bring on the sprinkles: cake donuts

Merry fifth day of Christmas! While Wal-Mart is busy setting up its Valentine's Day displays, we're still Christmasing over here . . . all the way to Epiphany on January 6. 

But seriously. Wal-Mart employees were putting out Valentine's Day candy ON CHRISTMAS EVE. What the what? 

We're celebrating Christmas with donuts . . . delicious, carby donuts . . . which are at the very core of all my family holds dear.  Every now and then, on the way home from church, my dad would stop at Casey's, give one of us girls money and send us inside to get everyone a donut.

The only hitch was that we had to count the leftover change back to my dad before we could eat our delicious, sprinkled, glazed, cakey donuts. And for someone who stunk at math, that could mean the difference between the amount of seconds it took to shove a piece of a donut in my mouth and minutes. 

  

It was usually minutes. 

Sigh. 

You know me and math. 

Thanks to the kind Christmas gift of a donut pan from my mom, however, I can now eat donuts any time of the day or night. I don't have to wait until Sunday. Or even share with my sisters!

Unless it's National Donut Day. Then maybe. For old times' sake. 

While donuts from Casey's on Sundays after church will always taste special for a reason, these glazed cake donuts come pretty darn close.

No change counting required! 

Cake Donuts

2 cups flour

3/4 cup white sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

3/4 c. milk

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp. vanilla

1 T. shortening

Icing 

1 c. powdered sugar

2 T. hot water

1/2 tsp. almond extract 

1. Set oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease a donut pan. 

2. Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt. Stir in milk, eggs, vanilla and shortening, and beat until well blended. 

3. Fill your donuts cups 3/4 of the way with batter. Bake donuts for 8-10 minutes or until the donuts spring back when touched. 

4. Allow donuts to cool before removing from the pan. 

5. To make the icing/glaze, blend together powdered sugar, almond extract and hot water. Dip donuts into glaze, and serve. 

** I'd recommend using 1/4 tsp. almond extract. Using 1/2 tsp. was almost a little overpowering! 

winner, winner, chicken . . . ?

We had a little . . . incident . . . over the weekend. It involved a chicken . . . and a dog . . . and lots and lots of feathers. 

Our chickens apparently find their coop completely and utterly LAME because they like to fly out and free range it on a routine basis. Their new favorite is to roost on top of the grain bin. Turns out those birds can get some serious flight. And height.

What one couldn't get, though, was a break. She wandered across the lawn, over the lane, up the yard and near the deck, pecking the ground along the way. 

And then it happened. Or so I assume. I just heard clucking. Lots of clucking. 

I looked out the window and saw one dog come around the corner and trot right toward the chicken, who took it upon herself to fly down the stairs, which would have been a perfectly good escape route if  . . . another dog hadn't been waiting at the bottom of the stairs. 

This dog. This sweet little half Great Pyrenees, half Lab right here. This one. Winchester. 

The chicken might have had a chance had the two dogs not been so strategically positioned. But as it stands, she didn't. Have a chance, that is. It's like they planned it.

Well, I'm sure you can imagine how this turned out. 

And if you can't, let's just say: Dogs are dogs. And farm dogs are most definitely farm dogs. 

I proceeded to chase Winchester through the yard -- as much as a pregnant lady can chase a dog -- yelling, "Drop!" as though he would (a) know what that command meant since I've never used it before because he's never nabbed a chicken before and (b) actually listen. 

To no avail. 

And then there were four. 

Well, almost three. One of the Black Stars decided to take her chances and walked right into the pile of three dogs lounging in the yard. 

Not the brightest. 

She lived to see another day, but only after barricading herself behind a feed bag and then probably passing out due to fright. 

That whole free-range thing? Not so much for us. Or the chickens. 

But I'll tell you one thing: The dogs loved it! 

Day 2 of farmacology: calm

One of the things you may not know about farm folks is that

we love it when our guests find it 

calm and relaxing on the farm. 

We know life in town can be busy. Traffic is a beast. Target aisles are crowded. The drive-thru line at Starbucks is long. Sirens and car horns and squealing tires are like a soundtrack.

They're why we absolutely love it when you sit down on our decks or at our kitchen tables and say, "Oh, it's so quiet!" or "I so needed this!" or my personal favorite, "I've clearly been doing life wrong."

It makes us feel all warm and mushy inside, similar to my favorite homemade mac-n-cheese recipe that I never make because I'd eat the entire 9 x 13 pan all by myself. 

my parents' farmhouse 

We may not be able to take you to the hippest restaurant or the newest coffee shop. 

We may not have a historic downtown district or a famous landmark. 

But we can give you quiet.

We can give you beautiful sunrises and a crowing rooster. 

We can take you for rides through the country where the traffic is so thin you don't even have to use your turn signal. 

We can give you cows who chew so loudly you can hear them from the front steps and a pile of puppies who slobber you with love. 

(It's like covering you with love . . . but better.) 

We can give you a 4-wheeler or Gator ride deep into a pasture and a grove of trees where gooseberries grow wild and bridges that are no longer used are overgrown with vines and plants. 

We can give you the sound of frogs and grain bin fans and cicadas at night.  

We can even supply you with full moons and yipping coyotes, if you're into that sort of thing. 

We know farm life isn't for everybody. 

But just like we enjoy coming to the city for all the excitement it has to offer, we love it when you can find rest and relaxation in our part of the world too. 

Friends, thanks for letting us take care of you. We can't give you a clear path through eight lanes of traffic or silence the ambulance siren at 2:00 in the morning so you can sleep. But we can give you the calm of the country when you need it the most, and that makes us pretty happy too. 

