Before Swine...

As a country kid I had 4-H to teach many a lesson. I took sewing, cooking, food preservation, interior decorating, shooting, lamb, swine, and beef steer projects.

  My first livestock project was a beef show steer when I was 10. He was a big lesson in persevering as he drug me thru the star thistle, mud and barb wire, kicked me across the pen, head butted me into any available cowpie and stomped on my feet.     
I had to develop a budget for the purchase of the steer, feed costs, supply costs, and what price I had to get for him at the Jr Livestock Auction in order to break even. It meant a trip to the bank to present my budget and request a loan. Yes, my parents co-signed, as I had yet to establish my own line of credit.  But, it was not guaranteed that I would get a loan if my numbers didn't jive. After I had secured a loan I then had to negotiate with the ranch I was purchasing the steer from.  After many months of raising that steer, I had to show him at the fair,  hustle for companies, neighbors, and businesses to bid on him.  After he was sold, at a profit thank goodness, I personally went to the buyers and thanked them, as well as sending a follow up letter that asked them to remember me at next year's auction. Then off to the bank, to pay off my loan & interest.  Put some money in my college fund, and some in a working capital savings acct, and spend a little on school clothes. Then my 4-H record book had to be turned into my leader, detailing all that had been done since the purchase of my project steer. After a few goes like that I was able to self fund my show projects out of the working capitol savings acct.  But the lessons on doing business and persevering were in place.  

Some of my project animals, swine & lambs, I didn't have to purchase.  I worked out a deal with a local sheepman to raise some of his bummer lambs, (lambs that the mothers wouldn't take) getting to keep two lambs each season.  Traded work with a local farmer for feed, and I was off showing & selling lambs. 

The swine I got in the 4-H pig scramble. The pigs were donated, put in an arena, and by age group, all the kids that wanted to participate could.  But, you had to promise that you would raise your pig and show it and sell it at the Jr. Livestock auction.  There were always more kids than pigs, so you had to be fast on your feet and willing to get mud and shit from one end of you to other, with no guarantees that you would end up with a pig.  Some how I managed to catch one each year, again worked a deal with a local farmer for the feed, and increased my working capital.  After enough times with a mouth full of pig shit and mud I decided I wanted to just raise show steers.

That is the way we raised our kids too, and I think it has served them well. They have carried on that practice with their kids, my grandkids, and I hope it continues going forward.

 I cherish my memories of a little girl with blond pigtails, in a ratty shirt, cutoffs and boots, washing a 1,200 lb show steer in the heat of a long summer day.

Cow Dogs and Drivers...

            

Above is video of Birdie lot #14 working outside Thursday at Red Bluff.  I had planned to go watch the dogs work that day, talk shop with a couple of friends that have bulls in the sale, and check out the geldings.  I did make it out there Friday, and caught up with some old friends, watched the dogs work, checked out the latest in equipment, and drooled over some beautiful saddle blankets.

  

Thursday my Dad wanted to hit a couple buckets of balls on the driving range, as well as pickup a new to me driver. So that is where I landed Thursday.  I'm a lefty, so to have one of Dad's cronies give me a relatively new lefty driver was great.  Whoa, what a difference.  Dad kept saying my old driver was older than he and not worth throwing in the lake.  I agreed, but couldn't see spending mega bucks for a new one, and gently refused his offer to buy me one.  I don't know how he wrangled getting it for free, but it is a bute. Now if I keep my head in the game, and get some cleats for my boots, I just might make the ol duffer proud...

Today we were going to shoot clays, it wasn't written in stone though, and one of the other shooters couldn't make it.

 (Shooting clays is way more fun than it probably should be.)  I had been up since 4AM and was seriously dragging butt, so Dad and I decided to reschedule for next week.

My time with Dad is precious, we only have mornings during the week to get out and do things together, as that is when we have a caregiver to stay with mom.

Flammkuchen folk

So, there is this fascination with brunch/breakfast recipes around cowcamp.  Flammkuchens and Dutch Babies are among the favorites.

