Country Life

Mwahaha...you must read my post in order to get the recipe!

Although I was raised in the city, several of my cousins grew up on farms.  I absolutely loved going for visits, or extended stays during summer break, and hated going back to the city life.  I first learned to drive on a John Deere tractor when I was 12 yrs old.  Of course it was only natural that I fell in love and married my very own cowboy who felt the same way.  He says he fell in love with me when he found out I could drive a dooley truck.  He claims there is nothing sexier than a woman that can haul a trailer and back it into a specific spot without hitting anything.  It also came in handy when we had a long drive and I wasn't scared to drive his F350 pulling our 34 ft 5th wheel through Memphis, Tennessee.

We had to travel occasionally with his last job, but now we are settled back out in the country.  We had chickens at our last country house but gave them up to friends when we had to take to the road.  Carrying a chicken pen along with the 5th wheel trailer wasn't an ideal situation, for the chickens or our neighbors in the RV parks.  ;)

It was only natural that Little Man and I decided to start over and buy some baby chicks this spring.  They've been doing well and growing rapidly (too rapidly --and smelly--for my bathtub) so we put them out in the pen last week.  I often go outside to get some fresh air in the mornings and I check the animals food and water.  Not only is it my favorite time of day to enjoy the outdoors, it's especially important now that the heat is beginning to climb into the 90's.  That's spring in Oklahoma for ya.  Before we went to bed last night the cowboy checked on the animals and all was well on the Sandell mini-farm.  This morning?  Three of our chickens have mysteriously disappeared.

I have an idea that maybe the neighbors cat got them.  Not much we can do about it except reinforce the chicken pen to keep all predators out.  We also have coyotes yapping out in the pasture behind our house at night so that is another concern.  The cowboy plans to work on the issue tonight when he gets home.  In the meantime?  I had to tell Little Man the bad news after school. He was upset, but more importantly...he is getting used to the country life.  We've talked with him about raising animals for our meat.  We even joked with him about naming a calf Hamburger or Ribeye, which he didn't find funny at first.  But he specifically requested we not eat his chickens.  So his first question was whether or not they were really gone or were we having chicken for dinner.  LOL.  Actually we are having leftover chicken parmesan but I made them from frozen chicken strips.

On the writing front...I've been working on revisions to my old manuscript that was rejected by an editor at Harlequin Superromance.  I'm using her suggestions and hope I'm making it stronger.  The guys are already home for the day so I think I'll slip into the bedroom to get more words out before I call it a day.  I made Twix brownies today so maybe the cowboy will be inspired to help with dinner.  Here is the link for the brownies... Twix Brownies.