RECIPE: Mocha Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Well, I think we finally have most of the fence repaired after the escaped calves episode from my last post. Today we vaccinated our calves and banded the bull calves. We also turned the calves out to pasture. Hopefully, they will stay in and not get out!

The other day I had some bananas that we starting to turn brown so I decided that I better do something with them so I made muffins. I made this muffin recipe a couple of times this summer for the Farmer's Market and sold out every time I made them.

Did you know that you can freeze bananas if you don't have time to make some thing with them before they go bad? I do it all the time. Just peel the bananas and put them in a ziplock freezer bag then freeze them. They keep for several months and when you need bananas for a recipe, just take them out of the freezer and thaw them in the microwave and they are ready to use.

Kelly, this is the recipe for those muffins you liked so well at the Farmer's Market. If you like coffee and chocolate like my friend Kelly and I do, then you'll love these. I got this recipe from allrecipes.com and they were submitted by Shelley Ross.

Mocha Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup margarine
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 1 egg
• 3 ripe bananas
• 1 tablespoon instant coffee granules, dissolved in
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

• Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  2. Blend butter or margarine, sugar, egg, banana, dissolved coffee, and vanilla in food processor for 2 minutes. Add flour, salt, baking powder, and soda, and blend just until flour disappears. Add chocolate chips and mix in with wooden spoon. Spoon mixture into 15 to 18 paper-lined muffin cups.
  3. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

I LOVE coffee, so I used 2 tablespoons instant coffee granules, dissolved in 2 tablespoons water.

ENJOY!!

2 am Wake-up Call

Personal note to self: Never say, "not much is happening around here" it only invites trouble which in turn creates an abundance of work!

I guess this is what I get for starting my last post with... "not much is happening around here."

The "trouble" arrived around 2:00 am on Saturday morning. Danny and I were snoozing quite comfortably in our warm toasty bed when Danny all of the sudden bolted upright in bed. I thought he was having one of his dreams, like the irrigating dream, where he tries to set irrigation tubes in bed, or the wolf dream when he actually growls like a wolf trying to frighten away coyotes! He has some pretty imaginative dreams sometimes which can be rather comical at times! But this time he wasn't dreaming, he had heard cattle bawling and thought that it was our cattle. On Thursday, we moved the cattle we had down on the creek, to a field just to the north the house. Danny thought that the cows had broke down the electric wire and were on the loose.

So he jumped out of bed and ran to look out the bedroom window. Through the darkness of the night and what little light there was from the moon, he could see cattle moving down the road heading south. "Get up! The cows are all headed down the road!" Not my idea of a wake up call! Who wants to get up at 2:00 am, get dressed and go chase cows around in the dark? Not me, that's for sure, but it's not a job that one person can easily manage in the day light, let alone in the dark and this is suppose to be a team operation, not a one man business (for better, for worse!) So I jump, well, it was more of an unwilling roll, out of bed and throw on my jeans and a sweatshirt over my jammies.

Danny instructs me to go close gates while he jumps in the pickup truck and heads south down the road after the cows. On my way to closing the gates, I see a few cattle in the field south of house, where cows are not suppose to be. After I get the gates closed, I run into the shop to fetch a spot light so I can see the ear tags of the cows in the field south of the house so I can tell which cows they are. Just about as I am reaching the cows south of the house, Danny is coming back in the pickup. He finds me and tells me that the cows headed down the road are NOT our cows, but a bunch of calves. We shine the spot light on the cows I spotted and find out that these ARE our cows but there are only two of them. We herd these two cows back to the field where they are suppose to be and check out who is all in this field.

Thankfully, it was a mild night and not very cold. After scoping out the field, we find that as far as we can tell (in the dark,) that all of our cattle seem to be there. That was a huge relief! We were still a little worried on the other hand because of all the calves that were on the loose. Sometimes if you have a group of unsettled cows running around, they will get everyone fired-up and we didn't want our cows to get fired-up. Danny figured that these calves had just been weaned and were looking for their mothers. This is one of the reasons we do the cross-fence weaning like I talked about in an earlier post. The calves are not totally separated from their mothers, they are just placed on the other side of the corral and can still see their mothers so chances are that if the calves do get out, they won't be going very far.

There wasn't much else we could do at this point and it was now around 3:00 am. The calves continued to wander around our place bawling and our cows were bawling right back at them, so it wasn't a peaceful night which made it extremely hard to fall back asleep. Just as we were starting to fall back asleep, my alarm went off at 5:00 am. Ugh, why didn't I turn that thing off? Danny is "slightly" irritated with me as he is letting me know that he was just starting to fall asleep. A couple of minutes later, the phone rings. I jump out of bed to answer it and it is one of our neighbors wanting to know if we had cattle out because he was on his way somewhere and saw some on the highway by our house. I told him I didn't think that they were ours, but would go check it out. So once again, I crawl out of bed and get dressed, get in the pickup and drive up to the highway. I didn't see any cattle on the way to the highway so I turn and head east for 1/2 a mile, no cows, so I turn around and head west and go a 1/2 mile or so past our road. No cows there either. So I turn around and head back home and as I get to the turn off to our road, there is a large group of calves coming down our road again, this time headed north.

When I got back home it seemed like there sure was a lot of bawling going on all around our place so I decided to get on the four wheeler and drive it around to make sure that our cows were still contained and also to see how many calves were on our place and where they all were. It was getting a little closer to daylight, so I could see things a little more clearly. I found that our cows were still where they were suppose to be and that there were calves scattered all over our place. The calves were also pretty wild and didn't let me get very close to them before they would start running away from me.

By the time I got back to the house it was close to 6:00 am. I hadn't been in the house for very long when the phone rang. This time it was another neighbor who ran a paper route and said that they had seen cattle on the highway by our house. I reassured them that it was not our cattle and thanked them for their concern. By this time, Danny was ready to get out of bed. We thought we might know who the calves belonged to so we called a neighbor to the north and asked if they had weaned some calves recently or if they might be missing some calves. I guess that they had brought in a load of calves late, like 11:30 pm, that night and some of the calves had gotten away from them and yes, the calves were theirs.

I was relieved that we had located the owners and they assured me that they had riders with horses coming over at daylight to start rounding them up. Danny had to get his chores done and go bale the last of our hay while the moisture was up so he could not wait for the guys to show up to get the calves so I would have to be in charge of getting them off our place.

Well, we finally had them all rounded up with the help of pickup trucks, the four wheeler and a couple of cowboys on horses by 11:00 am. We herded all the calves (except for one renegade who had to be roped later by a cowboy on a horse) into our corral with our cows. After we got all our cows sorted off from the calves, we were able to load the calves on a trailer and haul them back home. Whew, what a job. It went smooth, but it was just time consuming. By the time that was all done, I had a splitting head ache and was tired from lack of sleep and hungry since it was lunch time. The neighbor has told me that they had lost about 40-50 calves. We ended up only gathering 15 from our place. I have no idea where the rest ended up.

Danny got home shortly after the calves were loaded and everyone had gone home. After lunch we began the process of getting our place back in order. I think that every fence we had on our place had been broke somewhere by the calves. I already had been working on the fences all through the week and some places that I had repaired already, the little stinky calves had destroyed. We worked repairing the fences until dark. Then today we spent most of the day finishing up the fences.

I do want to mention that the neighbor apologized several times and thanked us for all our help in getting the calves back and also offered to help fix all the fence, but we told him that we could handle it on our own. Of course we told him we could do it ourselves before we had assessed all the damage! He also came back later on Saturday and told us that all the calves had been recovered except for one.

Ahh, the joys of cattle!

Door Dog + Wild Cat, Not a Good Combination

Not a whole lot going on out here on the ranch this week. Danny has been trying to get the last of our hay baled and I've been putting up electric fence and trying to finish our bathroom remodel. The weather has been fantastic this week, compared to last week. That is the thing about living in Western Nebraska. They say that if you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes and it will change. We had temperatures in the 60's and wind. Warmer weather almost always means there will be wind.

