Did some more apple pickin' today. I know, I know. I get carried away with apples and apple recipes, but there are so danged many of them on the trees in my backyard. And I hate to see them go to waste. We don't eat them once they hit the ground. Those are strictly 'groundhog' apples. And he absolutely loves them! We've walked outside many times and watched that fat, furry critter gobble up ten or more in one feeding frenzy.

I only picked a few today. I had this new recipe that I conjured up and was itchin' to try it. I think I will call it:


Jack Daniels Walnut Apple Cobbler

• 8-10 fresh sliced June Apples with the peel
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 heaping tablespoons of bourbon - we prefer Jack Daniels

Now keep in mind I'm using small June Apples. You can also use a medium
cooking apple from your local grocer, but be sure to cut the quantity.



Combine apples, water, and butter is a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat and let simmer for 10 minutes. Mash slightly if pieces are large. Add brown sugar, walnuts, cinnamon, and Jack Daniels. Stir until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and set aside.

• 1 cup self-rising flour or Bisquick
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup milk

Combine these three ingredients in large bowl and set aside as well.
Melt 1/3 cup butter in your 9" round cobbler dish or 8" x 8" square pyrex. Add the apple mixture. Pour the batter on top. Do not stir. Place in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until lightly browned on top.




Optional: You can sprinkle brown sugar and cinnamon on the cobbler while it is still piping hot. This will crystallize as the sugar melts.




Serve with your favorite ice cream. Our choice today was French Vanilla. Ah! So delish!

Since there have been thunderstorms for the past couple of days, I realize I have neglected my blog. There is always plenty to write about on the farm with the puppies, kittens, cattle, and regular house chores, but I was waiting for photos before I made any posts. And all good photographers know that the weather is always a deterrent for good photos.

I picked up piles of loose limbs, sticks, twigs, etc. for most of the day into a big pile.

At one point the puppies felt they should help. Ha Ha! We all know they were more underfoot than help, but I enjoyed the company.

I also had to clean out the garden since we have Chestnut Trees that hover above. The storm winds wrecked havoc all over the garden and the yard.

This is the first view you get when driving up the old road to my grandfather's cabin, circa 1904. I love this old place. I grew up here and spent many days watching my grandfather sharpen knives, clean his rifles, make squirrel gravy, and talk for hours in front of the fire. I split the mud holes dry, caught fish, and didn't have to wear frilly dresses. I was pretty much raised my granddaddy's only son.



No one stays here anymore. My mother's side of the family has moved on to bigger and better things and now since I drive by almost every weekend, I tend to want to nurse the old thing back to health. Due to vandalism, I decided it was time for a new back porch and new porch paint on the front of the old cabin. We spent most of Saturday and Saturday evening revamping the place where I spent my childhood.

Once the rains came, we decided it was time to pack up and head back to the house. Kent has to work on Sunday (unfortunately), so we thought it best to get home a.s.a.p.

I love the time we spend here. There are so many wonderful memories. I hope to share more with you in the future.

Hope I didn't bore you to death and that you all had a safe and fabulous 4th of July weekend!

I did!

Post for: July 4, 2008

Mira (a.k.a Miranda) took this immediately after a rain shower this morning. She has such an eye for beautiful things.

The beans had soaked overnight and were ready for the fat bacon and to be slow cooked to their tender taste. Time to soak the corn as well, and baste the 7 pound pork tenderloin. Wow! It was a doozy!

I realize there a million ways to baste and grill a tenderloin; even one this size, but I took my grandmother's tips along with a short cut and it worked really well for us today.


Orange Marmalade Pork Tenderloin

• 5-7 lbs. pork tenderloin


• McCormick's Grill Mates® Pork Rub - it basically has all the ingredients that my grandmother used and as I now have access to these wonderful items at the grocery, I figured I should make use of them. ;)


• 1 Jar Orange Marmalade - we really like Smucker's, but not necessary


• Basting Brush


• Meat Thermometer - very important when cooking pork!


• Heavy Duty Aluminum Foil - juices will run heavy and you don't want to burn the pork.

Pre-heat grill to a very low heat: around 250 degrees if possible. Slow cooking insures juiciness.

After taking the tenderloin out of the plastic wrapper, you will want to rinse it off and pat it dry. Start adding the Grill Mates rub. If it doesn't want to stick, add just a small portion of olive oil to the loin first, then rub away. Once the loin is covered, wrap in heavy duty aluminum foil and place on the top wrack of your grill. Watch and turn for about an hour.

