Year of the Pie - Pie #45 Fudge Pecan Pie

Right before the oven.

Right out of the oven.

Ingredients:
1 unbaked 9 inch pie shell

1/2 C. butter

3/4 C. hot water
3 T. cocoa
2 C. sugar
3 T. corn syrup clear in color
1/2 C. flour
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1 can evaporated milk
3/4 C. chopped pecans

On low heat melt the butter, hot water, cocoa & sugar. Mix the cocoa and sugar together first then add.
Whisk in the corn syrup, flour, salt, vanilla, & evaporated milk
Mix well.
Then stir in the pecans.
Pour into the pie shell and bake for 45-50 minutes. I baked mine 50-55. :)

O.K. The next bit of information is for the gals who read my pie posts. Guys like pies. I have taken most of my pies, all of them experimental, to church.
I quietly observe who eats what. It doesn't matter to me if they eat what I bring, but it interests me to see what people eat. Gals like pies too, but it seems that guys gravitate to them more....no matter who brings the pie. Just a little F.Y.I.

Enjoy your holiday.



This pie was in honor of Adam Petty.

Elizabeth Zimmermann's Pi Shawl-Plain, #6 update

The front and back of said shawl. It measures about 24 inches across in it's folded in half form. Another ten rounds of plain knitting. add a border and it should be done. After it is finished and blocked it should be much larger.

When I first saw the top picture I remarked to my husband that the shades in the yarn make it resemble the swirls of a galaxy. You may have to back up from the screen to see it better.

So that is my update after I finished skein #3 and just added #4. We did a rough calculation and the number of stitches that will have been knitted when I get to round 96 will be @ 73,719.

Thanks for stopping by.

Madison, Indiana

When we left Lexington,KY for our trip home, we took the ever-windy,hilly,bendy 421. If you are in a hurry to get to Madison, Indiana from Lexington, KY, don't take this road. Matter of fact, I am not sure there is a QUICK way to get there. But it was pretty.

I don't know if I have ever disclosed that fact to you that I have a fear of bridges. As lovely as they are....I don't care to cross them. There is actually a very amiable bridge near our home that I cross to get to the highway....I hold my breath just for an instant each time I cross it. Then I have to cross another bridge to get into town and yet another one to get on out to my moms house. Even though I cross these bridges alot, I never take them lightly.

I shall share with you a nemesis to two just for fun.
O.K. First of all, all bridges scare me. The bridge that creeps me out the most is the Huey P. Long bridge, New Orleans. This bridge is straight from the Pit!

internet picture

The Chesapeake Bay bridge is intense. I think it is five miles long, high and over the bay and then out of NOWHERE it turns, right there in the middle. I drove over this bridge twice and my knuckles were white both times. My sweet little 4 yr. old daughter was saying, "Oh, momma look at all the pretty boats". My peripherals told me it was lovely. Inside I was screaming like a banshee.

internet picture

Surprisingly enough, the Lake Ponchartrain bridge, is like 23 miles long. I never minded riding or driving over that....maybe because it wasn't real tall and I heard the lake wasn't real deep.

internet picture

I rode over the Madison, Indiana bridge with my mom some years ago and didn't fare well. Just ask her, she will tell you.

So....I chose the route home from Lexington because I wanted my family to see lovely Madison and the scary bridge. (I was wanting to face my fears-didn't happen) The road signs told us we were getting close. I had planned just to shut my eyes way before I saw the bridge and then open them after we were in INDIANA. I was doing fine....I was taking deep breaths....preparing. Then I saw it...the sign...the sign said...SHARP CURVES, STEEP HILL (or something like that) RUNAWAY TRUCK RAMP so many yards ahead. For crying out loud!!!! I have to come straight down off of a mountain towards water....it is scary just to type about it.

Well, I kept the old eyeballs shut and my lovely daughter took pictures. My husband did a wonderful job driving, I guess. (i wasn't lookin').
This first picture was taken from the KY side after we came down the hill.
It IS pretty.

This is from the Indiana side looking back.

We drove down to the river and had look-see. It had nice side walks . Madison holds a boat race every year. I think the movie Madison was filmed here, at least parts of it. Hank is in that movie. Hank was the bartender in Doctor Quinn, Medicine Woman.

