It's here

The fall colors that I wrote about last week being so slow in coming are finally here! If you look across our backyard you can see the most beautiful fall colors in the woods that borders the corn field. They are not quite at their peak...but they sure are pretty.

Although the colors are nice...the weather is still unseasonably warm. It was 70 yesterday and will be in the mid 70s today...what's up with that? No, I'm not complaining....I love doing fall work in short sleeves!

The galloping gourmet was at work on Friday...this was so funny! I had to use up the roast beef that was left over from Monday so I made some beef stew on Thursday, it was wonderful stew, but not very thick. Everyone knows stew is always thicker and better the next day. So on Friday morning when I was getting ready to head to the draft horse show for the day, Bobby, the gourmet chef that he is, commented "If you put that stew back in the crock pot and add a little brown rice it would probaby thicken up nice and be great for dinner today."

"Great idea honey!" Taking his suggestion, I put about 3/4 cup of brown rice in with the stew and knowing how the rice would soak up all the liquid in the stew, I added a little more water and some beef stock. Happy that I had dinner all prepared, I headed off for a special day with my daughter and mom.

When we got home, Jake had set the table and warmed up the sweet potato casserole, so all I had to do was make the coffee and put dinner on the table. I opened the crockpot and much to my surprise the rice had multiplied and soaked up every drop of liquid in the pot. It was stiff and difficult to stir. With Bobby sitting right there not saying a word, I commented, "Boy, I guess that rice really soaked up the stock...I guess I added more rice that I thought I did."

A bashful grin came over his face and he said in his southern drawl, "Well, at noon when I came in, it didn't look like it was thick enough so I just honked the rice to it to make sure it'd be thicker, guess I added too much, huh?"

I looked at him and in my fit of laughter, I just said, "Yeah, I guess you did!" We put it on the table and as we thanked God for the food on the table, I silently thanked Him for that BBQ turkey sandwich I enjoyed at the horse show!