Recipe For Gingerbread

I made this recipe to share with our Civil War ladies at our recent event.  It went over with  a big hit. If you are like me and enjoy a good tasting gingerbread, I hope you'll give this recipe a try. I will say you wont be disapointed in the flavor or the texture. I found this recipe while searching Civil War recipes on Pinterest. I just love Pinterest.

Alice Carlisle's Gingerbread

Gingerbread was popular among soldiers in both the North and South. Wives like Alice Carlisle often baked and sent loaves of this spicy bread to their husbands in camp, and when hospitals had the ingredients, they baked this for the patients who could eat it.

Ingredients:

- 1 TB butter
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 1/4 cups molasses
- 1 egg
- 1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 1/2 tsp. allspice
- 1 cup very hot water

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease a 9″ square baking pan with the butter. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, soda and spices, and cut in softened butter to the flour mixture with a fork. Combine molasses, egg and water in a small mixing bowl. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir well. Pour the batter into a baking pan and bake 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Makes 9 servings.

*Recipe courtesy of Total Gettysburg

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Every day there is something that makes me smile, take notice, and be content with our choice to live in the country.
Besides the wonderful breezes we get daily that sound like ocean waves when blowing through the trees and the birds chirping and the squirrels running around looking for nuts, there are always lots of critters that come out to explore. This year we have had our share of hummingbirds galore. There have been up to seven on one feeder. I was able to catch a few of the little guys in action.

 

 

 

We are never without the presence of a deer or ten around here either.

Here momma and her babies stopped by for a drink. The doe around here seem to have a lot of twins rather than just one baby.

Our girls finding time to get wet.

 

Our old man, Taz, taking a siesta.

And last but not least, sunsets that take your breath away.

 

 

 
I'm just loving the country life and counting my blessings.
 

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Fruitless

Where has all my time gone? Mostly laying around and recuperating from my surgery. Although this past week I am finally able to get out and about my yard and boy am I discouraged from what I found.
For some freak, unknown reason I have no fruit growing on any of my trees, my blueberries or my strawberries. I'm dumbfounded. We did have a strange infestation in April with caterpillars on many of the bushes in these huge webs they had made. I soon found out they were bad for the plants. So with brushing them off and spraying them, I managed to get rid of what I could. I just don't know if they had already done the damage to everything. At least I don't think they did. I'm beginning to think it is a lack of bees in my area. Even with all my many flowers, I'm not finding bees anywhere around here.
This really scares me. I mean how are we to self survive if I cannot even get fruit on the trees? I know that one could self pollinate by hand, but that looks like more work than this old lady could handle.
Has anyone else had this problem? I really don't know.
Maybe this is God's way of telling me that I am not to overdo any kind of gardening this year, heal my body and things will look much better come next year. At least that's what I'm going to keep telling myself. Next year will look much better.