Visit Madison, Indiana.

Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival

One of the reasons we visited Kentucky is for this 1st annual Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival.

It cost $3.00 to get in. Chris & Margaret dropped me off and they went and enjoyed a good morning of stockdog trials just over the hill. I caught the shuttle from the festival to the trials when I was finished oooing and aaaaing. The shuttle was free and I was very thankful for it. I had called C & M to see if they had food at the trials yet and they said, "there is no food here". So I stood in line for a quite a spell, but was tickled to visit with some fellow fiber-freaks while we waited. A couple ladies were from Knoxville, TN and a couple were from Shelbyville, IN. When my turn to order came I almost couldn't decide between the shaved lamb sandwich for $6. or the pulled pork BBQ for $4. Being the tightwad that I am......I wavered.....but then I splurged. I have only eaten lamb one other time in my life that I know of and it was at the sheep barn at the Indiana State Fair. So I ordered two BBQ's and one lamb and a side of some sort of potato wedge with cheesy stuff on it and a large pop for us all to share. So you see, I am now toting a large camera, a purse, my bag of Alpaca fiber which I love, 3 sandwiches,taters & a pop. Oh, please Lord help me. I was a little stressed because I had to make it in one piece over to the dog trials to feed my starving family. If I tripped would I save the alpaca fiber or the food first? Hmm.

Anyway, here are some llamas that they had on display. I really enjoyed their educational displays.

More of the camelid family.
Camels, llamas,vicuna & aplacas are all in the camelid family. How cute.

These next two gals were my favorite booth. Not because they had oodles of stuff for sale, but because they were demonstrating how the fiber went from one form to another.
The lady here is carding some fiber...it might be wool.

Then after she was done carding she sent it next door to the lady to spin.
I asked this lady how long she had been spinning and she said "Three years". I asked how long it took for her to get good at it and she said. "Three years". lol
They were both VERY kind.
Their booth is where I purchased the alpaca fiber. It was the 'carding' lady whose alpaca gave of its fiber so she could spin it and eventually sell it to moi.

O.K. Hold on to your chair. These cute little critters are 8 month old alpacas that have been shaved a bit. They were beyond cute.

There was a sheep there that had the prettiest wool-still on its back for now.

Anyway, that is my little fiber yarn.

Year of the Pie - Pie #44 Peach Cream Pie

This pie recipe was given to us by my daughter's great-Aunt Italene.
I think it is a very nice pie to represent the Kyle Petty Pie #44. My dear husband is quite interested in all things "pie", and he purchased some Butter Flavored Crisco. Here it is posing with my Ball Blue Book. A very handy book indeed.

Here is the crust made with said ingredient.

Lovely little peaches.

Boil some water and drop the peaches in gently and let them float around for 30-60 second and then dip then in ice water. I let them sit there until I get ready to peel them. I peeled them and put them in my spare pie pan to get a feel for how many to use. I think I ended up using about 10. They were small. Probably 5 cups.

Here they are posing in the crust. I removed about 3/4 cup to lighten the load.

Pour the cream mixture over the peaches.

Then sprinkle a bit of cinnamon over the entire pie.
Please note: After the pie baked, I feel like I used too much cream mixture. So mix it and the pour over the pie somewhere in between the above picture and this picture.

Baked pie.

We took the pie to church. When I cut it I realized it didn't set up well. Thus the adjustment to above mention of cream mixture.
But, this pie was very very tasty and there is absolutely no reason why one could not eat a pie out of a bowl. :)

Complete Pie Recipe.

Prepare one 9-inch pie crust. Put it in the plate and stick it in the fridge for about 1/2 hour.
Combine: 1 C. sugar, 2 T. cornstarch, 1 small container of whipping cream, but do not whip.
[This may be where I went wrong, I used heavy cream instead-just because I bought the wrong kind] I took the 'one small container' to be the little one-cup carton.
Slice the peeled & pitted peaches. Place in crust and pour the cream mixture over it, move it around a bit so the mixture can blend in.
Sprinkle with cinnamon.
Bake 350° for 45 minutes or until peaches are done.
I baked mine for almost an hour.

Thanks Italene.

