Happy Hallowe'en

Living in the country, at the end of a dead-end road, the Bag Lady doesn't get many trick-or-treaters. (She does, however, get the occasional trick-or-beer-er)

One year, the cowboy's cousin brought his 4 year old daughter. We thought it would be funny to try to scare her, so the cowboy put on a mask and cape and snuck out the back door, ran around to the front and came up behind the little girl. The obligatory scream and jump and we all laughed (the little girl included) until she lost her balance and fell against the door, banging her nose and making it bleed a little. The cowboy felt terrible for having caused this, but the little girl was fine.

In the years since, the first words out of her mouth on Hallowe'en have not been "trick or treat?" but "where's Uncle?"

Happy Hallowe'en, everyone.

Little Bobo

A few years back, we had a cold, wet spring. One morning, in a raging blizzard, the cowboy went out to check cows and discovered that one of our cows had calved. The poor calf was lying in a snowbank, half frozen. So the cowboy did the sensible thing – he scooped up the calf and brought it to the house! My fairly new, recently spotless dining room became a nursery.
We cleaned the calf and piled blankets on him and set him over the heat register. The poor little thing laid there, hardly moving, while we worked on him. He finally started to shiver, which is a good sign, then to move a little. Pretty soon he was lying up, rather than flat out on the floor.






The weather cleared up and the sun started to shine and before too long it had warmed up considerably outside. Little Bobo took notice of this and decided it was time he stood up. Well, linoleum isn’t the best thing underfoot for a newborn calf to learn to stand on.

Remember Bambi on the frozen pond? Little Bobo made Bambi look graceful.


Eventually we got Bobo onto the rug in front of the door and with a little assistance; it wasn’t long before he was proudly on his feet.
Soon after that, we took him out and reunited him with his distraught mother, made sure he got a drink of milk, then let nature take it’s course.





Just another day on the ranch.

Recipe Day!

The Bag Lady had a bounty of raspberries one year, so was searching for raspberry recipes and came across this one, which quickly became a favourite. Actually, anything made with raspberries is good, as far as the Bag Lady is concerned. Hilary over at the Smitten Image mentioned Raspberry Butter Tarts on her blog the other day, so this is for her…

Raspberry Butter Tarts

Pastry shells
1 ¼ Cups raspberries
2/3 C butter
3 eggs
1 Cup sugar
1/3 Cup flour
1/4 tsp Grated lemon rind
Pinch salt

Divide berries among pastry shells – approximately 5 or 6 berries per shell. Cook butter in saucepan about 10 minutes until golden brown. Whisk eggs and sugar together, add flour, lemon rind and salt. Mix ‘til smooth. Whisk in butter gradually. Spoon over berries – fill approximately ¾ full. Bake on middle rack of oven at 400 for 15 – 20 minutes (‘til golden) Cool 15 minutes in pan, remove from pan and cool completely.

The Bag Lady would provide a link for Hilary's post if she knew how...guess she needs a little more experience with this blogging (she hasn't even figured out how to do a blog roll, yet, but she's working on it!!)
In the meantime, she hopes that some of you will try this recipe, and if you do, will let her know what you think.

Mixed Bag (Lady) Day - Life on the Ranch

It's Friday, again, and this week the Bag Lady is sharing (by popular demand!) another ranching story.

