Are the Badlands Really So Bad?

Jan here, taking you on a trip into the unknown...

When I mention the Badlands, what comes to mind?

Vast stretches of inhospitable desert?

A dry, hot, dusty world where you're more likely to stumble over a skeleton than a stream of water?

Endless wandering through miles and miles of wilderness?

The Badlands at Badlands National Park are all that and more.

But not this year. The summer of 2019 has been wet and cool.  In Rapid City we have gotten 18.88 inches of rainfall so far. That might not seem like very much to easterners, but our normal annual rainfall is 18.32 inches. We're only in early July, and we've already topped our normal amount for the year.

Extra rain can be good or bad. Here in ranching country, it's mostly good. Extra rain means extra-rich grass and multiple cuttings of hay.

It also means a different view of the Badlands. Someone told my husband that we had to make a trip out there this year, so we took a day and did just that.

2019

The first thing we noticed was the color! 

2016

The badlands are normally this dry-clay gray. But this year they're brown - wet and brown.

And the grass!

2016

By this time in the summer, they're usually sporting this color combination...

But this year? We saw colors we only see in the spring in normal years.

2019

2019

2019

I had always wondered why the early ranchers settled here. After all, it isn't a very hospitable place. Back east, ranchers talk about how many cattle they run per acre. Out here, it's the number of acres per cow. Water makes all the difference in the world.

2019

All I can think is that those early homesteaders first saw the Badlands during a wet summer and fell in love. I know I can't get enough of visiting there - wet years or dry!

If you ever visit the Badlands, a great place to stop to learn about those early ranchers is at the Prairie Homestead.

You can read about this historic site here. We had planned to stop on this trip, but arrived too early in the morning...they hadn't opened yet. We hope to catch them on the next trip!

If you were one of those early homesteaders, would you have chosen to settle in the Badlands?

Jan Drexler spent her childhood dreaming of living in the Wild West and is now thrilled to call the Black Hills of South Dakota her home. When she isn’t writing she spends much of her time satisfying her cross-stitch addiction or hiking and enjoying the Black Hills with her husband of more than thirty-six years.

Touring the Black Hills: Badlands National Park

Jan here, with a trip that might challenge your idea of beauty.

I've done a few of these "touring the Black Hills" posts this year, and I saved the Badlands for now for a reason.

Because I think fall and winter are the best times to visit this unique place.

Photos don't do justice to the beauty.

The first reason why I like the Badlands in the off-season is the light. We're far enough north that the sun sits low on the horizon during the winter months.

The southern horizon in February.

That gives us a lot of shadows and colors we don't see during the summer months.

The second reason? Look at these pictures - do you see any people? Cars? When we visit in the winter months, the park rangers at the visitor's center are often the only other people we see. It's quite different in the summer months.

Which brings me to my third reason - We see a LOT more wildlife when we're the only humans for miles.

A young Bighorn ewe. 

We even saw a Golden Eagle one time, up close and personal, flying along the road just ahead of our car. He looked at us like he wondered why we were in his park.

Much like this guy.

But my favorite reason to visit the park in the fall and winter?

It's hard to imagine, but listen. Right now. What do you hear? Sounds that are beneath your consciousness because you hear them all the time.

A refrigerator running? Traffic on the road outside? The neighbor's radio being played a little too loud? Another neighbor's dog barking? Even your computer emits a slight hum.

But on a winter day in the Badlands, miles from the nearest highway, miles away from any other people, with only the blue sky above...there is silence. Silence like few people ever hear.

That is a sound so refreshing that when I'm not there, I crave it.

Have you ever visited Badlands National Park? Would you want to see it in the winter?

Jan Drexler lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her husband and growing family. When she isn't writing, she loves hiking in the Hills or satisfying her cross stitch addiction.

You can find Jan on Facebook, Jan Drexler, author, or her website, Jan Drexler.com.

An Orange Smoothie for Cold and Flu Season

Yes, it's here. Flu season.

It's that time of year when the sun hangs low in the southern sky and the cold temps make most of us want to stay inside.

Jan here, with some tips on how to avoid catching the flu...or to lessen its impact on your life.

1) Get your flu shot.

No, it isn't too late. And no, I haven't gotten mine yet. (And yes, I had the flu over Christmas!)

Ever since a younger, fitter, and healthier acquaintance died of complications from the flu a few years ago, I vowed I would get my flu shot every year. This year? I kept putting it off. Now that I'm finally healthy again, I'll be getting my flu shot this week.

I've heard (from reliable sources) that even if you catch the flu after getting a shot, your experience with the virus will be much less serious than if you hadn't gotten the shot. My hubby is the perfect example. He got his shot in the fall, but then came down with the flu in December...and he didn't even realize what he had until I came down with the same symptoms a week later, but more severe and longer lasting. He felt better after a few days. It took me nearly two weeks to feel like I could put two sentences together!


2) Wash your hands.

Your mom was right. Washing your hands is the best way to protect yourself from being infected with a virus like the flu.


3) Get enough rest.

Your immune system needs to be in tip-top shape, and sleep is number one in keeping it there.


4) Eat well to keep that immune system revved.

Orange juice anyone? How about a smoothie?


And here's where today's recipe comes in!

Just over a year ago, I shared a drink recipe that I love - my Winter Sunshine drink! Check out the recipe here: Jan's Winter Sunshine

I love this drink, but sometimes I want something a little...sweeter?...ice creamier?...filling?

This smoothie answers all of those cravings. I'm going to give you two separate recipes. One for normal folks, and one for those with some restrictions on their diet (voluntary or otherwise.)

Orange Julius-Style Smoothie

This recipe is for those who have no dietary restrictions. It was a favorite with my children when they were younger!

1 6-oz can frozen orange juice

1 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

10-12 ice cubes

Blend the first four ingredients in a blender. Add the ice cubes 2 or 3 at a time until well blended. Drink right away, or freeze and eat as sherbet.

Easy-peasy, right?

Unless you want to avoid sugar and happen to be lactose-intolerant (a recent development...I blame age). Then, this smoothie is for you:

Orange Dreamsicle Smoothie

The original recipe for this is in the Trim Healthy Mama cookbook, but it calls for cottage cheese. The only dairy I can eat is yogurt, so I substituted a couple things, and came up with this delicious, protein-rich smoothie.

1 medium, or 2 small oranges, peeled and seeded

1/2 cup unsweetened almond or cashew milk

1/2 cup unsweetened plain Greek yogurt

3/4 teaspoon orange extract

3 teaspoons stevia/erithrytol blend (like Truvia)

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon Vitamin C powder

2 Tablespoons integral collagen, or 1 scoop whey protein powder

1 1/2 - 2 cups ice cubes

In a blender, blend the orange slices and almond milk until the orange is completely blended. Add the yogurt, orange extract, sweetener, salt, Vitamin C powder, and collagen (not the whey protein powder).

Blend until smooth.

Add the ice cubes, 2-3 at a time (or if you have a powerful blender like a Ninja or Vitamix, add them all at once) and blend until smooth.

If you use whey protein powder, add it now, and blend for an additional 10 seconds.

Pour it into a large glass (I use a 1 quart canning jar) and enjoy!

Last week, I shared pictures from a drive we took to Custer State Park on a cold, foggy/cloudy day. This week, we went up in the Hills on a gorgeous sunny day! Don't let the sunshine fool you, though. It was still cold!

First, we went to Custer State Park. The week before, we hadn't gone to see how Badger Clark's cabin survived the fire. We knew it hadn't burned, but what did the area look like?

Safe and sound. Whew!

Those big trees were scorched, though.

If you don't remember who Badger Clark was, I wrote about him in this post: Badger Clark

After leaving the southern end of the park, we drove up to Sylvan Lake. The Needles Highway begins (or ends) here.

This is what it looks like in the summer:

And here's what it looks like in January:

Only hikers and cross-country skiers use the highway in the winter!

And the lake was beautiful in the sunshine!

Then we went to visit the Boys on the Hill - our first visit of the year to Mt. Rushmore.

And the air was so clear, we could see the Badlands from Mt. Rushmore...just about 60 miles away.

I've often seen the Badlands from Mt. Rushmore, but never as clear as it was that day! There is a lot of prairie and a lot of ranches between here and there!

So, how is your January going? Have you avoided the dreaded flu? Or were you smart and got your flu shot early?

Jan Drexler lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her husband and growing family. When she isn't writing, she loves hiking in the Hills or satisfying her cross stitch addiction.

You can find Jan on Facebook, Jan Drexler, author, or her website, Jan Drexler.com.

Coconut Custard Pie - the story of a failed recipe

Jan here, facing what all writers love...and yet, dread.

It isn't the pie! Definitely not the pie!

It's the Looming Deadline.

Deadlines need to be met because writers don't work alone. We have agents, editors, cover artists, marketing folks (etc. etc.) counting on us to keep to the schedule!

(And don't we love deadlines, because that means another book is coming out!)

But the downside of deadlines is that our families get the short end of the stick - at least temporarily.

We end up serving box macaroni and cheese, or pizza, or even the dreaded "you guys are on your own tonight!"

I'm on some tight deadlines right now (yes, multiple deadlines = multiple books), and I started feeling bad for my poor husband. So I looked up a recipe I had made several years ago when I was on one of my first deadlines...

Coconut Custard Pie!

My mistake was that I tried to adjust it (with some help from a couple recipes I found on-line) to make single serving Coconut Custard Pie.

Oh, they looked good! I even made one with no sugar and low-carb, and the other one with regular ingredients.

But you'll thank me for NOT sharing the recipe! Once we took a few bites...well... We'll just say that the dogs enjoyed their share. :)

So I decided to share the original recipe again, AND make it for my husband once today's deadline has been met.

After all, I owe him, don't I?

So enjoy this recipe from 2013 -

Coconut Custard Pie

Over the weekend, with my new story down to the proof-reading stage (and not due until tomorrow!), I decided to treat my family to pie. Delicious, scrumptious...and EASY pie. I'm not kidding. It took longer to take the pictures for this recipe that it did to put it together.

Here it is: Coconut Custard Pie

Ingredients: 

2 cups milk

2 1/2 cups flaked coconut

4 eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup all purpose flour (or bisquick)

3/4 cup white sugar

2 Tablespoons butter, softened

Now, here's the hard part (just kidding).

Mix all the ingredients together and pour into a 9 inch greased pie plate.

Bake for 50-60 minutes at 350°, or until golden brown and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

This is one of those pies that makes its own crust, kind of like a clafouti, or those "impossible Bisquick" pies that were so popular years ago.

Here we are, back in 2017 :) Doesn't that pie look delicious? And super easy!

Like I said, I have multiple deadlines looming, but Sunday is still Sunday, and I do try to make it a day of rest. So we went out of town yesterday afternoon and enjoyed a trip to the Badlands.

If you've never been to Badlands National Park, it's worth a visit. We go a couple times a year, and while I love our winter visits, summer days are pretty nice, too.

And even though we love to look at the beautiful vistas and craggy peaks, what do the Badlands look like up close?

The Badlands have many faces. Sharp needle-like points in one area, and soft mounds in another. Mountains soaring above you, and then a few miles later vast canyons open at your feet.

But when you go to the Badlands, don't stay in your car for the whole visit. Stop at one of the overlooks to take a closer look.

When you get out of your car, this is what greets you. Steep sided gullies and a labyrinth of mounds and steep cliffs.

And when you take a close look at the surface of the hills...

Even though it looks spongy, the surface is rough and hard. It's similar to the popcorn ceilings you find in houses that were built during the early 1980's. Fascinating, isn't it?

Which National Park is your favorite one to visit?

Jan Drexler loves her family, her home, cooking and just about anything made by hand. But she loves her Lord most of all.

Stop by Jan's website to learn more about her books: www.JanDrexler.com

Sourdough Starter, Part 1, Take 2

Jan here, and I am just about bursting with excitement!

No, it isn't a new book release, or a cover reveal, or even a new member of the family....

It's sourdough starter.