Take the loin off, open up the foil and baste the loin with 1 entire jar of orange marmalade. I know. It sounds like a lot, but it is soooo good. And it soaks into the meat for a nice, tender, taste.



You can now raise the temperature of the grill to 400 degrees.

Re-wrap in the foil and place on the grill for about 15 minutes, flipping the loin halfway.

You also have the option of placing the loin straight on the grill. The sugar in the marmalade will crystallize and form a brown glaze over the outside of the loin. I have found I lose the taste of the marmalade this way and so we opt to keep it wrapped. Choice is yours.

Check the temp. of the loin with your meat thermometer quite often at this point. You want to take it off at around 140-145 degrees. The loin will continue to cook after you take it off the grill and there is nothing worse than dry pork. Ugh! I guess maybe dry chicken. Ha!

Voila! There you have it. Simple and yet so yummy!

I also cut and added baby red potatoes and peaches and cream corn cobs to my bean pot while all of this was going on. I have poured the buttermilk into the cornmeal mix and pre-heated my cast iron skillet. Cornbread will be out in 25 minutes. Let's eat!

Bellies are full and the time is about right for fireworks. Miss Winnie and the puppies were not fond of the booms and bangs, but they lived through it. And, Lil Sasha seemed to enjoy her ear of corn. So cute!



Afterward we rode out on the 4-wheelers to the field that overlooks the lights in the valley below. We watched other firework displays for a few minutes before the rains came. Ack! We were soaked by the time we made it back to the cabin. But it was a fun day! Lots of laughs!

Post for: Late Evening July 3, 2008

Now keep in mind this photo was taken by my daughter back in March before there were leaves on the trees. But that being said, this is the beginning of the 30 minute ride to our cabin in the mountains. And this is the nicer portion of the road. Most of it consists of a dry river bed with an occasional creek that you have to ford. Needless to say, if you don't have 4-wheel drive, you must crawl in the back of mine to get there. We love our cabin and our seclusion.

We drove up late Thursday evening to get everything unpacked, shelves stocked and air out the cabin. If it's left locked up for a month at a time, it can get stale and musty.

My husband, Kent, offered to help me with the large mess of beans that I held in my lap at around midnight. I yawned and shooed him away to build a fire outside. I strung and broke beans for at least an hour; enough to feed 20 or so and then soaked them for the evening.

The family had decided a week prior that they were just simply tired of the usual 4th of July dawgs and burgers. With all of the rain as of lately, my garden has been booming, and our mouths were watering for some good old southern home cooking. Fresh green beans, baby red potatoes, corn on the cob, orange marmalade tenderloin pork, and homemade cornbread. Yum!

Now that the beans were soaking, I poured a nice Merlot and headed outside to the fire pit. The one great thing my husband has talent for: a nice, roaring fire. We didn't sit long. It had been a long day and the wind was kicking up a storm. The clouds were moving in and we decided that we should as well.





It's 2am, and I'm as snug as a bug in a rug. I love this cabin.
Good night!

Hello from Miranda :)

My mom is running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to get things packed up and ready to go to the cabin. Sooo, here I am guest-blogging.

I was told to write about "puppies and things... You know, just say I'm at the cabin partying and happy 4th and whatever". There you go. Puppies. Partying. And whatever.

Now that I've got that out of the way, here are some pictures to make you squeal.

You can view the pictures larger by clicking on them. :)

Please ignore our nasty brown grass. The heat has been miserable this summer and we've had very little rain. It's mighty crunchy and dead.



Have a wonderful (and safe) 4th of July! Try to not burn anything down.... I can't promise that we won't.

I took a walk down memory lane this morning. There were four baby kittens whining terribly for their mother right outside my bedroom window. My daughter, Miranda was already up doing a 'photo walk' with her camera by the time I came walking through the field down to the barn in search for Mama Cat. She had already taken over one hundred photos of the field, flowers, clouds, etc. by the time I got to the barn and then she snapped this photo.

Yes, I'm still in my nightgown. But when kittens cry, there are some things you don't think about.

I can't count the times I've climbed this old ladder up into the hayloft. I've spent many a day looking out onto the fields and watching my family bale hay or feed cattle. I also used to swing from a rope from the rafters for hours on end. And on occasion, I had an accident or two. I fell through the loft into a huge pile of cow manure one day. I came running to the house crying. And of course, after my granddaddy hosed me off, they all had a good laugh.

Mama Cat followed us back to the house and took care of her babies and all was well. I had to take a shower and pull the straw out of my hair, but it was worth it.

I love this old farm.