Today one of my chicken customers, actually the one who suggested that I start this blog, came out to pick up her chickens. We were talking and she reminded me of this funny story that I had told her and I thought that I would share it with you.

If you don't know by now, I do love cats. I wouldn't say I am a crazy old woman with a gazillion cats, but we do have 6 cats, that's another story for another day.

When we moved here Danny had two dogs who I got tired of letting in and out of the house every time I turned around, so we eventually installed a "dog door" in the back door. People always warned us to be careful with that dog door. Several warned us, "Wild animals might come in." I worried that perhaps a raccoon or worse yet, a skunk would decide to come for a visit through the door dog. But nothing ever did. Time passed and so did the dogs but we left the dog door in the door because the cats used it and it was convenient for them and for us. On occasion we had a couple of children use the door! And a couple of times, our neighbor's cat, who I think was sweet on my cats, came to visit a couple of times, but every time he came he would announce his visitation with loud meows. He was a real sweetheart but after the second time of me having to drive him home, he never came back to call on my girls.

But there was this one time... hence the title of this blog, when something WILD did make it through the door. It was around 5:30 am and I had been awake for about 15 minutes and was just getting into my morning routine. I still had sleep in my eyes, a cup of coffee in my hand and was just sitting down at the computer in my jammies and slippers for a little "me" time before anyone else woke up. I always enjoy this time of the morning, it's quite, still dark outside and everyone else is still sawing logs in their beds, including the cats.


All of the sudden, I hear something weird going on in the hall by the back door. I didn't think it was one of our cats, because they were all still in bed. So I get up from the computer and go to the hallway to check it out. Mind you that it is dark outside and dark in the hallway and the light switch is by the door. It took me a split second to realize that there was a cat in the hallway, not one of my cats, and it was jumping around like a drunk kangaroo, jumping as high as the ceiling. At first I thought it was the neighbor's cat, but he had never acted like that before! Then I realized that this must be a wild cat which can not figure out how he got in the house or even worse, how to get out of the house!

Since it was dark in the hallway, the cat could not see the dog door and was grasping for any straw as to how to get the heck out of the house. I stood there for a few minutes wondering what in the world I was going to do while the cat continued to scale the wall like I have never seen a cat do. How could I get to the door to open it or even turn the light switch on? This cat was going bazzirk! I yelled for Danny, but he was sound asleep and couldn't figure out what I was yelling about. He wasn't about to get out of bed, it was way too early for him to rise or shine!

Me yelling for Danny, or anybody to help, only freaked the cat out more! I decided what I needed was some protection from this possessed demon cat so I ran for the broom. As I left the hallway, the cat followed me into the kitchen. The next thing I knew, the cat had jumped up on top of the kitchen cabinets where I have my chicken collection displayed. There are ceramic pieces up there, tins, boxes, books and tons more junk. Picture if you would, the crazy cat up there, trying to get away having to navigate among all this stuff and not caring if he broke anything or not! All I could do was watch him scramble from one collectible to the other all the way across the row of cabinets. After what seemed an eternity, he finally jumped down and I ran after him with the broom.

The cat then ran into the bathroom that the boys use. Now picture this... he jumps on the counter which is full of the boys' bathroom stuff, toothpaste, shaving cream, a basket full of bathroom essentials, q-tips and other miscellaneous things. The cat is "spinning out" on the counter and the things on the counter are crashing to the floor. No way was I going to enter into that room while the cat was in there. So I had to stand helplessly in the hallway and wait for him to come out. When he did he saw me and then ran into Skyler's room. I yelled at Skyler to take cover under his covers so he pulled up his blankets and hid under his bedding. The cat of course saw the closet and made a beeline for it and the top shelf. Now this is a walk-in closet, but you couldn't have paid me a million dollars to walk in to that closet with that cat in there.