Life on the ranch is not always, as John Denver said, kinda laid back! Certainly there are times when it is, but there are also times when it can be rather hectic. And downright exhausting.
Spring is one of the hectic times. Calves are being born left and right, and ranchers are trying to make sure that all the calves survive. Now the Bag Lady is aware that there are huge ranches out there where, due to sheer volume of animals, the cows are left to calve pretty much on their own; but with a small cow/calf operation things are a little different. Losing one or two calves when you have hundreds is not quite the catastrophe that it is when you only have forty or fifty head. So the small rancher has to be Johnny (or Jill)-on-the-spot.
There are all manner of things that can go wrong, but the Bag Lady is nothing if not superstitious, so she won’t talk about the Really Bad Things. One of the things that can happen is that a big calf can get stuck, so to speak. It comes part-way out, then gets hip-locked, which means exactly that. The calf gets stuck at the hips.
Early one spring morning, the Bag Lady dragged her weary butt out of bed, pulled on some clothes and stumbled out to check cows. It was just before dawn, and it was snowing; big, fat, fluffy flakes of snow. There was also a cold wind driving those big, fat, fluffy flakes of snow sideways! The Bag Lady shivered her way out to the little patch of trees where the cows had bedded down for the night.
There was a cow she knew was close to calving, and this particular cow had, in previous years, had some troubles. Sure enough, the cow was lying on her side with her calf half-way out. The Bag Lady was pretty sure that the calf was hip-locked. Now generally, when this happens, if the cow gets up or moves around a little, the calf will turn a bit and slip right out. A lot of times, though, the cow is tired, and she won’t move. Other times, all it takes is for the rancher to give a little tug when the cow pushes, and the calf will come. This is always a Lot Easier if the cow is in a confined space, like a barn, or calving shed, rather than out in the pasture. Cattle are wary of intruders when they are calving, even when they know you.
The Bag Lady quietly snuck up behind the cow and took a firm hold on the calf’s front legs, right about the time the cow turned her head and noticed her.
The cow leaped to her feet and took off, running into the wind, with the Bag Lady determinedly hanging on to the slippery calf’s legs! Blinded by the snow, trying desperately to dig her heels in, the Bag Lady was dragged through the bush until, with a strange sucking sound, the calf turned ever so slightly and slipped out of the cow. The Bag Lady managed not to hurt either herself or the calf, and also managed to be well out of the way when the enraged cow turned back to claim her calf! This is not, by the way, the recommended method for assisting a hip-locked calf, but the Bag Lady was lucky that morning and it worked!
After making sure everything was alright with calf and mother, and wiping snow out of her eyes and shaking it out of her dripping hair, the Bag Lady made her weary way back to the house for a well-deserved cup of coffee.
Just another day on the ranch.

Party Animal

Years ago, friends of the Cowboy and Bag Lady were involved in horse racing. They had several horses in the barns at the race-track, and the Bag Lady and her Cowboy used to go to the track and help out with the work (and the beer-drinking).
There is quite a bit of work behind the scenes in the racing world. Racehorses need a lot of care – they are fed a special diet, their stalls need to be cleaned, they need to be worked and walked and monitored closely, etc.
There is always time for some fun, though. At least, in our friends’ barns. The Cowboy and the Bag Lady would visit on a fairly regular basis, and sometimes lend a hand with whatever needed to be done.
On one such occasion, after the work was done, we all sat down in the barns for a beer. There was much laughter and story-telling, and the occasional horse poking his head out of his stall to check things out.
Now our friends had one racehorse named Barney who had injured his leg and wasn’t able to run. They kept him with them at the course so they could care for him and monitor his progress. Barney was a bit of a clown, and we ended up sitting right outside his stall. He hung his head out the door and seemed to be paying close attention not only to the stories, but also to the beer.
The Cowboy was sitting closest to Barney, and set his beer down within Barney’s reach. When he reached for it to take a drink, it was gone. Turns out Barney really wanted to join the party…
Everybody looks better after a couple of beers...

Fortunately, no-one was driving home that night.

Mixed Bag Lady Day

I know it's not Friday, but this is truly a mixed bag of things that hit the Bag Lady's radar.

The Bag Lady was watching the news last night (practically the only television she pays attention to anymore!) and was astonished to see a story about an attack on a dental office in Edmonton. A man wielding a broken beer bottle rushed into the office and attacked the dentist. He then bit (yes, bit) the dental assistant, and ran out of the office. He has not been apprehended. The dentist is in the hospital; the assistant was treated and released. Let’s hope her rabies shots were up-to-date…

The Bag Lady is also rather glad she retired from dentistry if that's the way people are treating dental assistants nowadays!

