,

walnuts and golden raisins, this year's batch has:

coffee, molasses, dried cranberries,

cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, and cloves, and

for "tart" jelly I used whole-berry cranberry sauce.

It bakes in a slow oven, 

so the house smelled wonderful 

all yesterday afternoon and into the evening.

While the first batch was in the oven I tackled the package of gingerbread marshmallows someone thought I would know what to do with.  I'm not sure what exactly you'd call the result, but they're tasty...

Cinnamon Cereal Ginger-People Bars

1 package gingerbread marshmallow people

2 cups mini-marshmallows

1/4 cup butter

6 cups cinnamon squares ceral

1 cup mini-chocolate chips

Make them as you would Rice Crispie treats, stirring the chocolate chips in with the cereal and pressing them into a 13x9" pan while they're still warm.  They're weirdly addictive.

This morning I managed to ignore the cats bouncing off me until 5:30 - hey, it's the weekend, I can sleep in a little, right? But once I was up and coffee was on, I figured why not get some more of the Christmas baking done.

These macaroons are C's favorites, and they'll be filling an exam care-package shortly.

Almond Joy Macaroons

 1 package shredded coconut

1 can sweetened condensed milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract

1/2 package (or so) mini-chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped almonds

350' oven for 8-10 minutes

**The secret to these is parchment paper

and letting them cool on the pan for 1-2 minutes.

DO NOT 

make them without parchment paper

unless you LIKE swearing... a lot.

Chocolate chip cookies, just because I like them... well that, and I had all the ingredients.

Milk & dark chocolate chips
with big chunks of walnut - YUM

  I use the recipe off either the Baker's 

or Ghirardelli's chocolate chips. 
This time it was Baker',

but they're both good.

I should probably title this post "Thank you, Sunbeam"

The next ones are for my sister.  I've been sending these to her for Christmas for a number of years now.  Not long after she was married I sent her her traditional tin.  Her husband, who apparently couldn't remember if he'd had them before asked her if he liked them...  

Her answer, "No, you don't." - LOL!

Cookie Jar Ginger Snaps

Pretty, aren't they?  They taste darn good, too!

Now I have to scramble if I want to get everything mailed.