Want to read more of my 31 day farmacology writing challenge? Click here. 

this week {August 24, 2015}

This week, we are:

• Focusing on all things silage. Silage time is kind of like Christmas on the farm, but you have to replace the presents, snow, special breakfasts and trees with a silage chopper, corn, trucks, tractors, two-way radios, a sturdy work ethic and long hours. 

The guys worked all week to tear the choppers apart and repair them, then to put them back together without any leftover pieces, which would be unthinkable if this were left up to me.

"Um, guys, does anyone know where this extra tire goes?" - me

or

"Do you really NEED these brakes or can you just kind of roll to a stop?" - me 

As you can tell, critical thinking and logical deduction are not my forte. I just make the coffee, which leads to the next thing that's defining this week.

• Living on caffeine. When everything is running the way it's supposed to, the chopper go-go-goes and the trucks run ride along side it. It means getting up at 5:00 a.m., and running until 12:30 a.m. the next morning and not falling asleep until 1:00 a.m. So if there's a watchword for the week, it's: gimme-all-the-caffeinated-things. Correction: watchwordS.

• Thankful for a forecast filled with sunshine. Silage is all about timing. The corn's moisture has to be just right, and the corn itself has to be a certain maturity. All the machinery has to be ready to go. The weather has to cooperate, and it can't be rainy. And when all those factors collide, silage can run like a well-oiled machine. A chopper, as it were. 

• Taking credit that isn't ours. It had been a long week. Silage hadn't started yet. There was one lingering issue to fix on the chopper, and the guys had spent hours working to figure it out. I'm not saying that when my mother-in-law and I showed up, the problem was fixed within minutes but . . . well, yes, that actually is what I'm saying. We'll just go ahead and take credit for it, even though we had absolutely nothing to do with it. Because we're fun like that. 

• Slightly amazed. Did you know that silage choppers have kernel processors that basically crack corn kernels so that cows can digest the corn more easily? Those four stomaches need all the help they can get! And come to think of it, that's almost as impressive as the pre-digested goat milk my mom fed me when I was a colicky baby. (Do I want to know who digested it first? I don't think I do.) 

• Good senses of humor. Silage season requires a lot of patience. Combine that with hard work and reeeeeeally long work days, and it would be easy to get testy or out of sorts. And yet every time I pop in at the dairy, someone is joking, teasing someone else, pulling a prank, spouting a good one-liner or smiling. It must be something in the silage dust, but whatever it is, we're grateful for it . . . and for good humor in general. 

• Digging two-way radios. Can you imagine what life was like before those puppies? How would you know when your truck was full of silage? Or when you're driving too close to the chopper and need to give it some room? Or that there are fresh-baked cookies in the shop to nab the next time you drop off a load of silage at the bunker? You wouldn't, that's what! 

• Grateful to be living in the country. Silage season requires a lot of time spent in trucks and choppers and tractors, but it also provides a lot of time to watch sunsets and see the stars to come out, to enjoy the autumn weather and get in healthy doses of sunshine. Add to that the animals that dash out of the ends of corn fields, and you've got yourself a full-fledge nature lallapalooza. Heck, if I didn't think everyone would assume I was crazy, I set up a lawn chair at the dairy, pop a chocolate milk and watch the magic happen . . . for hours. 

• Trying to keep Blackjack off his gimpy paw. Blackjack hurt his foot, but this hasn't kept him from hobbling around on three paws, regardless of how much we try to keep him calm. Then again, this affords him lots of benefits: like getting to eat the frosting off of people's cupcakes, sitting at the feet of kind people who order him his own hamburgers from McDonalds, and lots of time laying around in the air conditioned office. Wait a minute. Why walk regularly? He's got it pretty good!  

It may not be silage season where you are but . . . what's this week look like for you? 

real things

When I lived in St. Louis, my morning consisted of a twenty-minute commute through eight lanes of traffic. After I learned that the key to city driving is to drive about 10 times more aggressively than you're comfortable with and to realize that you might, at any point in time, be squished to death on the highway like a sardine between two semis, it wasn't so bad. 

But it is nothing . . . NOTHING . . . compared to mornings in the country. 

Fog. Sleepy cows. Barking dogs. Chickens putting up a fuss. Pick-ups  with farmers at the wheel, taking their time checking out the fields while finishing their first cup of coffee. 

Sign me up. 

If the sound of horns and sirens, squealing tires and doors slamming have got you down, find yourself a spot in the country. Stay a day or two. But if you can, wake up early. 

Nothing compares to laying in bed, with the windows open and a cool breeze blowing in, and slowly waking up to the sound of birds or, sometimes, to the sound of nothing at all. 

"The real things haven’t changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.” - Laura Ingalls Wilder 

layers vs. broilers

While our little Red Star and Black Star layers are busy learning how to roost on top of pretty much everything they can get their wings on, 

 

our Cornish X Rocks are getting huuuuuge. They eat a pound. They gain a pound. They eat another pound. They gain a pound. Basically, they're me on vacation.

good morning

WHEN the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,
And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens,
And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it's then the time a feller is a-feelin' at his best,	5
With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.
They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here—	10
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossoms on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees;
But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock—	15
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.
The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin' of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries—kindo' lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;	20
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover overhead!—
O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.
Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps	25
Is poured around the cellar-floor in red and yaller heaps;
And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and sausage too!...
I don't know how to tell it—but ef such a thing could be
As the angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on me—	30
I'd want to 'commodate 'em—all the whole-indurin' flock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. --James  Whitcomb Riley