A Rose Is A Rose, A Mary Is A Mary

A Rose is a Rose.
A Mary is a Mary.
A Kinley is a Kinley.

Kinley and Jill by her wall decal, January 2012

And the new baby is ....

I don't know. I will just have to wait until she's born. (Her due date is September 3.)

I haven't been subtle in asking for clues. I do know that Baby Ladd's name is not in the Top 100 names as determined by the Social Security Administration.

But that's all I know. 

No first initial.
No rhyming hint.
No deal. No how.

So, if I look at the list, I know what it's not: It's not Piper or Genesis or Madelyn. It's not "Stella, hey, Stellaaaaa," so I won't have "A Streetcar Named Desire" come to mind when I talk to her. 

Jill and Eric know her name. They've ordered the new decal for her room.

I could be like the kid before Christmas and search in the closet ... if only I weren't so far away.

I could ask Kinley, but they decided not to tell her, since she might spill the beans. If you ask her, she either says, "Baby" or "Sister." (Yes, I tried.)

So, I guess I'll just have to wait like everyone else.

My Grandma Neelly didn't listen to her friends' advice for names back when she was expecting either. My mom found a sheet of name suggestions from a baby shower game, and the guests suggested monikers for the Neellys' bundle of joy.

She could have been Mary Jane or Mary Sue or Mary Helen or Mary Ruth. If my grandparents had chosen that name, they would have picked the most popular girls' name of the 1930s. My Mom could have been Elizabeth, Mildred, Esther or Ruth, if they'd listened to their friends' advice.

Interestingly, my mother-in-law's name is on the list, though in reverse order, Esther Marie. 

The shower guests had the names covered for boys, too. Of course, back then, parents didn't know what they were having until the little one arrived on the scene. 

My grandparents chose Janis Leone. Had they spelled it Janice, my mom's name would have been 42nd on the list of Top 100 names of the 1930s. With her spelling, it didn't make the Top 200.

My dad's name, Bobby, was 27th in the 1930s. Kim was 78th in the 1950s, and Randy's was 33rd. In the 1980s, Eric was 21st, Jill was 121st and Brent was 95th. When Kinley was born in 2011, her name was 194th, according to the Social Security list.

Jill & Eric don't want to hear reviews of their selected name, so unless Jill slips up in the next couple of weeks, I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Patience is not my virtue. 

A baby card from the same box of memories where my mom found the name list.

Kentucky Hot Brown Bake

I'm not sure the Kentucky Hot Brown Bake took me back to Louisville. But it was a pretty tasty Sunday night meal.

When we visited Brent last Thanksgiving, we stopped at The Brown Hotel in Louisville and had one of their famous Hot Browns.

In the 1920s, The Brown Hotel drew more than 1,200 guests each evening for its dinner dance. In the wee hours of the morning, the guests would grow tired of dancing and go the restaurant for a bite to eat. Bored with the traditional ham and eggs, Chef Fred Schmidt created the Hot Brown, an open-face turkey sandwich with bacon, tomatoes and Mornay sauce.

The Hot Brown is now a Louisville tradition and has been featured in Southern Living, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and on the Today Show, as well as a mainstay in southern cookbooks.

At the time, I didn't know that Brent was moving from Kentucky back to Kansas, so I'm glad I tried a true Hot Brown when I had the chance. Still, when I saw the Kentucky Hot Brown Bake on my Facebook feed, I knew I wanted to try it.

They don't meet Funeral Sandwiches in our rating system, but I'm sure I'll make them again. Here's the recipe for the casserole bake. If you want the fancier-schmancier version, The Brown Hotel's recipe is at the bottom of this post.

Kentucky Hot Brown Bake

From Facebook

8 oz. pkg. refrigerated crescent rolls
1 lb. pkg. smoked turkey lunch meat
8 slices cooked bacon
8 slices of Swiss cheese (or grate about 8 ounces of block cheese)
3 Roma tomatoes, sliced thin
4 eggs, beaten

Unroll the crescent dough and separate into 2 squares. Place one square in bottom of an 8-inch-square pan that is greased or lined with parchment paper. Press dough to fit pan. Layer with half the turkey and cheese and all the bacon and tomatoes. Pour half the eggs over the top. Layer the remaining turkey and cheese on top.

Top with remaining dough square. Cover with remaining beaten eggs.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 20 to 25 minutes. Let set at room temperature for 15-20 minutes before cutting and serving.

Notes:

• The recipe says it serves 9. It doesn't feed 9 of my husband. I would say it would feed 4 to 5 people.
• The original recipe said to use half the bacon and half the tomatoes in the first layer. However, the 8 slices of bacon covered the whole 8-inch square nicely. Had I just used 4 strips, I think there could have been "pockets" without bacon in the cooked sandwich. The same was true for the tomatoes. You could increase the amounts of the bacon and tomato if you truly want to have a double layer of filling.

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Photo from The Brown Hotel

 The Hot Brown

From The Brown Hotel, Louisville, KY

Makes 2 Hot Browns

2 oz. whole butter
2 oz. flour
8 oz. heavy cream
8 oz. whole milk
1/2 cup Pecorino Romano Cheese plus 1 tbsp. for garnish
Salt & pepper to taste
14 oz. sliced roasted turkey breast
2 slices Texas toast, crust trimmed
4 slices of crispy bacon
2 Roma tomatoes, cut in half
Paprika
Parsley

In a 2-quart saucepan, melt butter and slowly whisk in flour until combined and forms a thick paste (roux). Continue to cook roux for 2 minutes over medium-low heat, stirring frequently. Whisk heavy cream and whole milk into the roux and cook over medium heat until the cream begins to simmer, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove sauce from heat and slowly whisk in Romano cheese until the Mornay sauce is smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste.

For each Hot Brown, place one slice toast in an oven-safe dish and cover with 7 ounces of turkey. Take the two halves of the Roma tomatoes and set them alongside the base of turkey and toast. Next, pour half of the Mornay sauce to completely cover the dish. Sprinkle with additional Romano cheese. Place entire dish under broiler until cheese starts to brown and bubble. Remove from broiler; cross two pieces of bacon on top, and sprinkle with paprika and parsley. Serve immediately.



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I'm linked to the Country Fair Blog Party. Check out these other rural writers by clicking on their links.

Nicole of Tales of A Kansas Farm Mom on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

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+Danielle Beard of High Heels and Shotgun Shells on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

Cat's Meow

Midnight, the Cat

A black cat crossing your path 

signifies that the animal is going somewhere.

--Groucho Marx

Groucho and I agree when it comes to black cats. I'm not superstitious. The only bad luck I anticipate is if I trip over them as I rush out the back door. (I don't need help being clumsy.)

These are the kittens that Kinley and Grandpa retrieved from the old stone chimney last May with the "kitten catcher" (aka, a hoe).

 

Yesterday morning, after I returned home from my walk, I sat on the back steps and watched them wrestle with one another.

 

They've definitely changed since their baby kitty days. When I went back to look for photos from earlier this summer, I discovered one big difference. I've heard it said that most human babies appear to have blue eyes when they are born and then they change into their permanent eye color. It happened for this kitty.  The little blue-eyed dark calico now has hazel-colored eyes.

The yellow kitten has some of the most interesting markings we've ever seen on a County Line cat. See the circular pattern? My able assistant pretended he was showing a goat or a rabbit at the county fair and "set it up" so you could see its unusual coat.

We found a new crop of kitties in the window well not long ago. We think the mother must have had them elsewhere and then moved them closer to the house. Randy is diligently working to tame them, too.

After trying to get all three of them to look at me in the same shot, I decided that it was a trial run for photographing Kinley and her new baby sister. I hope I can do that more successfully than I got three kittens in the same frame. However, I'm fairly confident a 2 1/2 year old and her baby sister will be a challenge better left to a professional (even though Grandma did get them a couple of cute coordinating outfits).

No outfits for the cats. Randy did try to introduce cheese to our newest brood. They appear to be unimpressed. But they are going to have to step up soon and earn their keep around here. When it comes to cats, I agree with a Chinese philosopher:

Black cat or white cat:

If it can catch mice, it's a good cat.

