Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Tequila Cookies

Heading to a Cinco de Mayo party, I wondered about a great dessert to take.  (Mexican Wedding Cookies seemed a little too labor intensive).  So I had this brilliant idea of Tequila Cookies...and were they tasty!

Here's what you need:
French Vanilla or white cake mix
1/2 cup butter softened
2 eggs
2 tbsp veg oil
1ish tsp tequila

Lime frosting (add a little tequila to that too)
Sea salt

Mix butter, eggs, oil, and tequila.  Add cake mix.  Drop by cookie scoop onto sheet and bake at 350 until golden (probably 8-12 minutes, but I really don't know because I don't use a timer).

Once they have cooled, schmear the lime frosting on the bottom of one of the cookies and then smush another cookie on top.  Roll the edges in a salt.  When you bite into the cookie the salt and lime mix with the slight tequila flavor.  Yummo!

Monday, May 6, 2013

Jiggle the Juice Loose

So we got another bottle calf!  Yeah!  Or so I thought before I tried feeding 2 calves at the same time. 

So this little guy's momma's milk dried up and he subsequently got sick.  Sometimes a cow's milk will dry up for various reasons--pretty sure this one is just old age--she done!  LOL.  Anyways, grab this little guy and head to the barn.  Arnold has a roomie!  Well this calf was already 3 weeks old and used to getting milk from a big black momma cow and not some crazy person in pink boots.  So it was a challenge getting Sylvester (I named him Sylvester because he's kind of sly....) to take the bottle.  Plus there's Arnold all up in my business, "But Momma that bottle's for me!"  Schwoo!  Yesterday I got them to feed at the same time!  DOUBLE-BAM!  Two bottles, two hands, two calves....oh its a party in the barn!  I have supreme respect for human mothers of twins!  Can't even imagine. 

Isn't he cute?!?!


Another challenge with 2 calves is that Arnold finishes his bottle before Sylvester and starts doing his thing....the bump to jiggle the juice loose.  Calves will head-butt their momma's udders to jiggle the juice loose for more milk....well there's a slight disparity in the situation that I don't have udders and head-butting me there isn't the most pleasant thing in the world.  Maybe that's why J gave the bottle-feeding job to me--LOL. 

Here they are--aren't they precious?


Bottles need handles on them though...those things get slippery!


Thursday, May 2, 2013

The Skinny on Lifeproof Phone Covers

So the hubs and I both got iPhones within the last 3 or 4 months--he got the Lifeproof cover, I got the Otterbox.  He was sold on the Lifeproof cover when the AT&T person said it could be dumped in water and still work.  Being a farmer, things in pockets have a habit of taking a swim in horse tanks, mud puddles, poo, getting dropped from tractors, etc, etc.  Until last week, the cover and phone had already taken a dip in the horse tank and puddle--but the biggest test was a 15-foot drainage tile well. 

So we have drain tiles around our foundation to keep the water out (I don't quite understand how it works) but anyways a sump pump is on the outside of the house and pumps water out of this 18" PVC pipe out into the yard.  Great, great.  Well until the hubs hooks the pump back together and his phone takes a triple somersault nose-dive into the bottom of the well.  Uh-oh.   He considered the phone gone to the world, while I tried unsuccessfully to get it out for about 30 min.

Fast forward to the next night and the hubs has devised a brilliant plan to retrieve said phone from the bottom of the well.  Parts of the plan include:  garden hoe, garden hose, gorilla tape, keystone light, and a flashlight.  He rigged up the garden hose to another sump to suck water out, while trying to grab the phone with a hoe gorilla taped to a steel post.  I said this was a brilliant plan.  Part of the problem was that as soon as the water would get sucked out, more water would come in from the drain tiles and fill it back up and we would lose track of where the phone was.  Sure enough though, we spotted the phone and tried scooping it out.  After a couple of tries, me working the sump pump/hose contraption and J working the garden hoe/gorilla tape thing, we managed to get it out.  AND IT WORKED!  The phone was still on!  After being at the bottom of a well for 24+ hours--it was fine.  Now the faceplate is a little scratched from the hoe attacking it, but other than that--works like a champ!

So if you have a farmer friend or person who is accident prone--get a Lifeproof case!  They are worth it!

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

How To Wrangle a Bull

A couple of months ago, after one of our infamous snowfalls, I got to wrangle a bull....

So J was feeding cows in the tractor and somehow Weird Al got out and decided he wanted to play in the snow.  Well Weird Al is a pretty tame and nonchalant bull most of the time.  I don't get worried when I have to get in the pen with him or walk beside him in the pasture.  However, in the snow, he was kind of like a Labrador retriever...just a REALLY big one.  I'm sure you all have seen dogs play in the snow, rolling around, trying to catch it, rolling around in it some more, lick it, shake it off when it gets on their fur.  Well take that amount of frivolity times 250--schwoo!  So here I am and I see Weird Al running into the snow bank.  Hugh (the other bull who was in the pen) starts howling at him and Weird Al gets agitated and starts howling back, all the while rolling around in the snow.  I run over the fence, over another fence, hop through the corral, and head to the barn.  Weird Al by this time had wondered over to the barn with the grain bin, thinking he had struck gold.  But the other implements and another snow bank got his attention, so off he went again.  I am freaking out trying to wave at J--wondering how far Weird Al was going to run around and what he was going to run into.  Well I grabbed a white bucket and filled it with grain and got into the mini-donkey pen.  (Lucky and Charlotte were inside the barn) and waved my grain-bucket carrot stick at Weird Al, hoping he would see me and smell the grain.  He rambles over and I dump some on the ground and he licks it up, then starts howling when its gone.  Well I hang over the corral fence with my magic bunk and somehow lure him into the pen, once he gets through the gate, I shut it and throw the rest of the grain on the ground.  **heart beating at overtime speed!**  Schwoo!  J comes back around and sees me with the grain bucket and goes what's going on...oh nothing much just captured a 2500 lb bull by myself....

God Made a Farmer's Wife

Saw this the other day and totally loved it!  And had to share  :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQknnkXsRjI