Random Photo

The Bag Lady was going through some of her old pictures, wondering what she had been photographing around this time last year. These pictures were taken in the late afternoon when she was out and about with the Rancher.

She liked the light play on the trees and snow.







Happy Thanksgiving to all her American readers!

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

(Or, How the Bag Lady Spent Her Day Off)

The Rancher and the Bag Lady weaned calves yesterday. They had been planning on doing it for a few weeks now, but things kept getting in the way (work, weather, illness.....) Yesterday was bright and sunny and the temperature relatively mild, so it is a good time to take the calves away from their mothers. If you wean them when the weather is poor (cold, rainy, snowing), it increases the chances of the calves getting sick.

The calves had an opportunity in the morning to have a good last drink of milk, and once they were locked away from their mothers in the corral, the Rancher and the Bag Lady gave them lots of hay to eat and spread out lots of straw in the shed for them to sleep on. Things will be a little noisy for a few days around the ol' stump ranch, because the mamas will be bawling at their calves, trying to get them to come and have a drink to ease their aching bags, but once they realize that they can't get to them, things will quiet down again and the cows will go about the business of eating and drinking and growing next year's calf! They will also be grateful that they aren't still feeding their calves when the weather gets really cold. That is really hard on their bags - when the calf finishes drinking, those wet teats freeze!

Oh.... was that too much information? Sorry. It's just a fact of life. The Bag Lady sometimes thinks she should try not to be too plain-spoken about things like that, but then she realizes that most of the people who read her blog are intelligent adults, so probably won't be offended.

They also took some of their older cows to auction on Monday, which made the Bag Lady sad. She doesn't like to see them go, but when they can no longer do their job (and with the scarcity of feed this year due to the drought), they have to be sold. The Bag Lady and the Rancher have pensioned off several cows over the years, allowing them to die on the ranch of natural causes, but that is not exactly sound economic practice. The Bag Lady has a habit of becoming too attached to some of the animals.... she sometimes thinks she isn't quite cut out for this job.

After they separated cows and calves in the morning, the Bag Lady finished painting her hallway. She is pleased with the results, but isn't quite ready for the "reveal". She wants the paint to dry so she can see if she needs to do any touch-ups, then she'll replace the light switch covers, etc. and hang the paintings before she shows you what she's done. (Besides those reasons, she's just too darned tired to take pictures right now!)

She cleaned up her mess, then made supper. Then she cleaned up that mess and made some pomegranate liqueur. It needs to steep for a few weeks before it's ready, and she wanted it for Christmas (which, by the way, is a month from today. Eeek!). In between all of these tasks, she did some laundry so she has something clean to wear to work tomorrow.

Did someone mention day off?

Mini Rant

The Bag Lady must lead a fairly sheltered life. That's not to say that she is "innocent", but rather that she chooses to ignore a lot of what passes for entertainment in this increasingly strange world.

She was puttering around the house last night when the Rancher called her to come and see something on TV (what he actually said was "come and see THIS", but it's difficult to convey the shock and disgust in his voice with printed words). She went and stared in open-mouthed amazement watched a performance by a young woman on a popular late-night talk show. Now, the Bag Lady isn't going to name any names, and she doesn't want to sound like a prude (in fact, she has been known to do a few wild and crazy things in her life, but only after a few too many cocktails, and not on national television) but she could not believe what she was seeing.

The only other thing she'll say on the topic is "Honey, you ain't no Lady!"

Monday Regrets

The Bag Lady thinks she may have screwed up. On the other hand, maybe not.

On Sunday, she decided to paint her hallway. Spur of the moment decisions are not necessarily smart.....

But she can fix it. Right after work today, she is going to pick up another can of paint!

Actually, she really likes the colour that she chose, it just needs to be lighter. She'll add some white, slap on another coat and it will all be perfect.

Really it will.

Friday? What Happened to Thursday?

The Bag Lady is working evening shift now (well, okay, yesterday and today). She had a very strange evening last night - there must have been something in the air, causing all the 13 year old boys to act like..... well.... 13 year old boys! Sheesh! Hopefully they got it all out of their systems (or they will at least find somewhere else to hang out tonight) - the Bag Lady isn't sure she could handle another night like last night without losing the few shreds of sanity that she has left. Oh, alright, it wasn't that bad, but she had to be firm with a couple of little trouble makers. (And some of you may have deduced that the Bag Lady is pretty much a marshmallow most of the time.)

In other news, she did not do any cooking, so won't be sharing food pictures. (Stop that cheering in the back there.... yes, you!) To be perfectly honest, she hasn't done much of anything worth blogging about lately. (So why, you ask, is she bothering to blog? Well, it's because she loves her almost-daily visits with all of you, and wanted to say hi.)

Hi, everyone! Hope you all have a great weekend. Do something exciting, 'kay? Then blog about it so the Bag Lady can live vicariously through you. Or at the very least, make up something totally outrageous and put it in the Bag Lady's comment section so she can have a giggle!

Not a Food Blog, But......

.... here are some pictures of some of the Bag Lady's creations over the past few days.

She bought some huge, beautiful, pomegranates last week, and decided to try some experimenting. She created a pomegranate barbecue sauce, which she used on some pork ribs. Along with some french fries, sweet potato fries and peas, it made a nice meal.




She spent most of her day off yesterday in the kitchen. First, she made some Hot & Spicy Pumpkin Chutney (sadly, she forgot to take photos of it after it was in the jars, and it looks rather like a dog's breakfast in the pan....)


Then she whipped up some Pumpkin Cheesecake Tarts from a recipe she found on the internet:




It was a bit of a nasty morning on the ranch, with snow and rain creating a bit of a blizzard, but it eventually cleared off and the sun shone brightly. She tried to take a picture of the steam rising from the backs of the cows as the moisture dried in the sun, but it didn't show up very well. (if you click to enlarge the picture, you can sorta/kinda see it, if you squint!) They certainly seemed to be basking in the warmth though, and most of them stood still for quite some time, ignoring the feed the Bag Lady had spread out for them, letting the sun dry their backs.

Step Right Up

The Bag Lady finally remembered that she did post her recipe for Hot & Spicy Pumpkin Chutney last year, so here is the link to that post.

She is afraid that working at a place where fitness is the main focus is having an effect on her self-proclaimed slackitude! One of the trainers convinced her yesterday that she should join in on a step-aerobics class. So she did. She hopes to recover soon.

She actually did fairly well. She did not fall on her face, she did not have a major cardiac episode, and she did not die of embarrassment because she couldn't keep up. She did, however, have a little trouble with some of the routines. But for her very first time in a step-aerobics class, she thinks she did okay.

At the end of the class, they did a little abdominal work on the dreaded stability balls. The Bag Lady was tempted to slink quietly away, but there weren't enough people in the class to allow that! So she did some abominable ... err.... abysmal... umm... abdominal work! And is pleased to report that the ball only rolled away on her once, forcing her to do the ever-graceful octopus move, but she actually managed not to fall off. Sigh. (She has never claimed to be very stable. ahem)

She does not have to work outside the home today, so is hoping to get some chutney put up (don't you love colloquialisms? Preserving is putting up. Putting down is a different, more permanent type of preserving, in a way...) and catch up on a few other chores. Provided she can stay on her poor, sore legs long enough!