-- Chinese proverb

The same can be said about yellow and gray cats and calicos, too!

Breaking It Down

Dancers might be the only people who like breakdowns. (Or is that "break it down?" I am not, nor will I ever be, a dancer. Just ask my vocal teacher from college when she tried to offer a crash course in choreography before a tryout with K-State Singers. Let's just say it's a good thing K-State Concert Choir didn't require dancing.)

Anyway, "breakdown" is a dirty word on the farm. And, if that's the case, it sure seems we've been doing our fair share of "swearing" lately. It's easier to name the implements that haven't broken down. During harvest, we couldn't keep the trucks going. The combine had an issue or two. Last week, the tractor had a flat tire. At various times, we've had the baler and two different tractors in the shop. I even had my desktop computer break down. It qualifies as a farm tool, right?

The swather has had multiple breakdowns all summer, and last week was no exception. Randy was swathing sudan for a neighbor. It's a slow job anyway. The plants are taller and thicker than alfalfa, so it takes awhile to put it down. One evening, Randy had me bring an extra belt to the field because the other one was slipping. 

I offered to "hold something." But, since I'm about as good at implement repair as I am at dancing, my offer was kindly declined. (I do make a mean sandwich, which gave Randy the energy to tackle the job. Every little bit helps, right?)

Even though I wasn't much help (other than moral support and cheerleading), Randy wanted me to stick around in case he needed to send me for other tools or parts since we were several miles from home. So, while he was trying to get his body contorted inside the baler, I enjoyed the view.

It was nearing the golden hour of dusk, that time when diffused sunlight makes everything pretty. Even though I'm sure this particular sudan hybrid wasn't around when settlers came to Kansas, I imagined the tall grasses of the prairie during pioneer days as the breeze blew and the plants rustled and the cover wagons circled in for the night. 

I used the swather as a picture frame.

I admired the jet streams crisscrossing the sky. 

 

I compared just-swathed sudan's color to some that had been swathed a different day.

Just for the record, I did keep offering to help in between my wandering around. Randy got the old belt removed and the new one installed and rode off into the setting sun, just like the hero on the old westerns.

 

I should have brought my book and just stayed there. By the time I'd gotten home on the back roads (due to resurfacing the blacktop road), it was about time to turn around and come back to pick up Randy for the night. 

We probably saw 20 deer on the way home. Thankfully, I didn't hit any of them: We didn't need another breakdown or repair bill!

He started raking the sudan on Saturday, but then got about 0.50" of rain on it. He'll start the raking process again this afternoon. 

Once it's cured (or dry enough), he'll bale it. Hopefully, the baling can be done without another breakdown to report.  

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I'm linked to the Country Fair Blog Party. Check out these other rural writers by clicking on their links.

 Nicole of Tales of A Kansas Farm Mom on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

+Laurie Link of Country Linked on Facebook, Pinterest  

+taysha reitzel  of Dirt Road Charm on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

+Danielle Beard of High Heels and Shotgun Shells on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

 

Dueling Road Signs

Sometime in the past couple of days, a new road sign appeared at the corner south of our house. Cue up the "Dueling Banjos" song: It's been going in my head since I saw the contradictory mile markers at the corner.

According to the new Stafford County sign, I live on NE 150th Ave., just north of its intersection with NE  40th Street.

But Reno County put their signs up several years ago. For the longest time, I thought I'd been living  on South Salt Marsh Rd., just north of the intersection with West Illinois Ave.

I have a Sylvia phone, but a Stafford address. Sort of. I have a Reno County street address, but a Stafford zip code. Confused? Welcome to my world.

Let's hope the Reno County sign stays together. Randy and I noticed that there's yet another street name sandwiched between the Salt Marsh designation. If that front sign falls off, I guess I'll be living on Trails West Road ... just not really.

It's not the first time I've had to explain this anomaly. I live right on the Stafford/Reno County line, but our house is on the Reno County side. 

The latest explanation came when I voted early at the Reno County Courthouse prior to the primary election. When the election workers looked at my driver's license, they said, "You live in Stafford, but you can vote in Reno County?"

