I MADE HOCKEY PUCKS AND WANDERED AROUND THE RANCH

Since we have hunkered down for the winter, I have time to try different recipes that I have been collecting over the years.

The last couple of weeks I have been interested in baking bread and rolls.

A couple of weeks ago I made a delicious Jalapeno Cheese Loaf, a week ago I made home made hot dog rolls and biscuits.

Today I made home made hamburger rolls.

Well it was a disaster! I should have taken step by step pictures. I got them ready for the second rising and dusted them with flour and covered them loosely with plastic wrap as the directions said.

When they were done with there second rising I went to take the plastic wrap off and the dough really stuck to it. I tried to pull it off gently but the dough was still sticking to it. This pulling caused them to deflate like a flat tire!


Still I put them in the oven hoping for a miracle. But the miracle was not to be.

They came out of the oven and looked like a cross between a hockey puck and a flying saucer made out of cement.

I am not going to give up and I will try them again down the road.

It was a beautiful sunny day. Ralph and I took a walk around the ranch and stopped in to visit Loy.

I love how Loy decorated her porch. You can tell a lot of grand children come to Grandma and Grandpa's home.

This sign is right out side their door. Grandma Loy's home is always full of candy and cookies. I can't keep my hands out of their cookie jar.

This is Hoppy's "Cowboy Cave". It is decorated with all kind of ranch and antique items. Hopefully you can make out the lariats, horse shoes, horse bits, tools, pots, lanterns, window frame and license plates.

As I said the other day on the blog, Hoppy and his children use to rope in rodeo competitions many years ago. Here are pictures of their horse barn and roping arena.

It may be a little hard to explain to folks who are not familiar with roping competitions but I will do my best. 

Here is a chute that a calf or steer goes into. On both sides of this chute there is a 3 sided box made out of pipe and that is called the "roping box". Depending on if the roper is a left handed or right handed roper there is a roping box is on both sides of the chute. The horse and roper back into this box and wait for the chute to open and the calf or steer to take off. There is an electronic timer that tells the roper when to start his run. This is to give the calf or steer a head start and start running. Hopefully the cowboy will rope the calf or steer.


This picture is the alley way where cattle are herded down towards the roping chutes.

Walking back to our rolling home on the "Back 40".