ranchcollage

Welcome to The Rancher’s Daughter

The holidays flew by and now I am looking forward to spring. I’m already planning the garden layout and what I’ll grow this year.

It is time to prune the fruit trees and finish cleaning up the leaves. The trees are so bare and I am longing for them to be lush and green again.

I’ve been saving seeds all winter from the peppers we eat, so our pepper crop this year should be as abundant, if not more, than last year’s crop.

All winter long I’ve been picking up the used coffee grounds at our local StarBucks and adding them to my garden areas. I also add our left over coffee grounds and used tea leaves.

We had a bountiful pepper harvest last year; I will add a link with more information on coffee grounds in the garden.

I asked LB for his 2010 list of goals on New Year’s Day and I compiled it with mine. One main goal I have this year is to complete my cookbook and make it available to all of you. With all my other endeavors and wanderings it is hard to devote the time required to complete it, but I will find a way.

I put our lucky Silver Dollar in our New Year’s Day black eyed peas. My friend called that very day and was upset because she left her peas unattended and they burned slap up. That does not sound like very good luck does it?

I told her she could go and get some canned or frozen peas, but I think she was disheartened about the fact that the original ones were inedible and her luck was already doomed for 2010. I assured her it was not.

I’m still trying to imagine what burned peas look like. I guess there are different ways that could go. Maybe the water evaporated out while she was gone and they were just hard dried beans burning up in the pot; or maybe the water evaporated all out and the beans were cooked, which is probably even worse. I would have tried to get details from my friend, but I figured she did not want to talk about it. Anyway…

LB and I have a list of 2010 goals and were are going to do our best to do what we set out to do. I’ve already accomplished some of the things on my list. However, for each item on the list I complete, I continually add new ones, so the list gets longer rather than shorter.

That is okay, though, because I am not the type of gal who could handle not having anything to do. I don’t even want to imagine what that feels like. I love having plenty to do; I always have.

My last swim was in November before we emptied the pool. This time of year makes me long for sun glistened pool water, water splashing, kids laughing, and the sound of the water wheel spinning around. I am now missing my morning and afternoon swim breaks immensely.

Pie, LB and myself have enjoyed playing badminton every afternoon the weather allows. We wore out three rackets and discovered that birdies are very hard to find around here. I ordered new shuttlecocks and rackets from Amazon.com, but the weather has been so bad we have not had a chance to try them out yet. We play so much we go through birdies like crazy. It is a lot of fun, though, and it is great family time.

Well, I hope you are as excited about spring as I am. Pie and LB both have birthdays in March, hers being right around the first day of spring.

Pie’s birthday has to do with the Vernal Equinox, so her birthday falls on the first day of spring once every 4 years.

Get out your seed books, start tilling up your ground, make plans for your early season crops, such as lettuce.

I’ll get back to regular recipe posting now and try to plan some nice site enhancements over the new few months.

Take care and I wish you a wonderful 2010!

Wishing you a blessed day from the Deep South, down here in Sweet Home Alabama.

the Rancher’s Daughter