A Fall Drive in the Hills

by Jan Drexler

On a day like this, with a north wind blowing and the highs not expected to top 70° this week, we know fall is here and winter is nipping on its heels!

Before the snow comes, let's take a drive through the Black Hills and enjoy the fall scenery!

On Friday, my husband and I had an errand to run in Custer. One great thing about Custer is that on the way we have to get to drive by this famous landmark!

Not the best picture, but I took it through the truck window. It's always good to say "hey" to these guys as we pass by.

After we stopped in Custer to pick up our apples (delivered by truck from Washington,) we decided to head west and have lunch at one of our favorite burger places. Wayback Burgers is a chain, and there's a franchise in Newcastle, Wyoming. The burgers are great, and the drive is even better!

Since the day was so beautiful, we decided to take the "scenic route" home - aka "I don't think we're lost!"

We followed the old Cheyenne-Deadwood Stage Route north through the Beaver Creek Valley from Newcastle along the state line, then turned east and came back into South Dakota northwest of Deerfield Lake.

If you're following along on your map, you'll see that we're in the high country. This is all National Forest and the home of deer, elk, mountain lions, and even a wolf sighting now and then. Some insist there are also bears here, but the official word is that there isn't an established population.

We saw a lot of cattle along the drive. Ranchers lease the public lands, which is a win/win situation. The ranchers are able to move the cattle across a larger range, preventing overgrazing. At the same time, the cattle keep the underbrush down, keeping the forest healthier and less likely to be destroyed in a forest fire.

In other parts of the country, autumn leaves turn bronze, yellow, red, orange, and brown.

In the West, we have gold. The aspen leaves glow in the sunshine, stark against the Ponderosa pines.

We came home to supper cooking in the slow cooker. It was a great sounding recipe - but we ended up with a fail! I'll take you through it and hopefully you won't have the same experience I did!

Slow Cooker Potatoes and Sausage

ingredients:

8 russet potatoes, diced

1 package of kielbasa (14 oz) sliced thin

1/4 cup onion, diced

1 can Cream of Chicken soup (or Cream of Mushroom)

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup sour cream

pepper to taste

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, divided

Okay, here's the first mistake I made:

I didn't have enough potatoes! I used what was left in the pantry, but I should have known it wouldn't turn out well.

If I hadn't been in a hurry to get on our way that morning, I would have realized that with fewer potatoes, I also needed less kielbasa! 

The creamy/cheesy part of the dish came together well. Just mix the soup, milk, sour cream, and pepper together. Add 1 1/2 cups of the cheese. Spread it on top of the potatoes/onion/kielbasa, then sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup cheese on top.

Doesn't it look delicious?

And this is where the second major mistake came in - I should have let it cook for six hours on low, and I ended up cooking for eight or nine hours. WAY overdone! It tasted good, but too salty. 

Lesson learned.

I think my next slow cooker will have to have one of those timers on it!

I didn't even take a picture of the finished product. But I'll try this again...when I'm not going to be away from home all day and when I have enough potatoes!

But the day ended as beautifully as it began. The sunset was gorgeous.

Have you had a recipe fail lately? Do you think you'll ever try that one again?

Jan Drexler has always been a "book girl" who still loves to spend time within the pages of her favorite books. She lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her dear husband of many years and their active, crazy dogs, Jack and Sam. You can learn more about Jan and her books on her website, www.JanDrexler.com.

B is for Bison, C is for Clafoutis

by Jan Drexler

This is an exciting time of year in the Black Hills! 

Not only are we enjoying the annual influx of bikers for the Sturgis Rally, but it's rut season for the bison.

What is rut season?

Well, it's when these ladies with babies in tow...

...look awfully good to these gents...

The bull is on the left, and the cow he is "tending" is on the right.

...who have every intention of making sure we have more cinnamon babies next April and May!

