Buddy's Ancestor?

Jerry enjoys reading True West Magazine. They always have interesting stories and really great pictures from the old west. I was looking through his latest copy yesterday and came across this picture in a story about Indian scouts in Arizona and New Mexico.

Our dog, Buddy, looks just like the dog on the left!! He would look even more like him if we hadn't been brushing him for the past two months trying to get all his extra winter coat off.

I thought that was pretty cool! :)

Gazpacho

The first time I had gazpacho I was in my early 20s and on a date with my soon to be husband (now ex). He took me to a nice seafood restaurant on the pier in Redondo Beach, CA. Being a girl from Kansas whose parents had pretty simple tastes, I had never even heard of gazpacho and cold soup, why that was just WRONG! Well, it was one of the best things I had ever eaten. :) Seeing as how it wasn't something that my now-ex would ever willingly eat, that was the last time I had gazpacho for many, many years.

Fast forward 30 years (yep, I'm getting old!). We stopped for lunch after the Farmers' Market a couple of weeks ago and it was so hot that all I wanted was a salad and maybe some soup. When the waitress told me they had gazpacho, I promptly ordered it. I gotta tell you, for our little town, we have some pretty good restaurants. The gazpacho was good but kind of reminded me of "thin" salsa. Since then, I've been on a mission to find a good recipe. I recently remembered that Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman, has a recipe for gazpacho in her new cookbook "The Pioneer Woman Cooks - Food From My Frontier" so I decided to give it a try. I highly suggest you give it a try too!!

I did a couple of things differently, I omitted the celery because I didn't have any, I used salad shrimp instead of grilled shrimp (the rest will be used for Cowboy Ceviche later in the week), I used Clamato instead of tomato juice which I thought paired well with the shrimp, and I omitted the chopped hard boiled egg as a garnish. You can find Ree's recipe here.

All of the vegetables I used came fresh from the Farmers' Market Saturday but if you are lucky enough to have a garden that is actually producing, it would be even better! And just so you know, Jerry thought this was excellent (after being initially skeptical) and just the thing for supper on a hot summer day! :)
Linking up with Heidi for The Country Garden Showcase.
P.S. My blogging buddy Nancy at Little Homestead In Boise is doing a giveaway to celebrate her one-year Blogiversary! Hop on over and sign up, she's giving away some really cool stuff!

Sunday Photo - Cactus Flowers

I took these pictures a couple of weeks ago. All the flowers are gone from the cactus now and the fruit are starting to ripen. If I have the time, and the javelina don't get them all, I will make some prickly pear jam this year from the prickly pear fruit. :)


Cholla



Prickly Pear



Cholla


I had a little fun editing this next one. I have been practicing the spot color technique in Pixlr. I lightened the desaturate overlay to 75%.

Linking up with Madge for Weekly Top Shot Jan for Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday and Nancy for Your Sunday Best.

Rural Thursday - 06/21/2012

Here is another nice old building from the Mescal movie set. The structure in front is a movie prop "well", there is absolutely no depth to it! ;-) This picture has been edited with pixlr-o-matic. Linking up with Lisa and Nancy for Rural Thursday.

Baking for the Farmers' Market has been taking up a lot of my time this week and I have fallen a bit behind in my blog reading but hope to get caught up with everyone here in the next few days! :)

Garden Update - 06/18/2012

The only exciting thing happening around here garden-wise is the Echinacea has started blooming! :)
In the vegetable garden, everything is doing okay. The tomatoes have started blooming, the pepper plants are doing well, the bush beans are growing, the strawberries are blooming again, the pumpkin plants are growing nicely, my last surviving eggplant plant is making a recovery from being munched on, and I FINALLY got some summer squash seeds to germinate without the birds digging them up first!
Linking up with Mosaic Monday, Macro Monday and The Country Garden Showcase this week.

Sunday Photo - Gladiolus

My girlfriend brought me some cut gladioluses?/gladioli?/glads? from her garden the other day. The colors were just so beautiful that I wanted to share them with all of you!
This picture was edited with Nancy's free Spring Fever texture. Thanks Nancy! :)
Sharing with Madge for Weekly Top Shot and Nancy for Your Sunday Best.

