Walkabout The Snow Day

Depending on your line of work (teachers) and your age (still in grade school) you will see a ton of snow days in Kentucky. I don’t get many snow days as I am not a teacher nor am I in school. Snow Days in the South are a big joke to people up North who get snow in feet not inches. Down here, it would be insane to send a standard yellow school bus down curvy country roads that haven’t seen salt trucks ever. We got several inches of snow and several inches of ice overnight and I got a snow day! Sometimes it is good to live on back roads. It took most of the day for the road crews in our area to get the main parkways and interstates clear. We’re still waiting for our main highway to be cleared today (day two).

On our snow day we made a big pot of chicken and dumplings and sipped on hot coffee through the morning.

This photo of the chicken stock and the onions, celery and carrots was too beautiful not to share. Isn’t food just BEAUTIFUL! You can tell why my weight loss is so slow going. Hah!

I painted my nails blue while we watched tons of episodes of Bones, Leverage and Rules of Engagement. I also caught up on some reading–glorious, glorious reading.

In the afternoon, I donned three shirts, two pants, a sweater, hat and insulated overalls. I hadn’t ventured out of the house much because I hate being cold, but given the proper preparation I love it! I romped in just about every snow drift on the farm to show how impressively deep the snow had gotten–Several feet.

I attempted to  throw a snowball at Kit but quickly realized it was much to powdery for any real fun. A snowman would have been out of the question.  However, I had a grand time romping in drifts, making a snow angel, spying tracks of and seeing some actual wildlife.
We brought the camera: 

One foot on top of snow and the other sunk to what I assume was the ground.

I remember making dozens of snow angels as a kid until I got the perfect one. Then my brothers usually walked through it.

Sunken into a drift that built up by the neighbor’s fence row. My knee is below the snow line.

Had to pose by my not-so-perfect snow angel.

We wanted to see the half frozen pond and had to stop in short to keep from scaring off the pair of moose enjoying the pond. Okay, moose is a weird inside joke and it is what we call Canadian geese. If I explained it you would just think I am more crazy and less funny.

The obligatory Snow Day Selfie! I hope you guys got to stay home with your loved ones. And if you didn’t get to yesterday, then make a point to spend a day with the people who make you smile soon!

State Fair 2013 Part Two

So here is the second part of what we got to see at the KY state fair on the 20th. Wanna see Part One? Kit was sad that the goats were mostly gone and the cattle hadn’t all come in yet, but we got to see some fun stuff anyway.

There was a charming “petting” zoo part of the fair designed for kids. It was called discovery farm. There was a lack of educational info and not many people working the animal booths. Also, there were signs above every cage warning that the animals can and will bite. These goats were just too cute to pass up. 

I mean, come on, how can you just walk away from a pile of sleeping piglets??

This peppermint chocolate cake really struck Kit and me. It was colorful and my chocolate stomach started grumbling almost immediately. Not knowing the details, I am betting that it was a rich chocolate cake—like devil’s food—and a cream cheese peppermint frosting would be creamy and minty at the same time. Yummo!
Kit and I also wanted to submit our pickles and pasta sauce for next year. Some of the pickles were a little rough looking by comparison. I’m hoping we can at least get things entered into our county fair for judging.
The theme for various ages and skill levels was music. There were some really cute ones. This was easily my favorite. The colors and design was very beautiful.

This type of cake is gorgeous to look at and although I wouldn’t be interested in taking a bite, I loved this detail they put into the fondant sheet music.
The most popular sewing crafts are quilting and counted cross stitch. I was lucky to find these little gems among the CCXstitch. I love the detail in this peacock. Awesome sauce!
I really like the display for this intricate embroidery design even though I haven’t the foggiest why it is on a paddle. I can’t imagine setting steaming pots of pasta on it or chasing an errant youth around the house with this work of art.

Whenever I look at the rows and rows of quilts I get super excited and then sad all at the same time. I love the patterns, colors, stitches and love that people put into their quilts. I get sad because I don’t know how to make a quilt like these beauties. I just want to make a simple block squared quilt, but it is such a large undertaking by hand that I fear I would get overwhelmed. I don’t know how to use a sewing machine so that would be an even larger undertaking–buying and learning how to use one proficiently without assistance.

My all-time favorite at the fair was this quilt. I cannot believe this didn’t win any awards. The judges were obviously off their rockers and out of their sewing circle minds! These are my favorite colors and the pattern is to die for!!

One of the last things we did at the fair was watch a 30 minute musical about the War of 1812. I was really impressed with the young people involved in putting on the show. I wondered how they perceived the audience and when I looked back I saw, a row of ancients with their chins on their chests, and behind me a woman whose entire bottom fell out of her 32 oz. soda. The soda barely missed me and Kit and made the poor lady looked like she had wet herself.

Despite the non-ideal audience, Kit and I kept eye-contact and reacted to the emotions and songs that they put on. My best two word summary is alligator horses!!! Go ahead, look up the New Orleans battle and see how the soldiers scared the shit out of their enemy!!

Ta ta for now!

~Kat

State Fair Time!!

State Fair time means we are celebrating Kit’s birthday again!

We enjoyed a full day of produce, crafts, cakes, livestock and booths!
Can’t wait to share pictures of some of my favorite things and stories of the adventures we had.

The hubbster also requested a visit to Tom+Chee, a locally owned restaurant featuring gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches.

More to come soon!

Banana Pepper Poppers {Recipe Revealed!!}

This was our pan full of peppers before baking. I don’t know how many servings this might be in a regular household but this was about four and since we ate it as a main course we cleaned it up.

Ingredients
• Couple dozen sweet banana peppers
• Block of cheese (at least half pound)
• Package of bacon
• knife, cutting board, and baking sheet

Mathod
• Slice open peppers long ways and scrap/cut out seeds
• Slice cheese and put into pepper pockets. Arrange cheese evenly if possible
• Wrap bacon around each pepper. We cut one bacon strip in half for the small peppers.
Bake in oven 350° for 30 minutes or until peppers are tender, bacon is cooked and cheese is melted.

The final product looked like this.
You can see that I barely remembered to take a picture of them.

My specifics:
I used turkey bacon because that is what I usually keep in my fridge.

I also used some of Kenny’s Farmhouse Cheese. I used the onion and chive cheese, which crumbled and mashed nicely into the peppers.
I also just found out that Kenny uses vegtanle based rennet to make his cheese! So all y’all veggie people are good to go.

The sweet banana peppers I got from dad’s garden and boy oh boy are they delicious!

I am not paid nuttin’ to mention product names. I love their cheese and I felt decadent using something other than Walmart cheese. Heh.

Day 279: Florence

Not sure why I put off driving past Florence, Kentucky for so long. What a treat! Apparently this water tower addage is a huge embarrassment to the residents of Florence. To me, it just reflects the our old state catch phrase,”Kentucky. We’re just that friendly.” A little creepy and a whole lotta southern.

I must say that Unbridled Spirit is a little bit cooler for a state that is known for its horses and racing. Outside of the U.S. do they know us for our horses, corevettes, and bourbon? Doubtful.

My brief conversations in Costa Rica often included the response, “oh! Kentucky Fried Chicken!” Thanks, Colonel.
I need to visit the home of the first KFC someday. Corbin, KY, for those of you who are interested.