Would you believe this little guy is one of this year's babies? He is already losing his cinnamon coloring - his fur/hair/whatever has gradually been getting darker over the last four months, and his little nubby horns are already growing!

But give him five or six years, and he'll look like this:

That is one big bull! And you can see his scars - you don't get to be the father of cinnamon babies without pushing around the other bulls. When they fight...well, you don't want to get too close anywhere near!

But in another month, the cows will be in their herds and the bulls will go off alone, or in pairs. The younger ones gather in groups of four or five. Best buddies spending the winter together. All animosity is forgotten...until next July!

Now on to the next letter of the alphabet - C!

I've shared the recipe for clafoutis here on the blog before, with pears one time, and with apricots the other. But when I was looking for a way to use some sweet cherries I found at the grocery store, I learned that they are the fruit used in traditional clafoutis!

Sweet Cherry Clafoutis

Clafoutis is a French dessert. It is a thick custard with fruit.

Does that sound hard? It isn't! This is one of the easiest recipes ever!

ingredients:

1 cup pitted sweet cherries

3 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup white sugar

1 Tablespoon brown sugar

1/2 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

First, pit your cherries. This is much easier if you have a cherry pitter - I put one on my wish list after doing these!

Preheat your oven to 350°, and butter and lightly flour a 9" pie plate. Spread your pitted cherries over the bottom.

Whisk the eggs and sugars together, then add the rest of the ingredients. Mix until the batter is smooth.

Next, pour the batter carefully over the cherries. If you pour it in too fast, the cherries end up in a big pile.

Don't ask me how I know that!

Bake at 350° for 35 to 45 minutes. Mine took 45 minutes to get done - I live at 4000 ft altitude, and things take longer to bake up here.

How do you know if it's done?

As it bakes, the clafouti gets puffy, starting at the edges and going in to the center. It isn't done until the middle is just as puffy as the outside edges. If it starts getting too brown before it's done, you can tent a piece of aluminum foil over it.

As it cools, the clafouti collapses. Don't worry - it's supposed to do that!

You can sprinkle some powdered sugar on top, but I like it just the way it is.

In the traditional clafoutis, the cherries are cooked with the pits inside. This would make for difficult eating, I think, but it also added an almond flavor to the dish. If you want to, you can add 1/4 teaspoon of almond flavoring along with the vanilla to give it a more authentic flavor.

After trying the cherry clafoutis, I think I might try it with sour cherries next time - or go back to apricots. Or maybe peach...

That's one thing about clafoutis! You can use almost any fruit!

What fruit do you think you'll try?

Jan Drexler has always been a "book girl" who still loves to spend time within the pages of her favorite books. She lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her dear husband of many years and their active, crazy dogs, Jack and Sam. You can learn more about Jan and her books on her website, www.JanDrexler.com.

 

Suddenly Summer

We waited a l-o-n-g time for spring this year in the Black Hills. I know a lot of you did, too.

But look what happened! We skipped over spring and went straight into summer!

Only four weeks ago, we were still in the grips of late winter/early spring. We took a trip with friends up to Spearfish Canyon and visited Roughlock Falls. Not surprisingly, we were the only ones there in light snow and freezing temperatures.

May 9, 2020

But we were thrilled to see the signs of the coming spring.

And only a month later, we are surrounded by green and beautiful flowers!

The perennial garden in front of our house is beginning to unfold. Since we moved into our new place at the end of the summer last year, every new flower bloom is a surprise.

This is what the garden looked like last fall:

Is it any wonder that I love seeing every new plant growing this spring?

And the wildflowers are beginning to bloom, too! In the front of our place (which doesn't face the road) we have this meadow-covered hill.

Almost thirty years ago, before our house was built, a forest fire passed through this area and destroyed most of the trees. As a result, we have a few tall Ponderosa pines around (which we love) and we get to enjoy this beautiful meadow. We often see a herd of deer grazing in the morning, or bedding down for the night. We're keeping a close eye out for fawns this time of year!