By this time, everyone is awake and wanting to know what the heck is going on but no one wants to get out of bed to help! Danny yells from the safety of our bed to open all the doors so the cat can run outside. Oh, good idea, now why didn't I think of that, besides for the fact that I was scared half to death and couldn't think! I run to open all the doors and hope that the cat "stays put" until I have them open. After opening the doors I am now standing in the doorway of the closet with my broom in my hand. After saying a prayer and asking the Lord for protection from this wild cat, I get up enough nerve to poke the broom at the cat. I don't know how many times I poked at him but he finally jumped out of the closet. I'm not quite sure what happened next, I think I had my eyes closed in case the cat decided to jump on my head, but the cat must have jumped down, ran out of the room and out the back door.

Crazy!! I can laugh about it now, but at the time it was happening I can tell you it was no laughing matter! And yes, we still have the dog door... for our cats!

Here's my favorite picture of some our cats when they were kittens!

(as always, click on the photo for a full screen view,
use the back button of your browser to return to the blog)

Harvest Moon

Wish I would have realized last night, Monday the 2nd, that it was a Harvest Moon! But I caught it tonight. I need to do some reading up on my camera about night photography. My old camera, you know the ones that require film, would have captured this moon beautifully! I need to dig that camera out. Actually, it's been so long since I've used it, I don't even know if the stores still sell film! Surely they do, don't they?


Here's a nice quote I found. I was looking for one concerning the harvest.

“The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.” -Marcus Tullius Cicero

Another Hard Day at Work!

Another hard day at work...

not really! I am so blessed to be living the life that I am right now.

Check out the video I made of my day.

Also, I read some where that if you burn a candle while you chop an onion, it will not make you cry, so I tried it tonight when I made dinner. I usually "bawl" when I cut onions and with the candle burning there was just a tiny amount of stinging, but not a single tear! So... try it yourself and see what results you get. Also another tip for the onion smell on your hands, rub your hands on your stainless steel sink to remove the odor. No kidding, this works!

Enjoy the video!

Ya'll come back now, ya hear!!

RECIPE: Easy Morning Glory Muffins

Easy Morning Glory Muffins

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour (I used 1 cup all-purpose flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour.)
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups shredded carrots
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
• 1/2 cup unsweetened flaked coconut
• 1 apple - peeled, cored and shredded
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 12 muffin cups, or line with paper muffin liners.
2. In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the carrot, raisins, nuts, coconut, and apple.
3. In a separate bowl, beat together eggs, oil, and vanilla. Stir egg mixture into the carrot/flour mixture, just until moistened. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.

I found this recipe on allrecipes.com, it was submitted by Debbie Clarke. It is DELISH! If you like the Pumpkin Honey Wheat Muffins, I think you'll like these too.

He'll Meet You Where Ever You Are!

I found this in an email someone sent me this week. I thought it was cool and wanted to share it with you.


THIS IS PRETTY NEAT,

Place your mouse on the E below and drag to the U.






Even though you can't see Him, GOD is there for yo U


When Jesus died on the cross, he was thinking of you!


On Saturday, I was invited to attend the Panhandle Women's Conference, a Christian Woman's Retreat. Wow, what a treat. I always love these things. If you have never taken the time to attend something like this, I strongly urge you to make time. You will not be disappointed that you did, I promise.

The speaker was Annie Chapman, a charming and funny woman from Nashville Tennessee. She was a wonderful speaker and really had a great message to share through stories and song. I could have listened to her for several days!

If you are interested, here is her website:

http://www.steveandanniechapman.com

One of the things she shared with us is how much Jesus loves each one of us. Even when we are facing difficult times, the death of a loved one, an unexpected sickness, difficulties with our jobs, trouble with our spouses and feel like God just isn't there, we must remember that He is! We just have to be looking for Him, praying to Him, worshipping Him, reading His Word and obeying Him.

I love this band and this song. Maybe you need to know today that Jesus is there for you, no matter what you are going through or no matter what you have done.

Enjoy "Cry Out To Jesus" by Third Day...