Cool Weather and Cooking

Ever notice that when your kitchen is all spic and span and shiny and sparkly---that you suddenly want to Cook Something?!! Add to that, this wonderful "chili stew" weather, and there is nothing else you can do except bow to the Kitchen Gods and create.

So, today, while Rob was struggling with the paint sprayer on the deck, I pulled out the ingredients to a coffee cake I had not made in years. Perhaps 20 years or so. It is an old Pennsylvania Dutch recipe given to me by a lady I met in a shop near Valley Forge....October, 1971....I was a newlywed.....

I made two of them. Might as well, since the kitchen is gonna be messed up anyway. I froze one for company....so you might want to come visit.....Or here's the recipe. You can make one of your own.

SHOO FLY CAKE
1/2 cup sugar
3/8 cup butter
2 eggs
1/4 cup molasses
3/4 teasp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teasp. baking powder
2/3 cup sour cream
1 teasp. soda
dash salt

FILLING:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup nuts
2 teasp. cinnamon

Grease and flour loaf pan. Combine cake ingredients and beat 2 minutes at medium speed. Spread half of the batter in pan. Sprinkle with half of the Filling. Repeat. Bake 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes.

Sometimes Things Have a Way of Working Out----Romona Jasper, July, 1976

Last April, I travelled to Massachusetts with 2 of my Collies to attend the Collie National Specialty near Boston. While we were there, Prosper took Third Place in Open Blue Dogs.

The final day of the Nationals, a woman in our group got dangerously ill and had to be taken to the hospital via ambulance. This was RIGHT BEFORE the final judging---when the Best in Show would be announced. The VERY BEST COLLIE of the whole nation would be awarded the crown, so to speak. NOT something that one (esp one who had driven over 2000 miles) would want to miss....I left my dogs in the exercise-pen with another dear friend, and elected myself to be the one to accompany Betsy to the ER.

Another couple, Collie breeders from Arkansas, and also friends of Betsy, decided to drive behind the ambulance as "backup." They stayed in the waiting room for an hour or so, as I came out periodically to update them on Betsy's progress and care. Then they were forced to leave in order to catch their plane back to Arkansas early the next morning. I assured them that I would stay until other friends (and possibly Betsy's family from N.Carolina)would arrive after Best in Show. Wonderful, KIND people. Arkansas folk, after all, and living not too far from our older daughter in the Little Rock area....

Betsy is doing just fine these days, but that certainly was a harrowing night in the busiest ER in the country (busier even than Boston or NYCity!).

Fast forward to this past weekend in September.....Dog Show in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Prosper turned 2 this week, and I decided to enter him in his first breed show as a grown up boy (he already has 2 qualifying "legs" on Rally Novice and even a leg on a Freestyle Dance title). I am all by myself in this show. None of Prosper's "family" to help me with showing or grooming or even encouraging....

On Saturday, Prosper came in LAST, and Discouragement was starting to Take Over...I was convinced that I was just not cut out to show in this venue and to stick to obedience and dance---count myself lucky I have such an intelligent, beautiful Collie.

Sunday found us at the show site again (after all, I DID pay my entry fees, might as well stroll around the ring one more time). As I passed the grooming area of the owner of some of the "competition," I realized their owner/handler was talking to the couple who'd driven to the ER in Massachusetts six months earlier!

I greeted them with, "Seems like we spent the night in the hospital not too long ago..." and we all hugged in recognition of our friend Betsy.

Later, they visited MY grooming area, and Prosper, standing on the table, smoozed and kissed them, trying to convince them to take him away from all this brushing and fluffing and puffing...Instead, Neil offered to trim Prosper's ears! A snip here, a snip there, and it made all the difference in the world, getting those tiny fuzzies off.

We took Winner's Dog that day, for Prosper's very first point in Breed! (only 14 more to go!).

Isn't it just Wonderful how this old World just keeps on turning round.....
Thanks, Betsy.....

 

The beginnings of a new shawl. Made from Collie Wool. The pattern is "Cat's Paw," and is my first attempt at making lace. Well, it's a very simple pattern, but I think I kinda Like making lace. Some of the ladies at the Knitting Group call the yarn over directions "YO's." We are ALL working on our Fear of YO's....By facing the YO's and creating from them Lace......

More Pictures from the World Competition

 

Ah, to have such a Beautiful Creature look up at you with such delight.....

Making A Difference: The starfish story

• Making A Difference: The starfish story: "The starfish story
  Many starfish washed up on shore. A young boy started picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean. Someone saw what he was doing and told him that it was pointless, that there were too many to save, that it wouldn't make a difference. Throwing another starfish into the sea, the little boy responded, 'It makes a difference to this one.'"

Prosper Dances

 
 
 
And even the Liddle Wolf Cubbie danced HIS heart out as well. Of course, working the perimeter of the ring was an option as well.....

Dancing with Dawgs