Oh my, I love Sweet Potato Pie !

I don't remember the first time I tasted it.  It must have been in the South someplace.  My Grandmother didn't make it, and not one of my Aunties made it. My Mom didn't either.  One day, somewhere, at some time, I tasted it and fell in love. And I have held Sweet Potato Pie in high regard ever since !

I adapted this  recipe from a storybook full of recipes: Sweety Pies by Patty Pinner. She says, "What a woman cooks is a window into her womanly personality---what she thinks, how she behaves, how she feels about herself and the people she cooks for."  I'm still mediating on this little quote, wondering what the full implications could be ? If she means, what a woman cooks, when she cooks, well then, that might open a window into my "womanly personality".

Frankly, sometimes, I don't cook.  I eat cottage cheese and yogurt or a bolonga sandwich with mayo.  I use whole wheat bread though.  I think this means I'm flexible, healthy and maybe not in the mood to clean up a cooking mess !  I am blessed though..... I have a Sweet Husband who is an excellent cook and he enjoys it.

When I do cook, I love to bake this Sweet Potato Pie.  My family and friends keep coming back for seconds.  If there is any left, we have pie for breakfast !   I'm sure your family will want second helpings too.

Sweet Potato Pie

Ingredients

9" Pie crust

3 medium sweet potatoes

2 large eggs

1 ½ cups sugar

1 teaspoon lemon extract

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ cup butter, melted

½ cup half-and-half or evaporated milk

1-2 tablespoon bourbon (optional)

Cover the sweet potatoes with water and boil until tender. Drain. Let them cool.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare the pie crust.

After sweet potatoes have cooled, peel and mash in a large bowl until smooth.

Add the eggs, sugar, lemon extract, bourbon (optional), salt, and nutmeg and beat together until blended and smooth.

Add the melted butter and half and half and beat until creamy. Pour into the pie crust.

Place in the oven. I usually put it on a cookie sheet, just in case it spills over.

Should cook about 45 minutes. Test the center for doneness. Set on a wire rack and cool completely.

Can be served with whipped cream or plain. I think its perfect plain.

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Building a fence....Do It Right !

My husband commented to a young friend of ours the other day,

" You know Gabe, that fence you and I built is still in good shape !"

(Meaning the fence remains straight and taut having withstood herds of cows leaning on it, calves determined to crash through it, and deer

jumping over it).

Gabe, now nineteen, reminisced about the summer he was thirteen and stayed a week or so with us at the ranch to help build that fence.

I thought about all the fences my husband has built, starting when his mom married his second dad, Sherman. Sherman grew up in Likely, California on a ranch tucked deep into the

mountains. After Sherman married Phil's mom, they always had donkeys or horses. Phil and his siblings built and rebuilt miles and miles of barb wire fences.

And since we've always had horses and cows, our son, daughters, son-in

-law to be, several nephews and young friends learned to build good strong fences capable of corralling critters and prevailing, in tact, through the years.

Barb wire fences are tough to build and maintain, especially if the terrain is steep or rocky. Post hole digging is tedious. Slamming steel post into hardened ground with a fence post driver is body numbing. It's boring and slow moving....miles and miles of posts and wire. There is no way to avoid nicks, scratches, torn shirts and frustration. Depending on the weather, you are either sweating dirt or morphing into an icicle.

One year our rambunctious twenty year old son was in charge of the "day cowboys" ( our nephews) and fence building was the main project. On a scorching hot day, three dusty young men stomped into the house, declaring that Travis was impossible ! T.J. had just taken a measuring device and decided that the fence the boys had spent hours stretching and crimping didn't meet his approval. He told them to rip it out and start over. They were fit to be tied !

Of course, T.J. had learned this technique from his father, and his grandfather. In ranching country how a man builds and maintains his fences affects his reputation. The fence has to be built just so...to last...to be straight...and taut...able to keep in his own stock and keep the neighbor's bulls out !

Red Steagall, a cowboy poet, wrote a great poem, The Fence That Me and Shorty Built, summing up why it's important to do a job right !

http://cowboypoetry.com/redsteagall.htm#Fence

May all your infusions be lasting,

Kate

Tiny Town 4th of July Parade

Lake City, a tiny town (229 approximate population) in Surprise Valley, hosted a grand 4th of July Parade. Half the town were spectators and the other half were parade participants.

Our family had two entries:
1. Mitch on his quad pulling a trailer loaded with a goose (plastic) and the "dog that can do no wrong", Osa. (My son's old hunting dog).
and
2. Hayley, alternately riding, leading, or abandoning, Spaghetti, the "most patient pony in the world."

Preparation for the parade :

High pressure wash the quad......

Decorate the pony....

Glitter and Bows

The quad, trailer and goose have been spruced up and loaded. Everyone takes a turn entertaining the pony so he won't roll and mess up those perfect stars and that perky red bow.

Hey cowboy, that's a mighty fine lookin' horse !

Time to go. Hayley loads Spaghetti in the stock trailer.

Mitch checks his passengers before entering the line-up.





The Colors lead the way....

Uh oh...











.....who are all these people ?

Mitch's Papa keeping pace.



















Hayley and Spaghetti happy now to be with the other riders !























And a reminder for all of us....we have much to be thankful for....especially to live in the U.S.A.!

Hope you all had a blessed 4th of July !


Kate