Trying to get you updated from the weekend!

It's been busy to say the least...

Wally's party was a blast! First thing in the morning, Daryl showed up with the present I had had made for Wally. One of the local guys welded a big chain in the shape of two Ws for "Wally World" and he painted it black. He then welded it to a stand so it can be moved easily around the farm, depending on where Wally wants it. I think he really liked it and he even seemed surprised when he saw it... I was so happy!

Party goers started showing up around noon time and by then, the guys had speakers hooked up so music was playing until the karaoke guy got there. The picnic table was moved into the shade and beer was iced down in coolers. The smoker was smoking away with two huge beef shoulders in it and a big pan of chicken leg quarters doused in bbq sauce and garlic powder. I had deviled eggs in the refrigerator and fresh salsa in the making. We were fortunate to have a nice breeze blowing throughout the day and after a brief rain shower, double rainbows appeared in the sky. That was a first for me and it was beautiful. Wally drove the black truck out in the yard so it looked like it was between the rainbows and everyone took pictures. The mountains in the background with the double rainbows and the black truck in the middle. In one of the pictures, it looks like the rainbow is almost touching the flames that are painted on the hood. Pretty cool!

I got to meet Claudia's hubby, Brian. He's a very nice man with a great sense of humor and a charming personality. When Daniel sang "American Soldier," we all thanked him for his service and did the chink-chink thing with our beers. I imagine he was feeling pretty good. All the way from Afghanistan to sitting at a picnic table on the farm, surrounded by friends (who he had only just met) and some family, a light breeze blowing and his son singing "American Soldier," I was touched. I think everyone was. I think everyone should be.

Claudia took some really good pictures and put them on a CD for me. If I can figure out how to get them on my work computer (if that's even allowed), then I'll share them with you. She made her delicious, German, potato salad and a big pot of white beans w/ham. She got to the cabin a little earlier than the others because she likes to help get things ready. She's very good at it too! She cleared the bar so we could use it for the food, she moved more beer into the big cooler and iced it down. She got all the plastic chairs together so people had a place to sit and she helped keep the kitchen clean as I worked on the salsa and all my other things that I had to get done when there's a party going on. She's very sweet and I know you'll like her when you come visit. She's quick like the little hummingbirds flying around everywhere! LOL

One guy brought his 3 wheeler and he went riding on the new trails, Daryl had to show him where they all were. He thought it was pretty cool when Daryl took him to the swimmin hole and back. He was telling me about hunting wild turkeys this season. I'm not sure I want to hunt turkeys - I'll have to talk to Uncle Dee about that. Not that we don't have enough of them on the property, that's for sure, it just seems like a lot of work dressing them (Kat - have someone explain this process to you, okay? lol).

There were people playing horseshoes, people on tour of the cabin (always!), people just enjoying the nice weather and socializing with each other. My new friend Mel made it to the party. She got lost coming out but actually was right at the driveway and didn't know it so she kept going. It is kind of tricky the first time you come out but once you've been here, you can get back. She loved the cabin and thought it was funny how everything is very tall. She's kinda short like Marcia - in fact she reminds me of Marcia quite a bit. She's a little sassy like that :)

One little guy named Cole was there with his parents, I think he's 4, anyway, his dad asked if he could play with my garden wagon. He was so cute. He would take the wagon to the driveway, load it up with rocks, go find a mud puddle and fill it in with the rocks! We have a couple of really good pictures of him but again with the cd thing I don't know how to get them on this computer. He has almost white hair and lots of it and the biggest, blue eyes you ever saw. He's just a little bit shy when he first comes around but he was very well behaved and seemed to be enjoying himself even with no other kids around. At one point, his dad had him in the wagon and was pulling it with the 4 wheeler - lol, he was the only one who got to take that ride! Too bad we didn't get the hay ride thing going, he would have loved that, heck, so would have I :)

The Karaoke was in full swing and it was pretty funny. It always is thought, right?  I somehow managed to get out of it this time :) Beverly, Kurt's wife, who I usually sing with, had another friend there with her so they sang together instead - okay by me!

We took the food out of the smoker and while Brian pulled the beef apart, Claudia and I got the rest of the sides out and set them up on the bar so people could just go down the line and help themselves. I even broke down and put out a jar of my pickled okra for them. They ate it all... guess I should have expected that :)

The salsa I made was hotter than usual. I used some little peppers that were out of my CSA basket. I don't know what kind they were, I had never seen before - it may have been a little too much. The guys liked it and so did this one girl, Kayla. She said she likes spicy foods and that it was perfect. One guy, Allen, said I could give his buddy a run for his money on the salsa. It's funny to me because it's the easiest thing in the world to make but people just think it's out of this world. I remember when I first brought it to the club, Michelle Kline was trying to hide it from everyone else! lol - those were the days :)

The beef shoulders were injected with Dale's Seasoning (low sodium) and then sprinkled with Lipton onion soup mix and some garlic powder. We poured a can of beer and a can of water into the bottom of the pans, covered them with foil and smoked them with cedar wood for, oh, about 4-5 hours. Talk about falling apart tenderness - Brian had no trouble at all pulling that meat apart. It was a masterpiece for Daryl. I think even he was surprised at how tender it came out. He brought some to a friend of his who couldn't make the party and the guy said there was no way Daryl had cooked it! LOL Cheap hunks of meat, injected and seasoned and smoked for hours - that's cooking out people!

