The Things Farm Girls Do...

On Black Friday

It was a low key Thanksgiving weekend at the Starr House. You see, we celebrated the weekend prior when both my sisters were home. That meant spending Thanksgiving Day resting up and energizing for the Black Friday door busters. We aren't your typical hard-core shoppers. For us it meant getting up 9am and eating pumpkin pie & ice cream for breakfast. Because why not, it's still technically a holiday. Splurge one last time and have dessert for breakfast. Such rebels! We were fairly certain our Black Friday deal would still be there when we got to town. Where at? Wal-Mart. Best Buy. Target. None of the above. Stine's Garden and Gifts was where it was at for the Starr ladies and where we would brag about the best deal we got on...

Yep! $15 dollars a piece and the high school boy even loaded them in the bed of the truck. A STEAL! Why so many? Well, get this: None are the Starr Family Christmas Tree. These didn't make the cut to be "the one" in which we put presents under or sit by while watching Hallmark movies (FYI-- we don't really do that! :))

Once again putting the cows before ourselves. These trees are for in front of the barn. This wasn't all glitz and glamour. Only half the strand of lights were working and the second string was blinking. We had more extension cords out than what you'd need on show day. And of course they were found at the bottom of the show box in a tangle mess, completely stiff from the cold. COLD! Yes, we were cold, fuses were being blown, our lives were risked being electrocuted from changing out so many bulbs. Finally we removed ourselves from the situation and blamed it on the fact that maybe we were pulling too much power with the dryer going on the corn. Turning the corn dryer off wasn't an option, can you imagine how thrilled my Dad would have been the next time he went to check the moisture?! But hey-- we get so many complements from friends when the barn is decorated for the holidays. The thought crossed our mind to get the generator out. But that's where it ended. With blinking lights. Until the corn is dry.

 

It'll get done. Because when it is its' picture is going straight to Pinterest and everyone will think 'well why didn't I think of that'. And everyone will be running to Stine's for the Christmas tree deal, but wait oh.... that's right it was a Black Friday special and they'll all be paying full price! Totally joking.
Want to know the real reason we're the crazy people in BFE who decorate their barn? Because it make a perfect Christmas photo-opp for our Red Healer.

 What was the Black Friday door buster you bragged about today?
N.Starr

Pumpkin Pie Practice Run

Thanksgiving prep

I know I've mentioned this before but the Starr Sisters aren't the best of cooks. Our Mom is hands down awesome in the kitchen. And she made several attempts of passing her skills down to her daughters, she can't say she didn't try. Each summer we had to master a meal. Yes, from start to finish an actual meal that you'd serve a group of people. When she decided it was "that time in the summer", she'd search for us in the barn. We'd either be hiding or able to convince her Dad left us a long list of chores that needed to be crossed off before he got home on Friday. It was miserable. Miserable as in crying, screaming, blood on the cutting board and burned skin. All in which resulted in eating burnt food, frozen pizza or running in town to the local Drive-In. Mom came to the conclusion that she was just going to have really clean and well-fed show heifers. Instead she decided to focus on our strengths and teach us things like helping a cow calve, the importance of calves getting colostrum (mother's first milk) and fixing fence. Because those things are best learned first-hand. A complicated recipe could be explained over the phone.
As we get closer to the holiday's (and the spike of pins to Pinterest board we'll never use increases) some of us get a bug to be the next Becky-Homecky, a term us Starr girls use when describing the domestic types. Last Sunday I dug out the rolling pin and pie pan for a practice run at Pumpkin pie. How hard can it be the recipe is on the back of the can, right? Well, in my family we have a crust recipe and it fails every time I attempt it. It's not my fault though, you see it's a temperamental recipe. All the ingredients have to be added in a certain order and you can't stop in the middle of crumbling to call your sister.
All was going well this go around, mom was in the background "really busy on her iPad"; pretending to not really be in the room. The crust was made and into the greased pie pan. The hardest part was done, smooth sailing from this point. The filling was made, even added INSERT FAMILY SECRET HERE, and before I knew it I was proudly pouring the filling into the crust. Then mom says calming while making the upward swiping motion to catch up on her latest Facebook gossip. "You did add sweetened condensed milk, right?" Me, "WHAT?? AUGHHH How did I miss that!" Add in a few swear words, foot stomping and slamming of the spatula on the counter. The good news is, a Starr sister can always figure out a solution, probably because we've had to get ourselves out of so many bad kitchen situations.


Forgot an ingredient? Just stir it in when it's in the pie pan. Who knew this doubled as a mixing bowl!

Then the wait. Would it turn out? I sure hoped so because it'd be a dirty shame to ruin the beautiful crust that I concentrated so hard on.

Of course it turned out!

So Sunday night (and maybe Monday night :) ), I splurged and enjoyed a slice without any guilt. But let's just say it's a good thing a practice run was involved and that I'm not hosting Thanksgiving!