Good night all!

I promised to share my beautiful puppies with you this evening, so my daughter, Miranda, and I took them outside for their Birthday Portraits. Some were happier than others in this new adventure. This post seems appropriate since today they turned five weeks old.

Happy Birthday Puppies!

Of course their momma wanted her portrait done as well. She's a big camera ham!

This is Miss Winnie. Her actual name is Miss Winchester, but that just seemed too masculine for such a girly girl. She has been with us for a year now and she's absolutely spoiled rotten. She actually had 14 pups on Tuesday, May 27. And with it being such a large litter, we were very
grateful that nine healthy puppies made it.

Miss Winnie almost died on us last week. We had to rush her to the emergency vet hospital with a temperature of 103. The doc said she had the worst case of mastitis he had ever seen. A large dose of antibiotics and a weeks worth of pills later, she is back to running and playing again. Although she can no longer nurse the puppies, she likes to lick and play with them.

They were not quite 4 weeks old and already being fed puppy food. They mostly laid in it and licked it off of each other's faces for the first couple of days. Now they are eating the hard stuff and chowing like there's no tomorrow. As you can tell in their photos, they are chubby little bundles.

We're going to wait until they are 8 weeks until we start giving them up for adoption. It's going to be very difficult to watch them go. We want to keep a couple for ourselves, but that choice seems to change like the weather. Right now, I want to keep "Buddy". He's the long haired, black looking lab. He's the biggest of the bunch and Miranda calls him "Calf Head". She swears he looks just like one of our baby calves. Bless it's heart! I think he's adorable. Miranda is leaning towards keeping "Coco". She is the second biggest and the ring leader of the pack. She's very bossy and has lots of personality. My husband, Kent, has a new favorite everyday.
But who knows which ones will be staying in three more weeks.

We wish we could afford to keep them all.

Puppies have been fed, bathed, and are sleeping. Guess that's my cue to turn out the lights.

Good night!

I was in the middle of my garden this afternoon, when the first storm clouds rolled in. I knew I had about an hour's worth of weeding, hoeing, and watering of plants and vines before heading back to the house. I just crossed my fingers and drug out the garden hose.

I knew the garden would get the drink they needed if the clouds dropped on us, so I hurried to drench eight pots of flowers and
twelve hanging Boston ferns wrapped around my 70 ft. porch. Thirty-five feet on each side. Boy, if this old porch could talk. The stories it could tell. My grandparents and my great uncle Cecil would sit out on the porch for hours and swap interesting tid bits along with the gossip of the day.


By now I realized the rain was imminent. But I had more to do, so I put the memories away for a while and finished checking my garden. The tomatoes are growing like weeds, but still too green, even for fried green tomatoes. (Yum.)






The leaf lettuce, red lettuce, peppers, cucumbers, and squash all looked happy and healthy as well, so I high-tailed it over to cover the pool and "batten down the hatches" as grandmother would say.

The storm is rolling in fast and I can hear her plain as day: "You better get inside this house young lady. Unplug the TV's and stay away from the windows. And don't you dare think about gettin' on that phone." This old farm house has been hit by lightning so many times I've lost count. And she was good at reminding us. I can count many an evening sitting in the middle of the living room floor in the dark with only the sound of a portable radio ( no plugs, ha) and the distant sound of thunder. She'd sit in her big pink chair holding her fly swatter, humming some gospel tune until the thunder passed and only a few drops of rain water could be heard dripping from the gutters.

I had to remind my daughter of the windows today. She was too busy taking care of our nine puppies to notice the storm. She was busy washing puppy bowls in the sink right in front of the kitchen window. And without hesitating I heard my grandmother's words fly from my mouth: "Turn that water off and get away from that window, young lady."

I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

The storm blew over and all is well at the farm. We're cleaning up the puppy pen and washing puppy blankets this evening. I'm guessing I need to introduce you to my nine beautiful puppies soon. They take up a lot of our time, but it's just another part of farm life.

Thanks for the walk down memory lane. Have a good evening!

I decided to pick more of the June Apples in my backyard today. By the end of July there are more on the ground than on the trees and I hated the thoughts of those fresh apples going to waste. By the first of August I have normally frozen a couple dozen quart bags to make sure we have lots of tasty treats throughout the long winter months.

My mouth was already watering; thinking about the fried apple pies that my grandmother used to make here on this old farm. Picked from these same old apple trees.

My grandmother, grandfather, as well as my mother all had some wonderful family recipes that I hope to share here at some point. Today I chose to share my grandmother's fried apple pies.