This recipe is so close to mine, they could be twins, besides The Roaming Kitchen had yummy pics:

Flammkuchen, or tarte flambée in French, comes from the Alsace region of France. Simply, it’s a (rectangular) flatbread cooked in a wood-burning oven. (The name literally means “flaming pie/tart/cake”.) The story goes, country folk used flammkuchen to test the heat of their wood-burning ovens: If your flammkuchen caught fire or immediately burned to a crisp, the oven was still too hot to bake bread.
Of course, wood-burning ovens are quite hot even at ideal temperatures, so if you have yourself a wood-burning oven: 1) the flammkuchen will cook up, bubbly hot, in a quick 1-2 minutes. 2) expect a slightly charred outer crust
Classic flammkuchen toppings include: crème fraîche, fromage blanc/quark, white onions, and smoked bacon. Nutmeg and black pepper are not unwelcome. Classic derivations include: gruyère or comté cheese, and mushrooms.
Real flammkuchen employs bread dough, rolled very thin. (After all, it was meant as a tester before the ‘real’ bread went into the oven.)
A note on the crème fraîche: It’s not too hard to find these days. Crème fraîche is thick, creamy, sour, lovely. Please do not use non-fat sour cream, or some other horror; it’s too runny, and won’t provide the kind of concentrated flavor you’re looking for. You can experiment with fromage blanc, quark, or even goat cheese if you like.

Makes 2 individual pizzas  or 1 large
Ingredients:

• 1/3 pound of bacon
• 2 small white onions
• sea salt
• 1/2 cup crème fraîche
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 3 cups finely grated gruyère
• flour
• pizza dough
• black pepper
• 2 tablespoons minced chives

1. Heat the oven to 500F. If you have a pizza stone, move it to the oven a full hour before cooking, to heat up. If you are using a baking sheet, move it to the oven 30 minutes before cooking. Either way, you want to cook the flammkuchen at the base of the oven.
2. Stack up your bacon, and cut it up. Heat a wide pan (cast iron, if you’ve got one) over medium heat. When it’s warm, add the bacon. Cook until half-way to crispy, about 5 minutes. (The bacon will cook more in the oven, so don’t overdo it on the stovetop.) Move the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate to drain.
3. Meanwhile, slice the onions quite thin. Once the bacon is out of the pan, you can add the onions to it. Cook the onions until lightly golden, 10-15 minutes. Stir in a pinch of salt.
4. Move the crème fraîche to a little bowl, and grate the nutmeg directly over it. Stir to combine.
5. Finely grate the cheese.

6. Take a baking sheet, and flip it upside down. Flour the surface generously.  Spread the pizza dough on top of the upturned baking sheet, and then add the toppings in this order: crème fraîche, onions, bacon, gruyère. Top with black pepper. Move the flammkuchen to the oven by carefully transferring it to the heated pizza stone/first baking sheet. (Aim for the back of the pizza stone/baking sheet.)7. Cook the flammkuchen for 3-5 minutes, or until it’s bubbling and the crust is just past golden brown. Remove it from the oven. Scatter the minced chives all over.

8. Eat the flammkuchen straight out of the oven, very hot.
h/t:   The Roaming Kitchen

Flammkuchen is best shared with a bunch of grandkids, and a close friend...

I'm off to watch the stock dog trials today, kick a few flakes of hay, and shoot the breeze at the Bull & Gelding Sale...

Obits & the fish report...

Being a mom and granny is the best gig ever.  I have had a lot of jobs over my lifetime, nothing high profile, nothing world beater. At least by some miracle of circumstance...   I have never been fired. 

 That may be part of the draw of being granny, even if you would rather take them camping, teach them to be good stewards of the land, shoot a bubble gun, ride a horse, eat direct from the garden and make a mean mud pie...than cook or knit... they can't fire you!  Came pretty darn close once job wise, when I was writing obits and the fish report for the local rag and got a little overly exuberant with it...

One More Time...

I'm not the jealous sort, really I'm not, it has always seemed like such a waste of energy to me.  

Damn Straight I'm not one bit envious of LL that he got to do this....   
 http://symbolic-mirage.blogspot.com/2014/01/old-mans-night-out.html

 but, if you happen to see an ol wild blue eyed granny with her wranglers on fire...well...