Home Made Dog Treats

Right now there is a big controversy over chicken treats made in China. There have been some reports in the past that some dogs have gotten some kidney damage from these treats. There is a "current" warning about this but the reporting agency says only that there "might" be a problem, no specific brand is mentioned nor are the "problems" defined.  I still do feed my dogs some treats that are not USA made, just a few and there are some real favorites that we hate to give up. So I decided this morning to try my hand at making them.
There two basic ones that I attempted.  One was yams wrapped in chicken. This is cooked to a jerky like consistency and they do look good!  The other was plain yams cooked to a chewy texture.  I decided, also, to try something with carrots.
I lined the pans with parchment paper and cut up the potatoes. Sweet potatoes are hard to cut, they are a more dense vegetable than the white potatoes.  I made "french fries" and cut those to about 2 1/2 to 3 inches long.  Then cut the chicken, and a hint, cutting it half frozen makes it work better.  I cut long fillets and then halved those.  The fries were put in water with some lemon juice, I'd hoped to keep them from turning brown.  This did work, I used about a quart of water and about 1/4 of a cup of concentrated lemon juice.  I put some of the potatoes on a pan and then wrapped the rest in the chicken.  I also put the plain carrots on one of the pans and wrapped a few in the carrots, too.

My oven is a little cool so instead of 200 degrees, I did this at about 225.  I baked this for 2 hours and checked on it. The chicken was cooked at that point but not jerky like.  The potatoes were still chewy but almost too soft.
I had an errand to do so left things to bake while I was gone.  When I came back, it had been around 5 hours total time so I took them out.

The top photo is the carrots.  A total flop.  These were the teeny little carrots, not the fatter baby carrots.  I may try the baby carrots at some point in the future, though, and cook them maybe a little bit less.  The corgis will enjoy the meat that was wrapped around them, I'm sure.
Next is the yam wrapped potatoes. They came out really nice.  There was a little grease from the meat but not much.  The yams kept their nice orange color.  But the yams are a little bit crisp.
The yams on the bottom, were too crisp.  I should have done them around 3-4 hours, I think.  I did put aluminum foil on the bottom and sprayed that with Pam spray.  I still think the corgis will like these.  I think next time I will slice into round and thicker pieces and then cut them in half to a half moon shape.
Here is what the Chinese made ones look like:

This is apple and chicken.  The chicken is the darker part and I've seen most of the treats that look like this. The apple is soft and chewy but the chicken part is pretty hard.  This isn't the most attractive photo, I could have laid them out and they would have looked a little better. But overall, my treats looked much better.
I ended up cutting up about 5 or 6 medium sized potatoes, and two rather good sized skinless chicken breasts.  And a little lemon juice and 5 hours in the oven.  It made about a pound of treats after cooking.  I charge 11.99 in the store for a pound of these treats, other stores charge much more, up to 19.99.   Four ounces runs around 3.99, so a dollar an ounce.  If you are paying 19.99, then it's probably worth it to make them yourself.  I would probably invest in a dehydrator, though, there is a lot of wasted space/heat in the oven.  I think the dehydrator would probably cost less to run.  Anyhow, say $3 for the chicken and another $2 for the yams, another 25 cents for the lemon juice.  I don't even know how much to say for the gas oven, though.  And don't forget your labor, maybe an hour of cutting up and preparing time.
If I made the apple/chicken ones, I'd also use the lemon juice mixture.  And I will cut the chicken thinner next time, too.  I'd never really sliced raw chicken before, there is a knack to it and it needs to be thinner.  Then it won't have to cook so long and the apple or the yams will be softer.
I also think I would skip the skinning of the potatoes and of the apples, too.  Just one more step that is not really necessary.
I put them in a plain plastic bag and will keep them refrigerated "just in case".  If I were to make a lot of these, I'd probably get one of the little appliances that suck out the air and seal the bag to keep air out of them. These won't last long enough, though, I don't think, to do that to.  :)
So I hope this helps everyone out on this subject.  I don't need to taste test these, the corgis will get them for a bedtime snack and will be delighted with them, I'm sure. They really do look much better than the store bought ones.

Pretty Sunset and Pretty Dogs!