Gone Fishin'

Jerry and I went fishing today at Patagonia Lake State Park. What a beautiful place! It is our favorite fishing spot. It gets to be quite noisy and congested on the weekends and holidays but early on a Thursday morning, it was very peaceful and lovely. :)
We only caught two bluegill but it was still worth the drive of a little over an hour just to get away. I hate to admit it but I had never cleaned a fish before. When we got home, I found a wonderful YouTube video on how to clean and fillet small panfish here. I highly recommend checking it out! We had a few worms left over and some very happy chickens when we got home!

In addition to the peace and quiet and fishing, there were ducks looking for a bite to eat amongst the reeds.

A VERY cheeky squirrel with a broken tail. Jerry couldn't resist the little guy and gave him a piece of bread.

And it wouldn't be a proper fishing spot without the ever popular Bobber Berry Tree! We counted at least six. ;-)

I'm happy to report that we did NOT add to the decorations, at least this time!
Linking up with the Rural Thursday Blog Hop, stop by and check out what everyone is up to! :)

Homemade Peanut Butter

I have been wanting to try making my own peanut butter for awhile now so, I did. It couldn't be easier and the taste is sooo much better than store bought! :)

Peanut Butter

Roasted peanuts, salted or unsalted
1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons oil for each cup of peanuts

Put peanuts and oil in food processor and process until smooth. That's all!

The original recipe from the Joy of Cooking 75th Anniversary cookbook called for safflower or canola oil but I only use olive oil so I used the extra light tasting. If you are using unsalted peanuts, add 1/2 teaspoon of salt for each cup of peanuts or to taste.

Jerry likes his peanut butter smooth.

I like mine crunchy. I do store it in the refrigerator but I'm not sure that is really necessary. The Joy of Cooking didn't mention it so I think that it probably isn't.
Come join The Country Homemaker Hop this week!

Tuesday's Tails - 06/12/2012

I thought I'd share some pictures I've taken recently of some of our native wildlife. First up, a family of Gambel's quail hangin' out underneath the dwarf peach tree. These pictures were taken through the kitchen window, I love watching all the goings on out back! :)

Next, I caught this lizard sunning himself on a rock in the back yard. Hmmm, his tail looks suspiciously short.

The turkey vultures were cruising around one morning looking for breakfast. Yeah, I see you lookin' at me!!

This next one is a little out of focus but I like it anyway.

Finally, I mentioned the javelina last fall and some of you had never seen. Well...guess who happened to stroll down the road early one morning recently? Best of all, my camera was within easy reach! :) This one was all alone which makes me think it was a male. He was pretty big too! To give you some perspective, the dark strand of barbed wire running across the top of his back is 27 inches high. I figure he was 30 inches at the highest point on his back. There are two fences in the picture, the lighter-colored straight wire (ahem, OUR fence) was about 6 feet in front of him.

Sunday Photo - Hollyhocks

My friend gave me two little hollyhock plants earlier this year. She called them "black" but it kind of depends on the light. As you can see, in the morning sunlight, they are a deep reddish-purple.

 In the afternoon sunlight, they do look darker.

My hollyhocks are planted in one of the barrels in the back yard. One of the plants is almost finished blooming but the other, on the right, is just getting ready. I'm going to try to save seeds as I have read that hollyhocks are a biennial or a short-lived perennial. I have enjoyed these so much that I want to grow them again! :)
Joining Madge for Weekly Top Shot, Jan for Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday and Nancy for Your Sunday Best.

Cornmeal Cheddar Scones

Not all scones have to be sweet you know. ;-)

Cornmeal Cheddar Scones

1 1/2 cups Baking Mix
1/2 cup cornmeal
2 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons cold butter cut into chunks
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
Cayenne pepper for dusting the tops

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a medium bowl, stir together Baking Mix, cornmeal and sugar. Cut in butter until it resembles small peas. Stir in shredded cheese. Make a well in the center. In a separate bowl, combine egg and buttermilk; mix well. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry and mix lightly until incorporated. Do not overmix.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently for 4 or 5 turns. Roll or pat dough into a circle 7 inches in diameter. Cut into 6 wedges and place on a baking sheet. Make sure to leave enough room between the scones as they will rise a bit and spread out. Brush the top of each scone with a little milk and sprinkle with cayenne pepper.
Bake at 375 degrees for 18 to 22 minutes until golden brown.

