Wyoming Catholic Cowboys

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Tom and Jerry

Growing up Grandpa always made Tom and Jerry's for Christmas. We'd have them as kids and when we grew up we’d get to have the rum in them. Anyway, this Christmas I thought I'd try my hand at Grandpa's tradition.

This is actually Grandpa's sister Mollie's recipe. They were German sugar beet farmers so I shouldn't be surprised that it called for 1.5 pounds of powdered sugar. Sure is sweet though.

It's not too tough to make and is super good. To make the actual drink, I'd fill a quarter of the cup up with the batter, add a shot of rum, then fill the rest up with boiling water, stirring it up good. The nutmeg sprinkled on top is the final touch. I can still hear Grandpa yell across the kitchen to Grandma, Ruth, where are the givetz?(German for nutmeg, so we think)

A perfect holiday drink for family and friends.

So fun. We've been celebrating hard this Christmas Octave. One more day to go in 2021. Might as well make the best of it.

Too Full

Fast helps us think clearly.

https://youtu.be/_ZuLQzPebOw

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Darkness

Open the door and let the light of Christ in.

https://youtu.be/mJT3pL1L6B8

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Christmas Bales

One thing on my bucket list has always been to bale hay in December. Some people like to say they've water skied in December. I want to say that I've baled hay in December. Well, my dream came true during the Christmas Octave.

The weather started off perfect. It has been unseasonably warm. So I borrowed Bill and Joanne Fields' baler and headed to our feed yard.

She fit just right behind Johnny.

The deal was to re-bale these big grass square bales. I just couldn't feed them efficiently. Little squares are more my style.

It took a little playing, but what we found to work was to grab a bale with the bucket, flake it off with a pitchfork into a fluffy windrow, and then just craw along. It's amazing how much hay is in a 3x4x8.

Slowly but surely we'd kick them out. The 4570 Hesston didn't miss a lick. Out of each big bale we were able to get about 15 little bales.

Much better.

It probably would have been easier to just go buy new hay. But it wouldn't have been nearly as fun. I love all things ranch. Baling and feeding hay ranks right at the top. Our Lord became incarnate in the Christmas story. He loves humanity and so do I. Men were made to work. The more we live out of our human nature, the more we discover the hidden divine nature that Christ came to give us.