This was taken a couple of weeks ago.  Just enjoy.....

And along that same line, here are updated photos of the girls that I took last weekend.  They have passed the worst of the Weasel Bitch state and are filling out a little bit, growing more hair and getting more coordinated.

Zophia Pandini:

And this is Carling, named after Aisling and showing her same traits....

Hummingbird Cake

I have never heard of this before.  It seems to be a big thing here in Kentucky, along with Derby Pie (see my post on that one a while back).  I've not actually tasted it but they have them at one of the local groceries and I will buy one and do just that.  The only thing that has held me back is that I have this awful feeling if I buy it, I will bury my face in it and eat it all.  Like a dog.  :)

You just cannot go wrong with pecans, cream cheese frosting, pineapple and banana.  So here is a recipe for this wonderful cake.....and if you show up to my house to visit, you had better have one of these with you!

Ingredients

• 
  3 cups all-purpose flour 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 2 cups sugar 
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 
• 3 large eggs, beaten 
• 1 cup vegetable oil 
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 
• 1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple, undrained 
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 2 cups chopped bananas 
• Cream Cheese Frosting 
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

• Preparation

  1. Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; add eggs and oil, stirring until dry ingredients are moistened. (Do not beat.) Stir in vanilla, pineapple, 1 cup pecans, and bananas.
  2. Pour batter into three greased and floured 9-inch round cakepans. Bake at 350° for 25 to 30 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes; remove from pans, and cool completely on wire racks.
  3. Spread Cream Cheese Frosting between layers and on top and sides of cake; sprinkle 1/2 cup chopped pecans on top. Store in refrigerator.
  Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook, Southern Living 
  JANUARY 1999
   

Hay Adventures!

I had to go and pick up some hay today from a local farmer.  My other hay guy was out of hay for the year and I felt I needed a few more bales, so off I went, to inspect and then perhaps to buy.  I had Googled the directions to the farm and ended up in quite a pretty valley to the south of here.
The farmer had a small horse facility but he farms 600 acres of hay.  The hay was stored down the road a couple of miles from his house, so he hopped in the truck and off we went.
It was nice hay so I agreed to buy some.  That was where the good luck ran out.
The ground is saturated from all the rain that has fallen over the past two weeks and the truck is a short bed and not four wheel drive.  Wheee!  We slipped and slid and then got stuck.  I couldn't get us out and so said to the farmer "you give it a try".  I got out and stood up on the hill a little ways and he worked on getting the truck moved. At one point, he hopped out of the truck, which was sitting on a slight incline side to side, to see what the back wheels were doing and how deep the rut was becoming from spinning wheels.  Did I mention it was on a slight incline?  We heard a "thunk" and he looked at me with an expression I cannot even describe.  "Did I just lock us out?" he said.  Uh...yeah.  In the middle of nowhere, at least a mile from any house.  "Do you have your phone?"  The poor man looked like he was going to cry.  No, it was in the truck.  I "had it with me" but it wasn't on my person.  The door locked automatically because he had left the vehicle in reverse when he hopped out.
I remained calm and he was, too, amazingly enough.  No point in getting upset although I felt the fringes of that emotion for a short time. We were stuck.  No tools.  Nothing.  So I prepared myself for a walk down the road, thanking God that I had on a warm jacket.  It was 39 and sunny but there was a bit of a sharp breeze.  And there were lots of trees and hills to block the breeze.  I'd be all right.  I figured if someone could call a locksmith, I could be out of there in a couple of hours and please, God, may there be enough gas to get to a gas station since the engine was still running.
The farmer went up to the barn and rooted around a bit, came back with two bits of broken thin board and some baling twine.  He was determined to get us out, so I thought what the hell, let's give him the benefit of the doubt.  He got a bale of hay to stand on.  Then he worked on prying open just a smidge, the top of the driver's side door. The original plan was to snag the keys I had sitting on the console, with the baling wire, but I explained I had only brought them along because they had the post office key on them.  So plan B was to open the door handle.  I positioned myself on the passenger's side to give encouragement and directions to help him since he was really doing this blind, unable to see straight down and where the handle was.
Now you have to understand that all modern vehicles are designed to thwart people like me and the Farmer to get inside and steal the radio or the vehicle itself. So the handle is recessed under the arm rest on the left (on the driver's side) .  Damned if he didn't hook it.  This impressed me mightily!  I still can't believe he got the wire over the handle firmly.  And gave several good pulls and then when the door didn't open, we decided it was because it was still in gear. Running.  And burning gas.  Crap.
Plan C was to send another bit of wire through the steering wheel and attempt to get the gear shift lever back into park, so he secured the wire on the door handle and attempted to do that.
Then I got the bright idea to suggest that if we had a piece of thin rebar or something strong, maybe he could just shove it through the little crack and hit the button to unlock the door. So off he went to root around in the barn again.  Which, for a barn, was amazingly clean and free of debris and crap that usually ends up in there.  Which means there wasn't anything there to scavenge to help us out.  He came back with a long thin stick, very straight.  A little fiddling around with it and finally he hit the button and we heard the strong CLICK that meant the doors unlocked.  I threw open the door and flung myself across the seat.  "I got the phone!" I cried!  :):):)  We were in.  But still stuck, however, things were looking up.
He got back in after I insisted that we unroll both of the front windows.  He agreed heartily!  And he got us turned around and back to his house.
So that was the adventure of the day.  It only took us abut 30 minutes to get back in and to get out of the place.  Not too bad really.
I take my hat off to farmers.  They can fix anything.