These sold really well today at the Farmer's Market. Actually, everything did, which is always a good thing when dealing with perishable products! I only ended up with five muffins leftover. Can you say Sunday morning breakfast?!? LOL!!  
Sharing with Farmgirl Friday and Farm Fresh Friday on Saturday!

Old Mescal

Here are some more pictures taken at the Old Mescal movie set just to the north of us. It does look like an old west town out in the middle of the high desert, huh?!?

We can actually see the movie set up on the hill from the front door. Let's take a closer look at the big brick building on the right.

Why look, it's the saloon building from the movie The Quick and The Dead starring Sharon Stone and Russell Crowe!! A little the worse for wear but still pretty cool! :)

Linking up with Lisa and Nancy for Rural Thursday.

Tuesday's Tails - June 05, 2012

For the past several days, every evening about dusk, the mule deer come wandering through the front yard. They are stopping to nibble on the fallen yucca flowers. Sorry about the quality of the pictures, I was shooting through the front window. :)

Uh oh! I've been spotted! The one on the left is a young buck, you can see his little antlers.

Off they go to see what they can find to eat at the neighbors' place! There are seven deer in this picture (two butts on the far left). There were at least five or six more in this particular group. I'm glad to see they are finding something to eat this year, as opposed to last year.

Farmer's Market - June

We had our opening for the St. David Farmer's Market this past Saturday. For awhile there, we weren't even sure if we were going to have a market this year, the board members were getting burned out. Anyway, it all came together and the vendors and the community were glad! :) We aren't a real big market but we do have nice community support and lots of regular customers. It is still a wee bit early for most summer produce here but one of the vendors has a lovely greenhouse and she brought some amazing tomatoes, cucumbers and Swiss chard. Another of our produce vendors brought lots of greens, onions, potatoes and garlic. We also had local salsa and honey and several vendors had eggs. I took baked goods. In the past, I have taken yeast breads, rolls, and artisan breads but decided to change things this year. I have expanded my offerings to include cookies, brownies, muffins, and scones and will cut back on the breads. I wasn't having as much fun as I used to and by changing things up a bit, I have rediscovered the joy that baking brings me!

Things went well for our first market, everyone seemed to have a good day, and I'm looking forward to this coming Saturday. I know I need to make twice as many scones as last week and more brownies too! LOL!!

Sunday Photo - Oxen

Meet Fluffy and Cuddles...yep, that is really their names! These guys came to the Farmer's Market yesterday to offer free wagon rides to anyone interested.

Their owner, one of our local doctors, is a big supporter of our Farmer's Market and really believes in eating locally grown foods. In fact, he raised these two behemoths from calves and trained them to the yoke so that he could use them to plow and plant wheat...and he does!! His family also harvests, cleans and grinds the wheat into flour for baking. I bought some flour from them a couple of years ago and really liked it!

Here is their "dad," Dr. Andy, standing next to them. To give you some perspective, he is 6'3'' tall. He walks beside and drives them with the whip. It's always fun when Fluffly and Cuddles come to visit, they hang out by the road and we get a lot of people stopping in just to see them and they usually come visit the vendors at the Farmer's Market too! ;-)

Linking up with Madge for Weekly Top Shot, Jan for Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday and Nancy for Your Sunday Best.

First of the Month - June

I'm joining Jan at Murrieta 365 for her First of the Month meme all this year. Here are the ground rules per her site: "The goal is to capture one thing repeatedly on the first of each month. It can be a landscape, a person, an animal, a project; whatever your focus is, is fine. It can even be a record of where you are each First of the Month."

Well, as I reported last month, I sold Abigail and her two little boys. I kept BW, the bottle baby, here until he was old enough to be weaned.


"Hi BW!!"




"Come here big guy!"




"No, I didn't bring you a bottle, I just wanted to pet you and take your picture!"


BW's new owners came and picked him up the other day. They were so impressed with how nice he looked and how much he had grown that they are considering leaving him a buck for breeding purposes.

He was such a character but, then again, most bottle babies are! :) I am going to miss him.

 
So, with the departure of BW, that ends the Abigail chapter. For next month, I will focus on my sweet little Daphne! She is even starting to convince Jerry that not ALL goats are full of mischief and a pain in the a**!!

Weeelll...maybe NOT!! ;-)