An Inch

We had quite a storm last night that dropped almost an inch of rain on our dry thirsty fields. We were all very thankful. We may get more rain tomorrow, we have a 45 % chance in the morning and then a 60% chance in the evening.  The weather was not oppressive on the walk, in fact it felt refreshing. The rain cleared and cleaned the air.
Sarah and Nolan came today with their two girls. Little Eden crawled over and climbed on Emma then was very pleased with herself.

That is until Emma sat up and dumped her on the floor. Emma is very tolerant of kids climbing all over her.  Almost everyone ended up at the lake today, enjoying the sunshine. Karin took out two groups today for horse back riding. The first group left at 9:30 am and Addyson got to join in that group.

 Diane took today off work and had Irelyn and Crew come over for the day with their dog Coco. They got to ride the 4 wheeler then went out on the second trail ride of the day.

After the ride mom taught Karin how to make delicious strawberry pie from scratch. Karin shared a piece with me and I only ate a few bites so I could share it with Mark tonight.

 Today is Mark and Anna's birthday so I worked on a birthday dinner and made prime rib, sweet potatoes, salad, peas, rolls, buttered mushrooms and sauteed onions. After dinner we sang Happy birthday to them and served cake and ice cream. Everyone enjoyed the dinner.

I started this meal at 9:00 am by taking the rib roast out of the fridge so that it could become room temperature in plenty of time for the cooking. Next the butter mixture was made to slather all over that roast and that included salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme and a few other herbs. The eggs were hard boiled for the salad and a pound of bacon fried, some of that was used for the salad, the grease was used to saute the onions and once those were done the mushrooms. The sweet potatoes were baked and done by 1:30 pm then the oven was preheated to 500 degrees. This rib roast was just a bit over 10 pounds so once the oven was at temp the roast was placed in the oven for 51 minutes then the oven turned off and the roast left inside the oven. The oven door was kept closed for 2 hours. The sweet potatoes were peeled and smashed with a little butter, salt, cinnamon and a sprinkle of brown sugar on top then put in the microwave to heat up just before serving. The salad was put together, the peas were cooked, the onions sauteed, the mushrooms buttered then sauteed then the roast taken out at 4:55 pm and sliced. It was perfect! melt in your mouth tender, medium rare with a wonderful flavor. Everyone enjoyed that meal. This meal took pretty much all day to make and was devoured in about a half hour. Now I know what mom used to complain about. All that time cooking and right after the prayer the fruits of her labor were gone in a flash. Of course cooking wasn't the only thing done today. I also got 4 loads of laundry washed, dried, folded and put away. The transport company called to arrange to pick up Ayanna Sunday morning early. All the paper work was filled out and made ready. The vet clinic was called to get the health papers on-line so they could be printed out. She will need to be brought over here Saturday night and given a bath then stalled to keep clean.