Fire Taxes

This subject has been on the news a couple of times in the past few months.  In many places, and also in Summer Shade, we have fire taxes.  The fire department is all volunteer and it costs money to run the department.  So instead of having this included in property taxes, they send out a bill each December for your fire taxes.  In many places. if the house is on fire and the fire department arrives and discovers you have not paid your tax, too bad, so sad.  That's why this has been in the news. Someone "forgot" to pay or just didn't care and took a chance and then they got mad when the firemen came out and did nothing.  I guess I'm on the side of the firemen, this is established policy down here and everyone knows it.  They told us three times at the house closing "be sure and pay the fire taxes for the year".
Now the Summer Shade department is a bit more progressive. They will come out and put out the fire but you have to pay them $500.  Seems fair to me!  Much easier to pay it in the first place and help to support the department!

A Redneck Christmas!

And I want one!  Oh, I think this is wonderful!  I didn't find it in Kentucky, I swiped this off of Facebook.  But oh, how I want to put one of these up!

I'm so jealous.  I wish I'd thought of this first....

Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit

Well, this is an interesting legend!  So, "Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit!".  :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_rabbit

In some areas of the Southern United States, such as Tennessee and Mississippi and Maryland, campers will say "I hate white rabbits" in response to campfire smoke blowing into their face, hoping the smoke will go elsewhere.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Are you all ready?  We are!

You will note that the yams are not there, as I had them on the list but somehow missed picking them up.  Just the creamy carbs for us!  Stuffing, mashed potatoes, (not the ones pictured, though, real ones!), green bean casserole, and sweet potatoes with pecans and pineapple and little tiny marshmallows.
And the best thing of all:

Now what makes this turkey special is that we got it as a gift!  Remember years ago when employers gave out hams or turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas as a nice thank you bonus for employees?  Well this one came from Jerry's boss.  He was so pleased when he called me to tell me we had a turkey and that I didn't have to buy one!  And just the right size, around 10 pounds, for us.
Everyone have a wonderful turkey day!

I have the best friends in the entire world!

A very dear friend sent me a gift this week.  Her name is Ruth Davis, she is in her early 80s.  About 10 or 12 years ago, she kept pestering me to find her a needle point canvas with a corgi on it.  I'd seen some around but frankly, they weren't very good.  I knew that Linda Ozelis had a friend that painted some, though, that were just stunning.  So I bided my time and waited until the next National specialty and bought one of these lovely works of art.  I brought it home and presented it to Ruth and she was just thrilled and I was delighted that I'd made her so happy.  And then I just forgot about it.
Fast forward to the current date and yes, she sent me the needlepoint.  It was around an 18 count which means 18 teeny tiny little stitches to the inch.  Further, Ruth is fighting macular degeneration in her eyes.  This means her sight is going.  She did this needlepoint for me and had it framed.  The holes were so tiny she had to use 3 strands of embroidery thread and match up the colors.  She did this because she loves me.  I cannot believe she did it for me.  So let me share it with you.  It is a real work of art and it is going up on my wall in a day or two (we have to have the rain stop so Jerry can get in his workshop and find the right nail thingies that go in the wall and make it very secure).
Thank you, Ruth...I love you so much!

