Does he make you think of Rawhide?

Occasionally now we see cattle with these real long horns, this time this one was the only one in this cattle lot. Anytime I see them, the old western Rawhide pops into my mind. I wonder if I would like it as much now as I did when young.
Anyway, this is the barn he belonged to....one of the nicer ones we have run across. How would you like to have to put new roofing on it? I totally understand how some don't have the money to keep the barns in repair...but am so thankful to find ones like this that don't seem in too much danger of falling down.
All eyes were on me as I took these pictures...they did not seem menacing but more as if they wondered I had something for them. The house was right on to the right where you can't see it. So they are probably used to being handled. The only thing missing for me was a young calf.

There isn't anything much cuter than a baby animal of any kind...and calves with their big eyes and long lashes are right up there at the top of being beautiful. At home, each cow was named, as well as most calves received their own name. Since we usually milked at least one cow, I can remember carrying a calf to the barn a time or two after it was born, till the cow would have to come in to it.

For a while, we would milk some of the milk and leave the rest for the calf....I was never a milk lover, so don't remember drinking it a lot. But I do remember when I went to school, it being strange to have a box of milk with my lunch. Just tasted different. I can also remember noticing the difference between the taste of evaporated cream or real milk in coffee.

I will leave you with straight-on shot of the barn...I don't think I have ever seen one built just like this one...I don't know what you would call that part that sticks out at the peak of the roof. Have you ever seen one built like this? I don't know if the bottom drops open or not. Believe it or not, I did not notice this part till I downloaded the photos.

It must be maple sugaring time again!

In our rambling over the weekend, we came across this sap collecting sight! We have not run into it before, and to be truthful, I am not sure which county we were in. It was north of us. I have never seen the bags like these used.
I wondered if they would be easy to poke a hole in...wondered how they are transported, or are they just emptied into a container and put right back on the tree. Probably just emptied and put back in place. I really know next to nothing about the process of collecting sap and making the syrup....but will be learning some from my blog buddy Judy, over at Daily Yarns 'n More and Through My Lens as they make maple syrup for the first time at their Gentle Hearth Farm.
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When we were kids, sometimes something sweet was what we had for breakfast. Mom usually kept Bob White Syrup for our use....it was dark and thick and really yummy if you like syrup and butter and biscuits. If she ran out, sometimes she would use water and white granulated sugar, and I think vanilla flavoring, but it is possible that it was maple...she would cook the water and sugar on the top of the stove till it became a thin syrup. I am not sure when she added the flavor, but would think near the end. Pour a little of that in our plate, add butter, and dip one of her homemade biscuits in it...

The other thing she made was a chocolate syrup. She made it using flour, sugar, cocoa, and what else I don't know. I don't remember if the liquid she added was water or milk....and I don't remember if she added any vanilla. I just know that it was so good...it was thicker than water but not slow like molasses. And there was nothing better in life than to have it and add butter to it while it was still hot, and dip one of her biscuits in it.

I think I have mentioned her biscuits before....I have never tasted any like them anywhere else in my 55 years of living. As with almost any of her cooking, she did not follow a recipe with measurements..not for the chocolate syrup, not for the homemade version of syrup, and not for the biscuits.

For them she had a pan that she always kept in the flour bin, and it held more than 25 lbs of flour. She, along with most of the mothers of the children I grew up with would never have dreamed of buying a 5 lb bag of flour or cornmeal. Making biscuits and cornbread were just part of their daily routine....they never gave it a second thought.

But back to her biscuits, she kept a little metal pan in the flour bin....and it always had a bit of flour in it....she would add more flour to it....by the time I was very old it was always self-rising flour. She would make a well in the flour, add a dollop of lard, and start mixing with one hand while she added buttermilk which she poured from a gallon jar. Homemade buttermilk, at that.

She did not fool with it long till she had it the right consistency. Then, unlike most people that roll out their dough and use a glass or biscuit cutter to get the same size biscuit each time...she just pinched off a small section of the dough, kind of held it in one hand and cupped the other over it and rolled it around...then placed it in a baking pan and flattened it a little bit. And all her biscuits were uniform in size...until maybe the last little bit of dough.

She always made a 9 x 13 pan full of biscuits, and if there was a little dough left over, sometime she would make a big biscuit and place in another pan...I almost think she made a big one in fun.

Those biscuits were delicious...they were not flaky at all. But were sort of holey...and were just so good. I would give anything to have some of them once again, as well as some of her dumplings.

I have tried making biscuits and I just do not have the knack for it at all....dogs won't eat my biscuits. And I am dead serious...it has been a long time since I tried and I keep thinking one of these days I will start experimenting again but I never do. At least I can make the good old southern type of cornbread with no sugar.

Sometimes, at night when I want a snack but nothing sounds good, I will just make a pan of cornbread. And nothing tastes better. As a kid growing up, I would never have imagined a time would come when I thought cornbread a wonderful snack.

Look what we saw!!!!

We were out and about yesterday, hoping to see something. I was mainly hoping to see eagles....and maybe deer and turkeys. I 'may' have seen an eagle...in fact am almost positive I did. But we were driving too fast and it was just there and gone, so I am not positive.

But look what we did see--Sandhill Cranes! These we only saw in flight...but I could hear them. They are so vocal! You can look here and here to see other posts with better pictures. Or go here to read about their life history...it is interesting.
I wonder if they were looking for a place to rest, or were they just headed north...I have no idea how they do when heading back to their nesting grounds. I hope we can make it back to Jasper Pulaski a little later on...I just never tire of seeing them.
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We had another almost sleepless night the other night and I have just been out of sync the past couple of days. This time, it was basically cause we were having such nice weather and I was hyper...I could have stayed up all night. Every so often, I do have a night where I just stay up all night...usually I sew. This time we both read, and reading will help me settle down. We went to bed at 5:00 and I got up at 9:00, so hopefully no more nights like that.

It is doing nothing but rain here today...everything is so saturated. The Wabash River was almost out of its banks yesterday, so bet that it will be flooded after this day is through. Every time it floods, I think of George Rogers Clark and his men crossing it during flooding, on their way to battle....when they went to take back Kaskaskia from the British. They had to be men of iron will.

Anyway, of all days, I have laundry to do...I had much rather hang it outside but it is supposed to turn back chilly and even chance of light snow tonight. So, I will just dry them in the dryer and be done with it.

As I sit here, I hear Puss Puss crying in the basement....that is a sign she is looking for something, or in the process of carrying something up here. Usually something of Roger's. She has really been in that mood lately. I told in an earlier post about the plastic tubing, and the pipe cleaner...well, a few days later, she kept bringing this little plastic bag up...it was something that belonged to Roger but I don't know what it was. I know she brought it up at least three times....then the other night she brought up this whole bag of cleaning patches. It is little squares of cloth he uses to clean rifle bores. Only, with them, since the bag was bigger, there was a whole trail left behind her when she brought them up.

There is never a dull moment when you have cats...