Those tree stumps are left from that long-ago fire.

And it's interesting that purple/blue are the wildflower colors for early June.

Will red, orange, yellow and pink show up later? Maybe...especially if I buy a packet of native wildflower seeds and scatter them through the meadow...


Another announcement is that Jack had a birthday on Saturday!

He's one year old now!

And Sam has discovered flies (aka, "sky raisins.")

How is summer at your house?

Jan Drexler is an author by day who is addicted to counted cross stitch and sauntering through the Hills with her dear husband and their puppies - goofy corgi Jack and growing-fast border collie Sam. You can find Jan's books and other fun things on her website: www.JanDrexler.com.

Searching for Spring

by Jan Drexler

We live in a beautiful place. I know! I keep saying that!

But it's true...

We went for a drive last Saturday, and we had three goals:

1) Get some fresh air. We aren't suffering too badly under the constrictions of the Corona Virus Pandemic, but when it's combined with bad weather, the four walls begin to feel a little stuffy. And we have plenty of fresh air when the weather clears!

Those are stacks of round hay bales. After two wet years in a row,
 the ranchers have plenty of hay to sell - even at the end
of the winter.

2) Find the spot in Buffalo Gap where the Black Moment happens in my new story. We found it - and it will work perfectly for the key scene. Of course, I could have created this spot in my imagination, but when it's already there, why mess with perfection?

3) Our third goal was to find some sign that spring is coming. We've seen some of the signs already - a couple robins, some meadowlarks, and bluebirds - but where is that elusive first glimpse of greengrass?

We saw some lovely and interesting sights....

Part of our drive took us along French Creek, into the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands. The bluffs along the creek were gorgeous.

The little guy standing to the right doesn't have an ear tag yet, so
either he's brand new, or his mama hasn't let the rancher
come close.

We saw a lot of new calves, and this beautiful Texas longhorn bull.

I don't think I've seen a more striking bull! You may be surprised to see a Texas longhorn in South Dakota, but they have a long history here. The South Dakota cattle industry was started by drovers bring herds of Texas longhorns north to feed the Black Hills gold miners in the 1870's.

He was big, too. We stopped the truck by the side of the road to get a picture, and I think he was expecting a hand-out. He didn't get one, though! I kept hoping the barbed wire fence would be strong enough to hold him in if he decided he wanted a closer look at us. :-)

But he just gave us a dejected look as we drove away.

Our road continued south through the prairie.

We saw a lot of pronghorn antelope. This herd was grazing near a stock tank.

Ranchers in the prairies make stock tanks (man-made ponds for cattle and horses) by building a berm across the downhill end of a depression. Water collects behind it and forms a pond. In good years, water remains there all through the summer.

We also saw a lot of abandoned buildings like this one. Most of them were built by homesteaders in the early 1900's, but then left them behind when the country emptied out in the "dirty thirties." The land is now owned by someone else, but the old buildings are left standing empty. This one has a barricade across the front door to keep cattle from wandering in and getting hurt or trapped.

So, the big question is: Did we find spring?

Almost. We saw some meadowlarks and those new baby calves. And there's the beginning of green tinge in the grass.

But as we drove through the mountains on the way home, we still saw plenty of snow!

I guess we need to wait for a few more weeks.

So, how is spring looking at your house?

Jan Drexler is an author by day who is addicted to counted cross stitch and sauntering through the Hills with her dear husband and their puppies - goofy corgi Jack and baby border collie Sam. You can find Jan's books and other fun things on her website: www.JanDrexler.com.

A New Story

Jan here, with a revelation.

We live in the West.

If I had had any doubts about that, they were completely erased over the weekend!

You see, I'm working on a new story proposal. This is Coop's story, the one I've been wanting to write ever since I finished "A Home for His Family" back in 2014. 