Yes. I can. Most of the time, I vote in Sylvia, and they are used to my mixed-up world. In all honesty, I'd prefer to exercise my patriotic duty in Stafford County because I'd rather vote on the school board elections where our kids and Randy went to school. I'd rather vote where we go to church, do our banking and other business. But, that's just life on the County Line.

The good news? With all these signs, I should be able to find my way home - at least for the moment. No telling what will happen if the signs all fall over. (I think I'd be OK. As a farmer's daughter and a farmer's wife, I've pretty much lived in the land of no street signs my whole life.)

(If you now have a hankering for Dueling Banjos, there are plenty of versions on YouTube. Click on the link to see Steve Martin and Kermit the Frog's version.)

Homemade Panorama

My do-it-yourself panorama isn't perfect, but it's better than what I got with the panorama camera setting.

Note to self: It's probably not the ideal time to scroll through your camera settings while standing on the side of a dirt road in your PJs ... especially when there's a beautiful rainbow right in front of you.

This morning, I never could get the "Easy Panorama" setting to work, so I pieced a couple of photos together on an editing program. I guess it wasn't as easy as the camera manufacturer thought. (It couldn't be operator error, right?!)

The rainbow was so big and full that I couldn't get the whole thing on my camera screen. That's a nice problem to have.

The photos don't do it justice.

At least, no one saw me standing in the road in my PJs, while sprinkles baptized me and my camera. It's just one of the benefits of living on a road less traveled.

The rainbows aren't bad either.

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I'm linked to the Country Fair Blog Hop. Be sure and check out the hosts, who are fellow rural writers!

Nicole of Tales of A Kansas Farm Mom on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

+Laurie Link of Country Linked on Facebook, Pinterest  

+taysha reitzel  of Dirt Road Charm on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

+Danielle Beard of High Heels and Shotgun Shells on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

Gussied-Up Green Bean Salad

This is NOT the old green bean salad you remember.  I must admit. I love that salad, too. You know the one: It has canned green beans, yellow wax beans, kidney beans and onion in a vinegary dressing.

But this one is the gussied-up version. It's perfect for using fresh green beans from your own garden or from the farmers' market.

Jill first tasted it at a baby shower for one of her college friends and asked for the recipe. Jamie's mom shared it with Jill, and Jill shared it with me.

Besides fresh green beans, it uses fresh dill. Dill makes me think of Grandma Neelly's garden and her dill pickles. I really must start an herb garden - even if it's just in a container. (And, no, I'm not planning on taking up canning, even though I do miss Grandma's pickles.)

Throw in some toasted pecans and creamy feta to "gussy it up." The first time I made the salad, I served it with rice pilaf and salmon, but it would be great with beef or chicken, too. I'm sure I'll get a chance to find out. I've already gotten more green beans and plan to make this salad again ... sooner rather than later!

Fresh Green Bean Salad

1 1/2 lbs. fresh green beans
1/2 cup finely-diced purple onion
1/2 to 3/4 cup feta cheese (to taste)
1/2 cup toasted, coarsely chopped pecans

Dressing:
2/3 cup canola oil
Salt & pepper to taste
2 tbsp. fresh dill
1/3 cup wine vinegar

Dressing: Combine dressing ingredients in a glass jar. Shake together to combine well.

Clean and trim green beans. Cook in boiling water for 4 minutes. Rinse with cold water, and pat dry. Combine beans with onion, feta and pecans. Just before serving, toss with dressing.

Note:  Jaime's mom used olive oil. However, I knew that I would have leftover salad. Olive oil sets up if refrigerated, so I used canola oil. The leftovers were great!

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I'm linked today to Wake Up Wednesdays. Click on the link for more tested recipes from across the nation.

I'm also linked to the Country Fair Blog Party. Check out the links from these other rural writers:

Nicole of Tales of A Kansas Farm Mom on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

+Laurie Link of Country Linked on Facebook, Pinterest  

+taysha reitzel  of Dirt Road Charm on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest

+Danielle Beard of High Heels and Shotgun Shells on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest