17, digging post holes for the goat enclosure!

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Yesterday was one of those days when I get annoyed with myself because, while I take my camera with me almost all the time when I leave home, there is always something fabulous just when I don’t have it–such as yesterday morning when I was driving 15 to football practice and a pair of wild turkeys crossed the road in front of us with their six babies. I stopped the car and they stood around posing for a moment before they took off. You know, like they were laughing at me for not having my camera.

In short order, a deer ran alongside the road and a bunny scampered across it. Butterflies were swooping around the car like I was driving through a Disney movie.

When I went back to get 15, I brought my camera. Merry woodland creatures, here I come!

We came around a bend in the country road on our way home and this was on the side of the road:





It wasn’t moving. I got out of the car, walked toward it, starting to worry. It kept just sitting there. I walked around it some, not too close, to see if it looked like it’d been hit by a car. I couldn’t tell. I was afraid to touch it. I’m scared of horses. And cows. (Which is why I bought a farm and am planning to get a horse and a cow, but that’s beside the point. I don’t always make sense.) Then the horse stood, shakily, and immediately collapsed again.

15 stuck his head out the car window and said, “I’m not picking up a horse.” He’s always prepared for me to ask him to do something ridiculous, like move a cow for Georgia.

I said, “I know we can’t pick it up. But we have to tell somebody!”

Back in the car, I stopped just up the road at a little house on a hill to check with them. They said it wasn’t theirs and they weren’t interested in talking about it.

People aren’t always friendly in the country when strangers come to the door.

I turned around, went back down the road in the other direction. Just beyond a low water crossing near the horse were two dilapidated-looking single-wide trailers with large dogs prowling around and “Keep Out” signs. We stopped and stared at the trailers.

And decided we were scared to get out of the car.

So we turned around again and went down the road a mile till I came to a house where I knew someone. We drove up to the house and the man came out. I told him about the horse and he said, “It wasn’t hit by a car. It’s sick and dying.”

Me: “But it’s on the side of the road!”

He said to leave it alone, he knew the people who had it, and it was their property. I said, “But!!! It’s a horse! It’s sick! It’s on the side of the road! Isn’t somebody supposed to do something? What if it’s suffering? We can’t just leave it there!”

I went home and called the sheriff’s office to report a sick horse on the side of the road. They told me to call the animal shelter, so I called the animal shelter and reported a sick horse on the side of the road. I don’t know what happened after that. I did all I could to get help for it.

Life in the country is not always a Disney movie.

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What the world looks like around here in June. Isn’t it lovely?

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Can’t find a Girl Scout? No problem! Make Girl Scout cookies at home. I experimented with a couple of different toppings and types of chocolate, suffering through all that cookie taste-testing, and I’m here to offer what I believe is the perfect combination of shortbread cookie base, coconut topping mixture, and chocolate coating for the best homemade Samoas.

You can, of course, shortcut this whole recipe by using storebought shortbread cookies as your base–but this shortbread cookie recipe is so quick and so easy and so good, why use pre-packaged?

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Cream sugar and butter with an electric mixer. Add flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix again. Add vanilla.





You’ll have a slightly crumbly cookie dough–don’t worry. Stick your hands in there and shape it into a nice ball. There’s plenty of butter in there, it’ll work.





Divide dough in two parts. Place half of dough between two sheets of waxed paper. Roll dough to approximately 1/4-inch thickness. Repeat with second half of dough. Cut into rounds with a 1-1/2 to 2-inch cookie cutter and place on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets. Using a straw, poke holes in the middle of each cookie.





Bake at 350-degrees for about 15 minutes. Recipe makes approximately 2 1/2 to 3 dozen cookies. (Baking time and yield will vary depending on cookie cutter size and thickness of cookies.) Mmmm….shortbread cookies! These cookies are delicious on their own, but we’re not done!

I tried the coconut topping two ways–using a melted caramel mixture, and using a candied corn syrup mixture. I far preferred the corn syrup method, but I’ll post both versions to give you a choice. (Coconut can be sweetened or unsweetened in either method.)

How to make Samoa Coconut Topping:

Caramel Method:

3 cups shredded coconut
12 ounces caramels
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons milk

Place coconut in a parchment paper-lined pan and toast at 350-degrees for approximately 20 minutes, turning every 5 minutes with a large spoon or spatula. While coconut is toasting, combine caramels, salt, and milk in a pot and stir over medium-low heat till melted. Remove from heat and add toasted coconut.

What is wrong with this method? Have you ever unwrapped 12 ounces of individually wrapped caramels? There should be an outcry. Somebody should write a letter. People should be picketing in front of candy manufacturers. Why can’t they sell “baking caramel” the same way they sell “baking chocolate”–in 1-ounce, easy-to-use squares, for example? Aside from the annoyance of unwrapping all those caramels, I found this mixture difficult to work with as the caramel starts setting up quickly as soon as it’s removed from the heat.

Corn Syrup Method:

3 cups shredded coconut
6 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Place coconut in a parchment paper-lined pan and toast at 350-degrees for approximately 20 minutes, turning every 5 minutes with a large spoon or spatula. While coconut is toasting, place butter, sugar, and corn syrup in a pot. Boil for three minutes. Switch temperature to low and slowly add sweetened condensed milk. Heat on low until a candy thermometer shows 220-225 degrees. Remove from heat. Mix in vanilla and add toasted coconut.

What is right with this method? No caramels to unwrap and the mixture is easy to work with as it doesn’t set up so quickly once it’s removed from the heat. However, if you want true caramel taste, you’ll have to use the caramel method. I found the corn syrup method’s ease of use outweighed the loss of the true caramel taste and still afforded a close, sweet approximation to the Girl Scout Samoa flavor.





Spread the topping mixture on top of the baked shortbread cookies, re-poking the center holes with a straw as needed.

The Chocolate:

8-10 ounces melted chocolate (semi-sweet or dark)

While the topping is setting up, melt the chocolate. I tried melting two types of chocolate–chocolate chips and candy chocolate. The candy chocolate was far superior. (Don’t use chocolate chips! It doesn’t set up near as well. Use a chocolate labeled for “candy” and it will set up as solidly as storebought chocolate-covered cookies–meaning, you can pick up a cookie without getting chocolate fingers. Chocolate chips just don’t do the trick.)

Using metal tongs, dip each cookie’s bottom into the melted chocolate. Place on parchment paper. Drizzle chocolate lines on top of the cookies. Let set about 30 minutes for chocolate to harden.





Anybody want a cookie?


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