One Liners... Ü

 Boo Boo

 Special Agent

Naval Counterintelligence

Code named. . .  Cobra Kitty


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To Die For... Stud Muffins!

I got the recipe for the above *stud* muffins featured in my slideshow from allrecipes.com   but they're not called stud muffins in their recipe... I wonder why? *shrugs* Oh well... I've only made one adjustment to the ingredients and that was adding the oatmeal to the topping. Oh wait, I did use 1/4 cup Demerara Cane Sugar in the topping, you know, the chunky kind so the topping would be exta sugar crunchy... Yum!
Oh okay... one more bit of advice! It says to fill the muffin cups right up to the top but I have found that it is better to leave room at the top and fill it up with topping that way it holds it in place and you can fit more as we all know that the topping is the best part!


To Die for Blueberry Muffins


Ingredients
(muffins)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh blueberries
(topping)
1/2 cup white sugar (1/4 white sugar and 1/4 demerara sugar)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter, cubed
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
(I add 1/4 or so of oatmeal because, you know, it's healthy! heh heh heh)


Directions


1.Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.


2.Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.


3.To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork (I used my pastry cutter as it was easier on my hand than using the fork), and sprinkle over muffins before baking.


4.Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.




Music created by Jason Shaw. “Jason Shaw @ audionautix.com”

The Lord Gives

A week ago, we had something raid our bantam chicken coop. It killed all but 2 hens and the only reason those two hens survived was that they were not in the coop at the time.

So altogether, we lost 2 hens and 4 roosters.

The Lord gave...

and the Lord hath taken away...

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

But then. . .

Hehehehe!

The Lord decided to give back again!! Ü

Mike went out to feed the goats this morning and discovered why this hen at least was not in the coop with the others last week!!

She had been hiding in the pen with our Nigerian bucks.

Moses seemed to know to be very careful. . .

The other itty-bitty-chickies are saying hello to Moses too. . .

or perhaps telling him to stop eating their food is more like it!

So here is the whole family on their first ever outing... our newly hatched and extremely cute and peepy fluff balls!

And of course Moses too!

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Before and After - Photo Editing

I was going to post up a picture that I had taken recently but thought that in the process I would also show you how awesome and fun photo editing is! 

I find it so exciting to take a good picture and then transform it into a great one... So here goes!

I will start by showing you the original (straight out of the camera) and then my final result after.

I took this picture  this past Sunday of a grandfather and his grandaughter at Huck Finn day.

Such a sweet pic eh? Ü

But I am freakish with two things when it comes my pictures and one of them is spots and the other is backgounds. I am rather obsessive when it comes to anything that distracts the eye when veiwing my photos.

I slapped my forehead when I saw this as I realized that I neglected to change the aperature (from the f/9 I had it at) to a lower f-stop which would have made the subject more the focal point and the background more blurry (blurrier?).

The other thing that stuck in my craw was something I really had no control over and that was the obnoxious red stroller behind the table.

But alas... all was not lost!

I imported the picture into photoshop CS5 and cropped it in close to an 8x10 and got to work on that background!

First, I rubberstamped the offensive stroller out of the picture... (Whew, I'm feeling better already!) 

Then I selected the part of the picture I wanted blurry using the Lasso Tool and then used the Lens Blur tool under the Filters tab and... Viola' instant blurry background!

 

Of course then I cleaned up the spots, like the food on the girls face and the pencil stuck behind granpa's ear (what was up with that?)

Also I took the buttons off his shirt... why? because they bugged me, and I could, so I did! hehehehe

I'm feeling soooo much better now!

*Sigh*

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Oh Holy Cow!

Guess what we have in town?

It's Holy Cow Ice Cream!!

There is this quaint little shop down the street and around the corner from where we live that many, many moons ago used to be a General Store, but just recently has been transformed into the sweetest little ice cream shop!

And on the sign above the door it says it is 'a heavenly experience' and I believe it has to be true because aren't these chairs just devine?

I wanted to sit in one of them but I wasn't feeling celestial enough... sweaty actually as I had been working outside all day which made coming here all that much more blessed. Nothing like a cold ice cream after a hard days work! Yes Siree! I was ready for it.

This is only a partial list of the scrumptiousness that awaited me inside...

There were several sizes and varieties of deliecious cones to choose from.

I opted for the maple walnut in a waffle cone and I highly recommend it too, it was yummy!

The Farmer of the DELL's ordered this tantalizing brownie sundae.

And Webster had vanilla with M&M's

He said he really liked it!

Oh Holy Cow... hallowed be your ice cream! And bless all those little angels who partake of it!

So, hurry on over and have some for yourself... really, you need to because I don't want to be the only one imbibing in these devinely raptuous delectable deserts!

C'mon, Look! They are waiting to take your order right now!

I told them to be expecting you. And if you tell them that Bountiful Blessings Farm sent you... you might just get an extra cherry on top... or something... but then again... maybe not!

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