Voila!

It's here!
And it's so me!
(Dixie Pierson can't look directly at it...or won't. Which indicates to me that it's PERFECT for a Garfield County shake up accessory....)

(The shades were Angus' Christmas present to me.  I thought this was the post to showcase them, too.)

I love the color.

I love the funky chains.

I love the tarp strap grommets.

I'm going to have you all choose my new purse every time!

Creamy Seafood Enchiladas....

for Thelma G., who needs fish recipes for Fridays through Lent! 

1/4 c. butter
1/4 c. flour
1 cup chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup, undiluted
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup salsa
1/8 tsp. salt (How do you measure THAT?  Couple good shakes, I'd think...)
1 cup small curd cottage cheese (This is where I improvised....use 1/2 cup cottage cheese, 1 8 oz cream cheese.)
1 pound small cooked shrimp, peeled and deveined (I use frozen shrimp, thawed.)
1 cup canned or fresh crab meat
1 1/2 cup shredded Monterrey Jack cheese
1 can chopped green chilis
1 T. cilantro (dried or fresh)
12 flour tortillas

1.) In a saucepan over low heat, melt butter; stir in flour until smooth.  Gradually stir in broth and soup until blended.

2.) Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until slightly thickened.  Remove from the heat.  Stir in sour cream, salsa and salt; set aside.

3.) Place cottage cheese (and cream cheese) in a blender; cover and process until smooth.  Transfer to a bowl; add the shrimp, crab, cheese, chilis and cilantro.

4.) Spread one cup of the reserved sauce in a greased 9x13 baking dish.  Place about 1/3 cup seafood mixture in each tortilla and roll up, placing enchiladas seam side down in the baking dish.  Top enchiladas with remaining sauce.

5.) Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until heated through. Serve with additional salsa.

There you go! 
I've made these for our bookclub a couple times and we all love 'em.  (Of course, there are no men there, so it could just be a girl thing...)

Do you remember....

The Man From Snowy River?

Of course you do! 

(And all the guys roll their eyes and all the girls sigh wistfully....)

I found it at a second hand store in Miles City, last week, and was so excited!  I don't think I've seen the movie since it first came out....can it be at least 20 years ago?  

(Little note, here:  I watch MAYBE 3 new movies a year.  Maybe.  I've seen probably only 175 movies in my lifetime, most of them made before 1960. So if I talk about a movie, here, it's rather a big deal.  Most of the time...I've read the book and shunned the movie.  I know.  Purists are lonely people...)

So Sunday night, I plugged 'er into the VCR and Maggie and I watched it. 

Oh, my goodness...it was JUST as good as I'd remembered! Except Jim, the hero, was about 19 years old.  I don't remember him being THAT young.  At all.  The music was as familiar to me as Sunday school songs, because I had worn out a tape of the soundtrack and bought sheet music for Jessica's Theme, playing it, I'm sure, until my mom wanted to weep...way back when it first came out. 

Did you remember that Michael Douglas was in this one?  And played brothers? 

Did you notice that the stud who led the wild horses was a half brother to the expensive colt that the rancher bought?  The stud was the first colt out of the mare and the colt was the last one.  I didn't remember that full circle at all! 

Did you know that the movie was based on a poem, written by A.B. Banjo Paterson?  I don't know if any of you have read the poem, but it's a GREAT one; check it out!  The Man From Snowy River

Maggie told me that every horse was the most beautiful horse she'd ever seen.  There were a lot of horses.  She said it a lot of times.  And when Jim goes bailing off the cliff, I lectured her on how completely stupid that was!  (The child is fearless, I tell you! I never take that for granted...)

If you haven't seen this movie for 20 years, like me, find it QUICK and watch it! 

(And now that I'm older...I think Clancy is cute.  What do you think?)

Caution! Weird Recipe to follow...

When the Farmer is away, we eat odd things.  And for no other reason than we feel like we're being silly and impetuous and no one will be around to know. 

So, Saturday, when he had to play Deputy Dog in town because of the prom, we had Funfetti Pancakes and sausage!  A couple months ago, my cousin Luci posted a link to CakeSpy, a website that exalts all things sweet, cakes in particular.  She had found a recipe for pancakes made from funfetti cake mix, and I glommed onto it, thinking this would be...well....fun! 

Here's the recipe:

1/2 box Funfetti cake mix (or cherry chip, as we had no funfetti, having used it up on the 500th post party cake)

1 cup milk

1/2 cup flour, sifted

1 egg

Mix it all together until smooth and cook it just like regular old pancakes, making sure to grease your frying pan VERY well between each new pouring.  (It's always good to have a lovely assistant for the stirring part.)

See? Smooth!

Toothless smile, just because I like it.

 We make big pancakes.  The Farmer once complained that I made dainty, silver dollar pancakes, so I enlarged them to a full skillet.  Now they're too big.  Tough.

These pancakes have a LOT of sugar, so they burn easily AND they really don't require syrup.  At all.

The critic....

 We have a winner, folks!

These are sweet, sweet, sweet.  And they are fun!

What about the bulls?

It was brought to my attention this weekend that in the spring, all the attention is on the cows and calves.  But what about the bulls?  Does anyone think of them? 

Of course we think about them...this is bull sale season!
The bulls are showcased, with EPD (estimated progeny data), bloodlines, photos and measurements.  (Yes, it's not uncommon to know scrotal measurements.  Every little detail counts.)
Bull sales are great places to hang out, because the sellers shmooze the buyers, hoping hospitality will make a difference in the amount of money they spend on the bulls.  And also because it's just good advertising, if people talk about your bull sale hospitality...it attracts other people.  People like me, who would just go for the food and libations, but who the boss doesn't give the checkbook to. 

I'm not allowed to buy bulls. I can buy vaccine, eartags, gloves, baling wrap, sandwich supplies and fanbelts. But not bulls.  I'd buy GREAT bulls! And that's the problem. I'd pay too much and be seduced by the auctioneer's flowery words of flattery. It's not considered cool to be on the front page of the Western Ag Reporter weekly paper for being the top spender at the 2011 Currant Creek Angus Bull Sale....

In lieu of bull sale pictures, you just get bull pictures.  They are in the pasture next to the house and hang out by the yard fence, rubbing on posts, trash talking, fighting, pooping and eating.  That's all they do. 

See?

And because she's a jealous little thing...

Maggie hustled around and fetched up her farm picture.  She was a little miffed that her scene hadn't gone in first, but that's how it goes...
She also wanted everyone to know that the sun WAS colored, but with a highlighter and it didn't show up on the scan. 
Now you know.
This is our house and farming and a black cow and calf.  And clouds that made her want to pull her hair out, because they weren't....cloudy enough.  (I told her that they didn't have to be cumulonimbus, that stratus clouds looked like that, but it was unsatisfactory...)

French Sun

Angus drew this for me...a sun with a beret and glasses....because we were listening to French music on Pandora.  Isn't it the happiest Frenchman you've ever seen?