There was another little article on the news a few nights ago about a rescued lobster. He wound up in a grocery store tank, doomed to end up on someone’s dinner plate. A fellow and his wife came along and noticed the size of this lobster. He weighed approximately 15 pounds, and they estimated his age at around 60 years. These kind people decided that a lobster who had been around that long deserved to stay around for awhile, so they paid something like $160.00 to the grocery store to rescue him and donate him to a marine museum.
Now this lobster will live out his life in luxury (well, okay, it ain’t the ocean, but at least it’s not a pot of boiling water!), and school children will learn a little bit about crustaceans. The Bag Lady was impressed with this random act of kindness.


The World Series starts tonight. Now, the Bag Lady is not a big sports fan, but she does enjoy watching the World Series. This year she will be rooting for the Colorado Rockies, partly because she lives in the West, but also partly because of one of their pitchers. Jeff Francis is Canadian. Yup, he’s an Aw-shucks Canuck. AND he’s left-handed. This is important to the Bag Lady because she, too, is a south-paw. The Bag Lady wonders if any of you are lefties? How does it affect your life? Do right-handed people sometimes make comments about how awkward you look?

Things are looking really bad (the Bag Lady almost said heating up, but that would be unkind) in California. Let's hope the federal aid that the president has promised does some good before too many more homes or any more lives are lost.

And a photo that has absolutely nothing to do with any of the topics! My homegrown peppers drying by the stove.

Pumpkin!

The Bag Lady promised to share some of her fabulous secret recipes, and is keeping her promise. For those of you who have never done any canning, and don’t think you are able to do so because you don’t have a canner, blah, blah, blah, IT’S NOT HARD! If the Bag Lady can do it, so can you. All you really need is a very large pot with a lid, and a rack to keep the jars up off the bottom of the pot. The pot needs to be big enough to hold 6 jars, and tall enough that the water will cover the top of the jars by at least an inch. If you don’t want to try canning, send me bags and bags of money and I’ll send you some of my famous chutney!! (Or better yet, some of my absolutely out-of-this-world salsa…that recipe is going to the grave with me!!) :)


Hot & Spicy Pumpkin Chutney

4 cups prepared pumpkin
1 ½ cups dark brown sugar
1 ¼ cups malt vinegar
½ cup coarsely chopped onion
½ cup coarsely chopped dark raisins
3 hot yellow peppers, seeded and chopped
2 Tbsp minced garlic
2 Tbsp grated ginger root*
1 tsp salt

*or use powdered ginger to taste
To prepare the pumpkin, cut into large pieces, scrape out and discard seeds. Place pieces in large saucepan, bring to a boil; boil gently 20 minutes or until tender. Drain. OR bake pieces in a moderate oven until tender.
Remove rind from pulp. Mash pulp to a uniform consistency; measure 4 cups. Place pulp in large stainless steel or enamel saucepan, add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil; boil gently 45 minutes or until thick.
Ladle into hot jars, process in boiling water canner at least 10 minutes**


**Fill boiling water canner with water. Place 5 clean half-pint mason jars in canner over high heat.
Follow directions for Snap lids – usually means placing them in very hot water for 5 minutes to soften sealing compound.
Ladle chutney into hot jar, leaving ½ inch head space. Wipe jar rim to remove stickiness. Centre snap lid on jar, apply screw band until fingertip tight. Place jar in canner. Repeat for remaining chutney.
Cover canner; return water to a boil, process 10 minutes. Remove jars. Leave jars undisturbed for 24 hours. Check for seal – sealed lids curve downward.

This chutney is fabulous spooned over a block of cream cheese and served with a variety of crackers.
Now, not all of the Bag Lady's recipes are going to be this complicated - this one was a special request. The Bag Lady knows, too, that the person who wanted to see this recipe will Never Use It, but a promise is a promise!