Breakfast

There are a lot of yummy things served for breakfast in Kentucky and I'm sure in the rest of the USA, too, but our favorite thing is bacon and biscuits.  I have posted before about the search for a very good biscuit, I won't say perfect as I need to leave the door open for the perfect biscuit.  But bacon has been a problem lately. For one thing, the price has increased quite a bit since we moved here.  It used to be that I could find a pound of bacon for around 4.00 and sometimes it would even be somewhat lean.  However, it's gone up to around 5.29 now and mostly fatty. I found some less expensive bacon at one of the less expensive grocery stores but it was very stringy and not very tender.
This week I found 2 1/2 lbs of bacon for 9.99!  And the name of the product was, of course, perfect.

 Look how lean it is!

 I have learned to cook bacon in the oven, 400 degrees for about 25 minutes.  My oven cooks a little cooler, normally it would be around 375, so experiment with your oven.  I have also learned to use parchment paper which makes clean up so much easier, and good heavy aluminum pans.

 It comes out so crispy and brown and without leaving your stove top a greasy mess!

Then add in the very good biscuits...Yum!

I must talk about grits sometime, too!

My favorite subject: Sunrises!

Just sit back and enjoy.  These were taken a couple of days ago:

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Only it's not cold.  And there is no snow.  And although it is cloudy today and rainy for the next few days, still in the 60s and 70s.  Just a lovely Fall overall!
But our friends at Wal Mart have begun to play carols.  Loudly.  So loud yesterday that I could barely think of what I needed at the store. And this brings up a story from last year that was continued today.
Last December 26th, I got up at 5:00 am and left from home at 5:30 in order to hit the early sales of leftover Christmas stuff at our local WalMart.  I was at the door at 6:00 am. The road had been slightly icy and it was black black black outside.  Eww.  And I was surprised that there was no one there, a dozen cars in the lot which I supposed belonged to the employees. But where were the people?  Don't people in Kentucky take advantage of saving some money on their Christmas items by getting them for half price?
I entered the store and quickly got the things I'd had my eye on.  One of these was a new Christmas tree.  We didn't have room or time to put up a tree last year.  As a matter of fact, I only have felt like my life was my own again the past couple of months.  Moving across the country and after having roots down for years and years really means it takes a while to get settled in.  Although I wanted a tree, I was darned if I was going to buy one at full price. But they had this darling one at WalMart and it was half off.

Our new tree has been in the box now for almost 11 months.  Today, Jerry couldn't stand it anymore.  He wanted his new tree up, with the lights already on it.  He brought it up from where we had stored it, we discussed where it should go.  I wasn't real jazzed about putting it up before Thanksgiving but I can't remember when we had a tree last so I figured putting it up a week or two earlier was probably all right.  It was assembled up on a small table to discourage small black noses from getting involved in a disassembling project!  But something went wrong.  Have you ever heard of truth in advertising?  Apparently it doesn't apply to Christmas trees.

Well this is it.  I could pitch a softball through the spaces.  Jerry tried to make the best of it.  "Why, it just needs to be fluffed out some".  OK. So I fluffed a bit but said "there is no way we can fluff up over these holes!"  "Oh, but when we turn the lights on, it will look better".  I was doubtful that the lights would even come on but he tried.  He stood across the room.  "I don't think the lights helped" he pointed out. Well, uh...no!  Really!  Someone in the factory forget to wire half the branches on and they don't even come down all the way down the trunk.  So we packed up the Charlie Brown tree and put it down for the garage sale stuff.  Someone will find it useful, I'm sure.  Poor tree.
So I will be looking for a new tree this year, I'm afraid.  I like the ones they have at Lowe's, so maybe will get one from there.

