A Day at the Doublebarrel Ranch

We were lucky to be invited to go with KL to her twice-a-week adventure at the Doublebarrel Ranch in Mariposa. As you probably know she's been loving horses since she was seven years old. And now that she lives in the country she may even be able to be the proud owner of her own horse some day. But first her mom and dad want to be absolutely sure that she fully has the knowledge to care for such an animal. It's one thing to admire horses, but quite another thing to be able to care for one. JJ found out about this ranch through the local feed store in town. And twice a week seems to be a perfect match for KL's homeschooling schedule. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. What a fun and beautiful day it was.

"You want to ride Brandy? . . . then go get her and prepare her for the ride!"

So off she goes . . . out to the corral and brings Brandy back to get her all cleaned and brushed . . .

Pick her hooves . . . because it was pretty muddy out in the pasture.

Then KL went into the tack room and brought out the appropriate blanket and saddle . . .

Cinched the saddle up nice and tight . . .

Papa proudly watches and admires how well she has learned.

All saddled up for the lesson!

Mounting Brandy and preparing to ride!

One leg over . . . let's go!

All set . . . "I'll meet you in the ring!"

A nice pat for a good lesson!

Riding over obstacles.

A big smile after a great time in the ring.

After the lesson KL puts the blanket and saddle away, gives Brandy another cleaning and brushing, and another picking of the hooves and back to the pasture until the next time .

Life is good!

Valentine Birthday Girl

My daughter JJ, and granddaughter KL, joined me (JJ actually chauffeured us in her new car) in wishing Mom a Happy Birthday today. We celebrated her 88th birthday today and brought with us her most favorite pie, a Lemon Meringue pie from Marie Callendars. I fondly remember Mom's lemon meringue pies she used to make (and she remembered making them from her own lemons off of her tree), and she was amazed at the height of the meringue on the pie we brought. In fact she thought it to be a bit silly to have so much meringue! However, she did enjoy her piece of pie. We stayed a little while, opened a few presents, and enjoyed a nice visit. I got a few pictures, so we can remember this special day . . . one of those precious four-generation-days!

Lemon Meringue pie instead of a birthday cake . . . she loved it!

Presents are always fun to receive!

What fun to have this special time with four generations of "Burns" women! In this picture Mom's enjoying a piece of birthday chocolate.

Happy Birthday Mom, I love you so much!

Life is good!

Happy Birthday Precious Granddaughter

You are entering another chapter of your life . . . "Teenhood." You are thirteen years old today, a fact I can hardly believe simply because it just seems like yesterday (almost) that I watched your birth into this world. You've grown up to be such an adorable young lady, intelligent and bright, in addition to being a beautiful person inside. You are a child of God and I am blessed to have you as my granddaughter. I love you, KL!

Your birthday always seems to fall near the Super Bowl game, and this year was no different. But you are such a good sport about it . . . here you are anxiously waiting for half-time to open your presents.

I can't believe your mom found a card with reference to "Boogies!"

Hmmmmm . . . makeup?

What fun to wake up to your favorite music.

You didn't think you were going to get a birthday cake. You were such a good sport knowing your mom couldn't bake the Pioneer Woman's decadent chocolate sheet cake because the oven didn't work due to the power outage, but we surprised you by bringing a store-bought one! Of course we'll wait for another time soon for the homemade version!

Happy Birthday, sweetie.

Life is good . . . especially being a grammy to someone as sweet as you!

What an adventure!

We drove up to our daughter's place for the Super Bowl Extravaganza, just seventeen minutes from Park Sierra, knowing that it had snowed the night before. Well . . . were we ever surprised to see just how much it had snowed. We also knew that the power had been out since 4 a.m. and wasn't expected to be up until at least 4 p.m. We had taken our generator up to their house last week, but didn't have to use it. But we left it there, just in case. Well today was the "just in case" time and we needed to get it running in order to watch the game. The power outage also meant that we couldn't use the oven to warm up our "hot" dishes, so we heated up everything we could before we left. What a fun adventurous time we experienced. Although the Patriots lost, it was a great game, especially the last fifty seconds!

This is the road off of Highway 41 . . . hmmmmmm. . . lots of snow!

This is their street . . . hmmmmmm. . . lots of snow!

This is heading up their driveway . . . hmmmmmm. . . lots of snow!

Here are P and J greeting us with snow shovel in hand, because even though K put the truck in super-duper-low-geared-4-wheel drive we still got stuck, much to K's frustration.

P digging the snow away from the truck, so that K can see where the driveway is, which was difficult to tell with all the snow cover . . . better get some kind of marking device for future storms.

JD loving the snow, especially throwing snowballs at anybody nearby.

And here is KL on her knees gathering enough snow to make a big snowball to throw at her brother.

P got a lot of practice shoveling snow. They have such a long driveway, I'm thinking they need some kind of motorized sit-upon mini-snowplow!

A view of the front yard.

But after getting our truck up to the top of the driveway, throwing a few snowballs, starting up the generator and plugging in the TV, enjoying all the food we prepared for the party in candlelight, watching the Super Bowl game together, having dinner and a birthday celebration for KL, cheering loudly when the electricity came back on at 6 p.m., we still had a little energy to play a couple games of Pegs and Jokers.

Life is good!

Getting ready for our Super Bowl Extravaganza!

Having become loyal fans of The Pioneer Woman and The Pioneer Woman Cooks, K and I have planned the food we will contribute to tomorrow's Super Bowl party by trying out a couple of PW's suggested recipes. K has been working hard cooking up a batch of his favorite baked beans in honor of my daddy—lovingly remembered as "O.D."—who made the best baked beans ever! That's all I'm going to say about the food. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves!

K has cooked the beans with the onions and salt pork for a couple of hours and they are now ready to start the baking process.

With the addition of the secret sauce the beans are ready for the oven.

Every now and then the beans are removed from the oven and "drizzled and sprinkled" with molasses and brown sugar.

One last time with the drizzle and sprinkle, the beans are then left to bake forming a nice carmelized crust on the top.

TaDaaaaah! Yummo, Daddy would be so pleased!

This is called Queso Amped-Up . . . made with spicy sausage, cheese, green chiles, along with tomatoes, onions, and Jalapeños . . . served warm with tortilla chips . . . Yummo!

This is a "before" picture of Bacon-Wrapped Crackers . . . but the secret is that there is a teaspoon of parmesan/romano cheese under each piece of bacon.

And here they are after baking for two hours in a 250° oven. Having never had one of these we just had to tried one . . . again —Yummo!

I'm also going to make my friend Mary's famous Artichoke/Crab Spread (made from the crab we trapped at Winchester Bay) to be served with toasted baguette slices.

Go Patriots! (because K was born in New Hampshire) but we wouldn't be real unhappy if the Giants won—so we can watch Eli Manning share the spotlight with his brother winning back to back Super Bowl games—and each being able to wear a Super Bowl ring. Wouldn't that be fun!