Only 8 pies to go. :)

Bluegrass Classic Stockdog Trials

The Bluegrass Classic (Click here)

The next two pictures are views left and right from the tent we sat under. If you scroll click on the first picture the pole way way out there may show up better, to give you an idea of the distance the dogs had to go to fetch the sheep. There is a pole out there with three sheep, a horseman and a stock dog. They are waiting for the next dog up to come get the sheep and move them down the field through a 'gate' toward the handler, who would be standing at the pole. The second picture shows a handler (in a cowboy hat) that has already gotten his dog to bring the sheep to him. Then they tell the dogs to take the sheep through a couple more gates and bring them back to the circular area marked with sawdust piles. When they have gotten that done the sheep need to stay in that circle while the handler and dog work together to shed one sheep. When working on the farm, the handler may need to have a certain sheep separated from the rest. This is called shedding a sheep. So they do that here in the competition as well. It takes much cooperation with dog and handler to get it done. They make it look easy, but I am sure it is quite difficult. Each competitor has twelve minutes to run the course.

My daughter caught a good example of a shedding of a sheep. Two sheep go that way, one sheep goes this way. Good dog.

A handler giving her dog whistle instructions 500 yards away.
The majority of the handlers used special hand held whistles. Some, like this gal, just did it the old fashioned way.
The handler can not move away from that pole until the dog has gotten the three sheep into the sawdust circle. Then they can leave the pole to start with the shedding.

When a handler tells the dog to LIE DOWN!, it does. Flat as it can get as shown below.

A handler and her dog fixin' to shed some sheep.
I believe the announcer said she was one of the top handlers in the U.S.

See the Woolrich pen behind the dog? After shedding, they put the sheep in that pen to finish their run.

More shedding preparations. This can take a bit of time.

This is a closer picture of where the dogs go to fetch the sheep.There are two dark spots to the left of the sheep. The little dark spot is a dog that has probably been told to LIE DOWN and he his just holding the sheep there for his fellow canine, the big dark spot, to take over.

The trailers are where they keep the sheep to use. Each dog gets a new batch of sheep. The first two days of the competition, the sheep had never seen a dog, so it was more of a challenge for the dog. The next two days, they ran all of the sheep over again.....thus being the second time they had seen a dog.
We were so happy to be able to attend Thurs. Fri. & Sat.

Hopefully, next time we can stay for the Sunday course too.

Kentucky Adventure

We took a little vacation to Lexington, Kentucky, last week basically for two reasons. This,

and this.

They were both held here

just over the hill from each other.
If you click on the picture with the scroll button, you will be able to see all of the different things offered at the park. It if VERY large and VERY pretty.


Of course, we got much more than expected.
In Lexington, you can visit the Mary Todd Lincoln home, which we took pictures of but didn't go through because we were either heading through early or late after normal operating hours.
We got to see our tax money at work (or is it China's $?). Anyway, this is what it looks like.

The green sign reads Project funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Orange sign says...Putting America To Work.
A little way down the road on the right from this is .....this.


The Lexington Cemetery.
It is cool. Some folks might think it is morbid to tour a cemetery, but we found it most beautiful and interesting. It is extremely large. You can pick up a bird watching brochure to possibly locate birds that have been spotted there. You can take a walking tour of special trees that are marked with a plaque. It is peaceful and a place I would encourage people to visit if you are passing through Lexington.

I will post pictures of Border Collies doing their thing next time.

Elizabeth Zimmermann's Pi Shawl-Plain, #5 update

I am still progressing on my round shawl. The two skeins on the right indicate how many it took to make the item on the left. It makes the ruler look short.
At this stage I have knitted 45 rounds with the 576 stitches.
Got a few more to go.

Alpaca Fiber

If you read my daughters blog, you will get a glimpse of what we did last week. She doesn't go into great detail about the first annual Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival, but I will post more about it in the coming days.
But I DID want to share a pretty little thing with you today.
If I am correct in my thinking this is 2-ply alpaca fiber. Not sure what to call it other than fiber.

I have read that alpaca fiber is lighter and warmer than wool. It doesn't have lanolin, which could be allergic for some people, and the fibers are hollow-filled with air which allows for the lightweight warmth.
This particular hank is super soft.
I will let you know what I knit up with it.