Craig's List in Kentucky

There is nothing to add to this.  Just enjoy the fact that yes, moonshine is still very actively produced down here!

Ain't

I know that there have been some small earthquakes around the nation lately, California, the east coast, even Oklahoma.  These have NOT been caused by the usually tectonic plates moving about.  No, not at all.  They have been caused by my mother.  How, you may ask, did this happen?
Well, turns out Momma rolled over in her grave last week.  Yes, indeed, my highly educated, double degree'd mom heard something come out her daughter's mouth.  It wasn't French.  Hell, it wasn't even Anglo Saxon, the only other language that I can speak besides English....  :)
It was the word "ain't".  I said it in an actual sentence to an actual person.
Now this wasn't just a fun "I AIN'T gonna do that..." kind of statement where you might use the word to make an emphasis on something.  Oh, no, this was in casual conversation.  I thought, "did I just say ain't in a sentence?"  And yes, I had.
I know that we belong to the family of primates and one of the things about primates is that they imitate things.  There was a sister in the parochial school I attended, in the 9th grade.  She was a dear lady and I loved her a lot. She taught social studies but had a fascinating habit of lifting her eyebrows into a surprised look about every 10 seconds.  I have never seen anyone do this since.  And I actually started to do it to see what it felt like and then it wasn't quite a habit but, it seemed I was doing it some.  And once I realized this, I made an effort to stop it.
So I know that we imitate facial expressions and also speech patterns.  I have been very careful to not say some of the things that are said down here, ain't being one of them.  I have started to pick up the habit of saying "you need to get you some pancakes for breakfast" instead of "you need to get some pancakes for breakfast".  I have never heard this extra use of the word you anywhere else and do say it on occasion.  I have not said "I need to carry Jerry to town" instead of "I need to take Jerry to town".  There are lots of other idioms that I hear, I smile about and I try not to say.  :)
Will this keep me from being a genuine redneck?  Gosh, I hope not.  I am hearing my voice soften, though, drawing out words like nine and five, and I'm not saying "no problem" instead of "thank you" so much anymore.  You really do imitate a lot in life.

I hate Thistles!

Yep, well I do. The flowers are ever so pretty.

But the plant is deadly. Not in terms of poison but in terms of thorns and in terms of taking over the pasture.  So pastures have to be regularly bush hogged (meaning mowed down) two or three times a year to keep these invasive plants away.  We also have some cockleburrs that I might actually be winning the war against.  And I am winning the war against the thistles.
They get so big, some are 5 feet tall and they have multiple flowers which then bear thousands of little seeds.  Birds like the seeds and eat a lot of them and the butterflies like them, too.
They are biennial which means they sprout and grow the first year, and are large and flat type of plants, so kind of hard to find unless they are really big. The next year, they bear flowers/seeds and then die.

I spent all summer, a few minutes a week, cutting them down, spraying them and removing the flowers and seed pods.  I really went after them and saw great success. But a few got away from me so I've been thistle hunting this month.  Lots of them out there, some very tiny, but others just humongous.  I use the Kill Death Murder spray on them (so named by Jerry) and it works very, very well!  I killed off at least 70 today, I spend a half hour criss crossing the fields and find them there.  They are just nasty, thorned things!

Post Number 100!

No kidding!  I started this blog last fall and we are now at post 100!  Honestly, I never thought I'd find this much to write about.  The blog began as a way to celebrate our life here, the wonderful and fun things we have seen and experienced with some overflow into my personal life.  And I still have things to write about!
Today's post will be a little bit about this and that.
Here is yesterday's sunrise:

 And this is what it looked like to the west, the sun was reflecting off these clouds:

 And about 10 minutes later, the sun came up....

I love to start my day this way!
Here is another photo, we finally got the second stained glass up in the front room.  We didn't want to block the view so we hung it up by the entry way and it looks pretty good there.  I may actually take out the spindles at some point in the future.

The plant is one that Rose, the lady who used to live here, left behind.  I had to trim it down some, it was so healthy and had vines at least 10 feet long!  But it was taking over the front room.  It has been trimmed, dead branches removed, yellow leaves picked off.  It had a great summer outside in the front yard being a wild plant with the Christmas cacti.  And they are very happy, too, you can see them blooming:

They are so happy here that they bloomed three times this past year, spring, summer and now fall!
Tomorrow I will talk about some plants that I hate.