Justice Cooper, aka "Coop," was Nate Colby's friend and partner in "A Home for His Family." Coop had been raised in Oregon, descendants of pioneers who followed the Oregon Trail in the 1840's. When he teamed up with Nate, he was ready to put his roots down in the Black Hills - mountains that called to him. They weren't as remote and inaccessible as the Rockies to the west, but they were Home.

As this story opens, Coop is following God's call to establish a church in the town of Buffalo Gap, ninety-some miles south of Deadwood, in the middle of cattle country. At that time, Buffalo Gap was a rip-roarin', shoot-'em-up, first class cow town, on par with Tombstone or Dodge City.  

Today? It's pretty much a ghost town, just down the road from our house.

In 1885, it was the terminal end of the railroad and the shipping point for all the cattle raised in the Black Hills area. Texas drovers, bringing cattle north to feed the hungry gold miners in the 1870's had discovered a rancher's paradise - open ranges, thick buffalo grass, and prairies that spread as far as a man could see.

Into this wild and wooly town comes Abby Rose Slater, mail-order bride. Except that she conveniently forgot to let her prospective husband know that she was a widow with a young child, fresh off the boat from Ireland. When the prospective husband rejects her, Coop steps into the fray and saves her from her only other alternative: employment in one of the "sporting houses" in town.

Yep. You got it. Redeemed with the toss of a few gold coins, Abby Rose the rejected mail-order bride becomes Abby Rose, the bride in a marriage of convenience.

But there's nothing a mother wouldn't do for her baby, is there? Boy howdy.

My dear husband and I went on a research trip last Friday to explore Buffalo Gap and the surrounding countryside. It really doesn't take much imagination to go back in time one hundred thirty-five years and see this area through Coop's and Abby Rose's eyes.

I don't know when this spur was last in use, but it's about
where the depot and hotel once stood. The modern railroad
 is in the background.

The railroad still goes through Buffalo Gap, although it no longer stops.

The view from where the depot used to be still looks down Main Street to the Hills beyond.

We followed the old road from the town of Buffalo Gap through the Gap itself, just as Coop and Abby Rose did as he took her home to the ranch where he works.

The Gap is one of four natural entrances through the eastern edge of the Black Hills to the mountains beyond. For years, the bison migrated through here and the Lakota and Cheyenne who lived in the area followed them. The native tribes also cut their lodgepoles here to support their tipis. 

Cowmen (and women) still ranch here. In fact, folks live and work here much the way they did in the 1880's...with the addition of nicely graded roads and electric lines, of course.

What was that? Where are the paved roads? Pshaw. We left those behind back at the highway. We're in Ranch Country now.

Back in the 1880's and now, there are ranches in the Gap.

The road follows Beaver Creek as it winds between the hills and buttes into the interior of the Black Hills.

Then after a few miles, you come out of the Gap....

Beauty everywhere.

Everywhere.

How far can we see? In this picture, that red canyon on the left is about 1/2 mile from where I stood to take the picture. That peak on the right, in the background? That's the edge of Hot Springs, South Dakota. About five miles away.

This is the ranch where Coop brought Abby Rose. Will she survive in the Wild West? More importantly, will their marriage of convenience ever become a marriage built on love and faith?

Meanwhile, as part of my research I'm working on my sourdough recipes. I hope to perfect my sourdough biscuits to share with you soon. Old recipes are hard to bring up to today's standards, but I mean to try!

And Sam is still growing. He's almost eleven weeks old now, and moving into that out-of-proportion awkward puppy body. He's been too wiggly to get a good picture, but the other day he and Jack were snuggled together underneath my desk chair. A weird position for Jack, but they slept like this for quite a while.

Aren't they cute when they're sleeping?

Thanks for coming along on my trip! What is your favorite part of doing research?

Jan Drexler is an author by day who is addicted to counted cross stitch and sauntering through the Hills with her dear husband and their puppies - goofy corgi Jack and baby border collie Sam. You can find Jan's books and other fun things on her website: www.JanDrexler.com.