When the feasting was over, Claudia and I picked up most of the mess. You know the routine - transfer smaller portions to smaller bowls, find space in the refrigerator, wipe down the counter tops and bar area, take out the trash, blah, blah, blah. Thank goodness she was there to help with all that. As usual, I lost all my "get up and go" after eating but I did stay up longer than the past couple of parties. I think I actually made it to about 9:30-10:00 then I took a shower and went to bed. My feet hurt from being in flip flops all day - I should have changed into tennis shoes but oh well. I was just ready to be laying down :)

I have no idea what time Wally came to bed. Claudia and Brian slept on the fold out couch in the room under ours and I never heard them come in either. I guess I was pretty tired after all. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Claudia was up with the birds and picking up the trash that inevitably ends up in the yard. She had most of the rest of the kitchen cleaned up too by the time we came downstairs. I still had some work to do before making breakfast though. We had a whole beef shoulder left so I pulled it apart and put it into 3 separate baggies for another day. I poured the juice into a baggie to use for soup (beef-barley?) or beef stew when it gets cold outside. The juice alone was like gold to me - as you well know - I can see gravy thickening for biscuits and pot roast, nutritious broth simmering (full of CLA) for soup, barley swelling with flavor while rounds of carrots tenderize, mmmmmmmm

What day did you say you would be here?  lol

What is CLA you ask? Not to be confused with CSA, which is my basket, Conjugated Linoleic Acid - it's very good for our bodies and is found in the highest concentrations in grass fed beef. I'll get an excerpt of the information I've been reading and post it at the bottom of the blog with all my other useful (maybe only to me), healthy, tips and tidbits.

For breakfast I had to feed those hungry, hung-over people something pretty substantial. They had sliced, pan fried (no breading, just olive oil), pork tenderloin that was lightly seasoned with adobo and black pepper, scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy. I had a little bit leftover but not much! We were all full bellied by the time breakfast was done.

The CSA basket was loaded with goodies! I got another big bag of Purple Hull peas, which I shelled and we ate last night. I got more of the lettuce mix which went into my lunch salad for today with plenty left over for Thursday and Friday too. I got a bunch of carrots that I was so excited to see - I thought they were all done after the first few baskets. I got a handful of jalapenos and Serrano peppers, a couple green peppers and another unidentified, but surely hot, long, red, pepper. There were two butternut squashes that will be slowly roasting in my oven come Sunday and a bag of the red okra that was cut into rounds and put up in the freezer. I'll be making stew with that at a later date :)

The farmers are taking a break while they await their fall crops so there won't be a delivery for the next two weeks. They still deliver for the same number of weeks - it's just break time on the farm since the summer crops have come to an end. They will still be working as I'm told there are plenty of weeds to pull (no weed killer is used on an organic farm) and rows to hoe.    

I hit my first deer driving home from Pee Wee's Place Monday night :( I should say the deer hit me. Indeed, I was driving down the road when it appeared in mid-flight right over my car. While it was going across the hood, it somehow kicked out the cover on my headlight. The light still works and there was no other damage to my car and even the deer kept running off into the woods on the other side. It just happened so fast that it didn't seem real. From what I've been hearing, I was very lucky because they have been known to do thousands of dollars worth of damage. Especially to a little car like mine. whew! I would be okay if I never hit another one...

Hold onto your hats folks because this weekend is the annual Hickman County Fair!!! Yee Ha!! You can bet your bottom dollar I'll be there too! LOL They have bluegrass music on stage Friday night, a tractor pull and an antique tractor show. I'm having me a corndog and some cotton candy and a ride on the ferris wheel. I just can't wait! We're planning to go Friday night and Saturday. I forget the event listing for Saturday but there was something I wanted to see or do. I'll have to get the schedule back out and see what it was. The weather is supposed to be like 86 degrees and only a small chance of rain. Kurt and Beverly are supposed to go with us but even if it's just me and Wally, I'm fine with that.

I think I'd like to check out the livestock show too. Especially when the kids make their entries. They work so hard all year for this one event that I think they deserve to be recognized.

So that about catches me up I hope. There's always tomorrow if I remember something else - you know my memory :)  I found two quotes for you today... :)

“I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.” E.B. White quotes (American writer 1899-1985)

"At every party there are two kinds of people - those who want to go home and those who don't. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other." ~Ann Landers