Cows, giggles, green pastures, and dirt road wisdom.

This morning I guess I really needed to clear my head and connect with some country.  This came in the form of Boony cruisin' with a couple of really awesome ladies in the dodge truck.  We sat in the truck blasting country music, laughing, giggling, and bouncing around the truck on some Oklahoma back country dirt roads.  We saw some beautiful fields and barns, we talked to some cows, and even had a couple of scares.   We were getting a cold front coming in so there were some clouds on the horizon that maybe it all the better.  One thing you can say about Oklahoma, it has beautiful farmland and beautiful big skies.  Both of which make for breathtaking photographs.   

It was a quiet morning at least until the three of us came bouncing through.  My two cruisin' buddies needed the head clearing moment just as much as I did.  We stopped and talked to the cows.  Watched a few sneaking their breakfast on the other side of the fence.  You know because the  grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.  As it turns out the grass isn't always greener on the other side.  Sometimes we just think it is.  One thing I have learned in my forty years is, no matter how green someone's life appears, everybody has brown spots now and then.  See these cows are leaning out eating the short grass that is turning quicker even though they have thicker fuller grass in their pasture.  I think it is just how they sit it.  You know that is just the point.  We are all just so busy trying to have the better greener pasture that we are missing what is right in front of us.   We need to just stop and look around.  If you look at your own pasture you might find it is greener, more peaceful, and happier than those Joneses we always seem to be trying to keep up with.  And you never know they might just be look from their pasture at us and think it is greener because we have a more simple life.  

So  here is what I am thinking.  We need to all slow down take a drive out in the country on a dirt road.  Maybe just seeing the simple beauty of the barns, silos, pastures, cows, and big sky then count our blessings.  We have our husbands, our kids, our family, we have a place to live, food to eat, electricity to keep it not to hot or cold, we have a way to get around. These are all blessings.  We need to keep that in mind a little bit everyday.  We need to be thankful for these blessing and not worry as much about our neighbors blessings.


So maybe  looking at my pictures that I took will help you realize what I realized this morning.  I also realized nothing beats a couple of good friends in a truck boony cruisin' on some red dirt roads.  An other thing to remember is always keep a camera with you.  You never beautiful sites you might see on a beautiful October Oklahoma morning.  Not to mention some awesome country music can cure any thing that ails you.

One more piece of dirt road wisdom, don't forget what you have been through because it made you who you are today.  It also made you stronger.  So while the future is a little fuzzy right now it will be crystal clear and in the rear view mirror soon.  

Peace, Love, and Dirt road happiness.

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New meets old, recipes, memories, and windmills.

This past week my grandmother went home to heaven.  While it is sad for us and we will miss her, she lived a long life and deserves to rest and see other family including her husband that have passed on.  We went down to the funeral over the weekend.  I hated the reason for the visit but loved being there.  My grandmother was laid to rest in an tiny old cemetery in a tiny dying town in Texas, but the area feels like home.  We took the dirt roads back to town.  On one of the dirt roads not far from where my grand parents used to live, I pulled over and took this picture.  It struck me the new and the old windmills.  It struck me how many wind farms the ranchers in the area had gone too.  But with the recent droughts in Texas I can certainly understand the need to supplement income.  

I received box of things from my grandmother's apartment.  There were pictures and mementos, but one thing had struck me...a recipe full of recipes cut from newspapers, magazines, and product labels. 

 This last thing the folder of recipes struck me as very interesting.  I am constantly patrolling Facebook, blogs, and Pintrest for recipes then save them and print them.  Some recipes I use and some I just mean to use.  But sitting in the  dining room floor excitedly going through my grandmothers stash of recipes, something dawned on me.  I do the same thing my grandmother did, just with different media.  Where I go through Facebook, blogs, and Pintrest and saving recipes with good intentions is just the same as my grandmother going through newspapers, magazines, and product labels and clipping and saving recipes with the best of intentions.   Just like the picture of the windmills, you have the old and the new, they do basically the same things but in slightly different ways.  

I sat in my dining room floor with this treasure trove of recipes that my Grandmother thought were worth saving, I felt a connection with her that wasn't previously there.  It is odd we were always pretty close but this made me feel closer.  I held the few hand written ones, boy what treasures.  There were a couple in my Sister's hand writing.  Which is funny to me, it is no family secret that my sister couldn't cook for many years.  She can cook it just took her longer to come to it.  You know the old saying "You never trust a skinny cook"  my sister is the embodiment of that saying.  While she is better, she is still a skinny cook.  (Sis, if you read this I don't mean it to hurt your feelings. I love you.)  I did come across an very interesting recipe printed on bright yellow paper.  It was from a Girl Scout newsletter.  It is for Dump Cake.  It was a recipe I modified when I was a Junior Girl Scout or maybe a Cadette.  It got modified because I have always hated reading directions, it comes from dyslexia.  The original cake was supposed to be all dumped in at once and I layered it.  I also cooked it in a dutch oven over a fire instead of the oven.  The fact that she kept that recipe for this many years was very touching.  I think the recipes we keep are as much a scrapbook of our life as pictures are.  I mean after all we are what we eat right?  So the recipes tell our story right?

Gump (Dump) Cake 

• 2 Cans of  Blueberry or Cherry pie filling
• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1 can crushed pineapple
• 1 stick of butter
• coconut

In a dutch oven lined with foil, or regular cake pan (no size given but I think a 9x13 greased)

1st layer pie filling

2nd layer pineapple including the juice

3rd layer cake mix (dry)

4th layer butter cut into small pieces and spread  over the top

5th layer the coconut

Bake 350 for an hour or until top is golden brown

 I am going to have to make this soon just for the memories.  I don't think I have made this since It was printed.   Which was quite a while ago.