I made it. All by myself (with a LOT of help from God, and a little help from friendly wild yeast beasties).

If you go here, you'll read about my last attempt at making sourdough starter from scratch. In spite of my enthusiasm, it was a complete failure.

But this batch has been going strong for about three weeks now, and I've already made some loaves of bread with it!

Don't worry - I will share bread recipes with you, but not until I've experimented a bit more.

Today we're going to concentrate on the starter. If you start yours today or tomorrow, you'll be all set to make bread when I share that recipe next week!

My first step in making my own starter was to figure out what went wrong the last time. It took months to realize that my grain mill was the culprit.

Don't get me wrong! I love my grain mill, and I'll continue buying whole grains and grinding them for my baking.

But this puppy heats the rye flour just a bit too hot as it mills the grain. The wild yeast beasties don't like that.

In fact, they hate it so much that they...well...die. :(

And that is bad because sourdough is flour, water, and wild yeast. If you kill the wild yeast in the process of making the sourdough starter, you end up with yuck.

We don't want yuck.

So once I figured out the problem, I bought a bag of this:

 This is the key. Cold milled flour!

And why rye flour? Because for some reason the wild yeast beasties love rye. It must be their chocolate or something. You can use other flours when you make your breads, but to begin your starter, you really should use rye.

So now that we have the ingredients, let's make starter.

Sourdough Starter

ingredients:

rye flour
water
time

That's it. Nothing fancy.

I feed my starter in the morning when I'm making my tea.

Day 1: Sanitize a quart canning jar, small glass bowl, or other glass container by pouring boiling water into it. Pour out the boiling water and add 1/2 cup cool water and 1/2 cup rye flour. Stir, then cover with a towel, cheesecloth, or other clean, porous covering. Set it in a warm place and ignore it for a day.

Day 2: Sanitize a second quart canning jar or other container. Add 1/2 cup cool water and 1/2 cup rye flour. Stir. Stir the 1st jar of starter and add it to the new jar, and stir the starter, flour, and water together. Cover and set in a warm place.

(How warm? I put mine on the kitchen counter next to my sink.)

Day 3 - 7: Repeat Day 2.

Now your jar should be pretty full. And after six or seven days, your starter is ready to use. It should smell yeasty and slightly sour.

It should also be brown (not green or gray or black!) (or yellow or pink!). If it is any color but brown, throw it out! Your wild yeast beasties have been taken over by the bacteria storm troopers and you need to start over.

It should also be a little bubbly. Pleasantly bubbly.

If your starter looks like this, rejoice!

Keep feeding it daily. If you forget a day, don't sweat it. Your wild yeast beasties will keep doing their thing. But you do need to keep feeding it or else the yeast will get weak and the bacteria storm troopers will start moving in.

Once your starter is established, though, you can feed it less. Reduce the daily feeding to 1 Tablespoon of flour and 1 Tablespoon of water. And you only need to change the jar a couple times a week.

Or, once your starter is established, you can also keep it in the fridge. The yeast beaties (now tamed and named) will slow down their wild growth pace. They'll only need to be fed a couple times a week.

I keep mine on the kitchen counter so that it continues to grow. I use it about once every four or five days.

Next week - recipes to use your starter!!!


And then there is this:

"Pretty" is not strong enough of a word to describe the Badlands of South Dakota.

Barren doesn't do it, either.

Other-worldly?

Awe-inspiring. Definitely.

I'm beginning to research a story set here, at the edge of the Badlands. Rancher brothers and a legacy of faith and family.

Speaking of the ranching legacy, some ranchers need our prayers.

This prairie fire was huge Sunday afternoon during our drive through the Badlands. A "big bad boy" one person said, and movin' fast. If you can get an idea of how big it was - I took this picture from between 40 and 50 miles away from the fire. I have rancher friends who were in the path of the fire, but even though pastures and fence posts, etc. burned, their home was saved, praise the Lord.

And next week, sourdough part 2!

Jan Drexler loves her family, her home, cooking and just about anything made by hand. But she loves her Lord most of all.

Stop by Jan's website to learn more about her books: www.JanDrexler.com