A Hard Lesson Learned

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Limitless

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Homesick

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Murphey: Getting familiar with the saddle

I apologize for the extreme potato quality of this video! Just wanted to show Murphey beginning to get acquainted with the saddle.

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Soft (eggless) Snickerdoodles

I have a serious love/hate relationship with this time of year.  Part of me is so excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas (also my birthday!) and the other half of me is dreading it, particularly this year; Life has been busy and is full of change.  Some big things are going on in my life and I find it both thrilling and terrifying and entirely stressful.  Can you all relate?

I am really excited for Christmas though, and really more so the days leading up to it.  Every year I say I’m going to do something to make it more meaningful and then Christmas rolls around and nothing is any different than the year before.  So I’ve made a promise to myself this year to make it happen!  What are some things that you all do to make the holidays special?  Keep an eye out, I’ll be posting some of my shenanigans here!

On my last post I promised a recipe for the most delicious cookies!! Well, here’s the story; It happened due to pure laziness-I was making snickerdoodles and instead of premixing the dry ingredients I just tossed them all into a bowl and mixed up the batter.  Some of you may have an idea how that turned out.  FLAT FLAT FLAT as a pancake. I was really irritated…until I tried one.  Friends, they were amazingly good! Buttery and cinnamon-y and chewy-just how I like em!
Now, last Sunday class got cancelled due to snow so while the menfolk watched the game, I baked!

I seriously contemplated trying to duplicate my “Snickerdoodle Pancakes” as I affectionately deemed them, but I figured I’d give it another shot and what I came up with was the most impossibly soft snickerdoodles I’ve ever had-think Lofthouse pillowy style! Now personally, I enjoyed my pancake version better because I like chewy cookies, but these were great with milk!

& bonus! There’s no eggs, so try not to eat all the batter before they make it to the cookie sheet!

Cookies:

• 1 c. (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1 c. granulated sugar
• 2/3 c. brown sugar
• 2 Tbsp. water
• 1 tsp. Corn or Veggie Oil
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 3 c. flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

Sugar Coat:
4 Tbsp Sugar
2 Tbsp Cinnamon

Preheat Oven to 300 Degrees

In a large bowl cream together butter and sugars.
Add the water, oil, and baking powder, and Vanilla-beat until  combined.
In a medium bowl, whisk together dry ingredients then slowly combine while mixing into the wet ingredients.
Chill dough for at least 30 minutes (I did 60+ but I don’t think it will matter too much.)

In a small bowl combine the sugar and cinnamon, mix together.
Roll your dough into tablespoon size balls and roll them in the cinnamon mixture.
Place on cookie sheet covered in aluminum foil about an inch or so apart.
Depending on your oven bake for 13-15 minutes, I erred on the longer side.

Let cool, then enjoy with a big glass of milk!

If you’re lazy like me but still craving cookies, give my accidental Snickerdoodle Pancakes a shot!
Mix wet ingredients together but instead of the water, BP, and oil mixture, use 2 eggs.  Then just dump the dry ingredients in the bowl (do not sift together!), mix batter, roll cookie balls in sugar mixture, and see what you get!  I promise it’s worth it!

Happy Trails
and Happy Thanksgiving!

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Evening Ride

Just thought I would share my evening ride last night with Molly.  We went down to the lake by the Ranch, it will probably be our last summer ride before the snow comes in tomorrow!

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3rd Try for the Win!

So sorry to have left you all hanging on the escapades of Molly and Murphey; training and riding had come to a standstill as I worked on plowing through my last full semester of school.  I can finally see the light at the end of this long tunnel, this time next year I should be graduating!

I have the best news though! After many months since our last epic fail with getting Murph trimmed up: We Did It!!!
I had the farrier I use for Molly come out last Friday  (10-17-14) and I made sure our surroundings were as mellow as possible, it was just Murphey, my farrier Paul, myself, and Molly for moral support.  I had a big bowl of tasty goodies made up-lots of carrots and corn oil, and this time we didn’t use a tranquilizer.  It took a total of 45 minutes from the time I arrived at the ranch to the time I left, so really it only took us about 25 minutes to get his front feet trimmed.  Murphey shrunk about an inch and a half, but his front feet look amazing!

All I had to do was keep his nose stuck in his bowl and he was pretty okay with the whole process as long as nobody moved too fast or made any loud sounds.  I cannot believe how smoothly it went.

After months of gaining his trust and working on picking up his feet; things just finally seemed to click into place and now that weight is off my shoulders and we can move on to other things.  Now we’re working on the back feet, which is slow but sure, and moving away from pressure which will eventually transition into lunging.  I’ll keep you posted on our happenings and I’ve also got an accidental delicious cookie recipe to share with your all; keep your eyes open and your bellys rumbly!

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These boots are made for Ridin’

 

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Sitting On

^ Finn, the 3 year old Gypsy we’ve been working with

Getting on, this is only the second time he has ever been sat on.

It was an absolute, non-event. He is such a good boy, he even took a few steps with me on him as if to say “Okay I’m ready, lets get this show on the road!”

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Therapist

My therapist is a Horse.

picture courtesy of pinterest

 

 

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