Now keep in mind there was a time many years ago that she would make her own dough, but by the 1970's she decided taking a little shortcut every now and then wasn't such a bad idea. And it didn't take away from the tart, but sugary goodness of those pies.

These fried apple pies are made with refrigerated biscuits and fresh picked June apples.

INGREDIENTS:

• 8 - 10 fresh sliced apples with the peel
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons water
  
• 1 can (10 ounces) refrigerated flaky biscuits
• vegetable oil, for frying

PREPARATION:

Combine apples, water, and butter in saucepan; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes or until tender. Remove from heat and let cool, mashing slightly if pieces are large. Stir in sugar and set mixture aside.

Roll each biscuit into a 5-inch circle on a lightly floured surface.

Place about 2 tablespoons apple mixture on half of each biscuit circle. To seal pies, dip fingers in water and moisten edges of circles. Fold in half, making sure edges are even. Using a fork dipped in flour, press edges firmly together to seal. Pour oil to a depth of 1/2 inch into a cast iron skillet, or use deep fryer. Fry pies in hot oil (370°) over medium-high heat golden, turning once. Drain well on paper towels.

Be sure to save some brown sugar to sprinkle on the top as soon as they hit the plate. YuMmy!

Makes 10 little pies.

We enjoyed our pies as we sat on the porch and watched the sun go down behind the barn and silo. There was a gentle breeze and the slight pink in the distance reminds us that tomorrow will bring better weather.
Good night!

We drove off the mountain pretty late this evening. We had to wait for the thunder showers to clear because we were on the 4-wheeler.......and fully loaded.

We did a lot of mowing, weed eating, and built a new back porch on my Grandfather's old cabin, circa 1904.

Since it is so late, I will post more blog and photos tomorrow.

I hope everyone had a nice weekend.

After my first major blog, I'm taking a day for myself. My husband and I are going 4-wheeling up to our cabin in the woods about 10 miles straight up a rocky road above the farm.

We have enjoyed lots of adventures and good times with friends at our cozy cabin. We also enjoy just taking time for ourselves, relaxing on the front porch, watching the deer or drinking a cold one in front of the fire pit. I can hear thunder in the distance now, so I'm guessing we will be cozied up on the sofa tonight. Or maybe we will venture out onto the porch for a view of the "fireworks". The lightning is amazing at 4,500 ft. altitude.

Until tomorrow...

I've never written a blog entry. I don't really know what blogs are. Confessions? Random thoughts?

Here's a thought that just came to mind: Most people might assume I will write blog entries about mothers and daughters, or farming, or country life. But I'm like most people, made up of other moments in life as well; those planned and not; some interesting and others irritating; all those moments that made me who I am as a person.

But alas! I grew up here on this farm in southwest Virginia. I am a farm girl! And in being a farm girl, I will most definitely be entering blogs on my life here on the farm.

Climbing trees, skinning knees, wading the creek, splattering through cow pies, and various other farm girl adventures made for wonderful memories as a young girl. But then I discovered another love. Dancing!

I started dancing at age three, trained at numerous dance schools across the country and abroad. I attended Virginia Intermont College, one of the finest ballet schools on the east coast as far as I'm concerned. I have been teaching ballet, tap, jazz, hip-hop, etc. for over 25 years now. I also teach ballroom, swing, and straight-up jitterbug!!!

Dancing ultimately led to leaving my small country life. I lived in urban and large cities across the country for several years before taking a giant leap and multiple planes to an eight year adventure in Barrow, Alaska; a.k.a. "Top of the World". ........about 4,500 miles from my farm in the mountains. After the deaths of my mother and grandparents, there was no one left here on the farm. And on thinking of it being just a part of my history, the farm called me back home.

I finally moved back in 2005. And it wasn't long until I found myself being that fun loving farm girl again. I love 4-wheelin' with my husband and daughter, gettin' mud on the tires, goin' to the cabin and target shootin'. But due to many years and adventures abroad, I also love to travel, enjoy a nice glass of merlot, listening to jazz, and collecting exotic treasures!

So there you have it...I don't have to prove that I'm a farm girl by wearing overalls, chewing on a piece of straw, and putting my hair up in pigtails. The truth of that matter is, no matter where I go or what I'm doing, I will ALWAYS have the farm in my heart and the urge to share my story with those who need to hear it most.

Ya wanna hear somethin' funny? I'm actually sitting here barefoot, in cut off jean shorts, and my hair in pigtails. Ha! I love this old farm.

Phew! I did it. Virgin Blogger No More.