Trunk Or Treat

Trunk or Treat....what does this mean?  I have seen this on several signs around town and could not even guess what it meant.  And I went back to take a photo of it and then couldn't remember where I had seen it. But I saw it several places.  Actually I was almost afraid to ask what it meant.  Trick or treat, well, no treat, we play a trick on you.  Trunk or treat, no treat, so Guido puts you in the trunk?  When can you come out?  I was puzzled and then forgot about it until today.
It has been explained to me that Trunk or Treat means people take their cars up to different parking lots, like a church or a big parking lot at a shopping plaza.  You line them all up and open your trunk and you have candy in the trunk.  This provides kids a way to Trick or Treat safely, with mom and dad in tow. Actually I saw the incredible intelligence in this as you certainly could cover more ground in a shorter time this way.  I spent hours going up and down the streets when I was a kid collecting my goodies and avoiding the neighborhood bully who seemed to delight in grabbing one's bag and dumping it and then ripping up the bag so you had no way of getting the candy home.  He ended up being convicted of a double murder though, and sentenced to death.  So he is no longer around to terrorize smaller children, another good reason for Trunk or Treat.

Roses and Rearranging in October!

But first, these photos were taken about 10 days ago, and the roses are STILL BLOOMING!

 These are the cosmos that have taken over by the front fence:

And another one of the lovely roses:

We didn't have a step on the front porch so we took the one from the kitchen entrance and put it out there:

Nothing real special but it was apparently never put in.  Even though it's only a couple of inches higher than the step, it was still a little further down than you expected and probably not good for the corgis' backs.
Then we bought a new step for the kitchen (main) entrance:

Nicer looking and just a little wider for when you are standing in the rain and fiddling with a key!  :)  I saw this half round one and really liked it and wish I'd gotten the larger one, now.  But this one is fine.
This weekend, we did some major moving of things around the house.  We are down to about 20 boxes and still going through things to decide what to keep and what to sell at a yard sale.  We had an enormous oak table in the "formal" dining area.  It was quickly becoming a dump spot and we couldn't see out the wonderful window.  So we moved the table to another place:

I got rid of the sheer curtains which were terrible dust collectors and blocked the view.  Believe me, I am all about the view here.  We have taken out several trees and still have two or three more to move.
Then I had a couple of stained glass windows that we carefully carried down here on the move, and so the morning glory one went up into the window:

I had picked up a small table with two chairs for Jerry's laptop to be on, and Kathy had given us a nifty plant holder. It was time to think about bringing the Christmas cactus in because they are setting buds and will be blooming in a couple of weeks.  So I put that in the window so they could get plenty of sun through the winter.

I had this wicker chair that was just begging to be in the left side corner:

I also added the two little end tables that have tile tops on them and put two of the mandavillas on one of them. The third one went into the bedroom where I have another plant stand.
I do plan on replacing the curtains at some point but they look much better without the sheers, I think.

We also raised the light fixture so that no swearing will be heard as one whacks one's head on it.  And you can see how nice the tile floors look here.
I put up some artwork in the corners, starting with a couple that someone had done of my corgis:

 Jordan, who was Am/Can. CH. Garvin's Sharp Dressed Man, as a puppy:

 Micah and Panda, who were Can. CH. Kallista My Wild Irish Rose and Can. CH. Kallista Kiss Me I'm Irish.

I put another small one of Jordan on the left side but didn't get a photo of it.
Then we got really inspired and spent the rest of the day hanging pictures in the guest room and the front room and our bedroom.  It looks really nice, now!
Moving is a year long project, I can tell you that, with working and training and other things, sometimes there is just no energy to do this in the evening. So I am glad that we got these things done.
I am going to hang the iris stained glass to the left of these pictures, where the entry way is. There really isn't another good place to put it except in the second guest room which is actually a library.  And since the sun shines in so brightly and hot in the summer, I'd really rather have the blinds in there. So this makes a good logical choice.  I went and got the better hooks for both the stained glasses and we will get them up maybe tomorrow.