Mary Jo

Found on Ancestry, May 6 1975, Oxnard, California.

Day Twenty Eight

The look out.

Day Twenty Six

Today was another soggy, dreary day until after 4 when the skies started to clear.  The sun came out and  brightened everything for an hour or so before it set behind the rock quarry for a gorgeous sunset.  George says the rain gauge had a little over 2 1/2 inches over the last couple of days.

Tomorrow is the end of the work week and I always leave work at noon on Friday, so I will probably live through this week.  We are going to have the babies this weekend.  Maybe it will turn off sunny and bright Saturday and they can play outside.

Day Twenty Five

Helen's Cinnamon Rolls

4 cups milk

1 cup Vegetable Oil

1 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon Salt

2 Packages Yeast

1 teaspoon baking powders

1 scant teaspoon baking soda

5 to 8 cups of flour

margarine, sugar or brown sugar and lots of cinnamon

Pour milk in large  bowl and heat about 4 minutes in microwave

Add oil and sugar, heat in microwave 2 or 3 more minutes siring to dissolve sugar

Let set till cool

add yeast to 1/4 cup of baby bottle warm water with a teaspoon of sugar, stir to dissolve

stir 2 or 3 cups of flour, salt, baking powders and soda in a large bowl

add to flour mixture to milk mixture and mix till smooth

add yeast mixture

stir in flour till you get a stiff dough

turn out on floured board or counter and knead till it feels like good bread

place in greased bowl, turning to grease top of dough

let rise till double or refrigerate up to 1 day 

divide into 2 or 3 parts

roll out one part at a time to a large rectangle

spread margarine over dough

sprinkle with sugar and lots of cinnamon

cut in slices and place in oiled pan

let rise till double

bake at 375 degrees till light brown

frost lightly with butter cream frosting

eat

Recipe can be halved if this is more than you need.

I made these to take to work tomorrow, but mostly because I wanted cinnamon rolls.  I had to search around for the recipe because I could not remember where I put it.  So, with it here, I will know where to find it next time.  I usually do not use a recipe and this one is simple and easy to remember except I had forgotten how much milk to use.  I really like it for making regular rolls for holidays because you can do the hard part the night before and just take it out of the fridge 60 to 90 minutes before you plan on serving the meal.  I used it at Christmas and it worked great with much less fuss than bread usually causes.  I think the secret is heating the whole thing to really dissolve the sugar.  The oil is what makes it work well with storing till the next day to finish.

I have not had a dough  board for 30 years.  I have always used the counter top for making bread.  My new counter top made a really nice dough board, until, it came time to slice the rolls.  Huto, I can't use a knife on my new counter.  I sliced with a case knife this time.  I guess I will have to look for a dough board.  I wonder if they still make such things.

Also, I have several other pictures of parts of me making the rolls but this is the only one with my entire head in the picture.  George is picture challenged. 

Helen thanks for the recipe and thanks for the pictures.

Day Twentyfour

Today was Mama's birthday.  Ninety One years ago.

It was a beautiful day.

Not much news.  Had beans and cornbread for supper.  It was really good.

Day Twentythree

Another stone in Pickens Cemetery. Frances and Truman are buried in the Rudd plot but they are surrounded by Jesse Powell's family.

I did not take any pictures today.

  It was a nice day for January 23.  Maybe we will not have any winter this winter.

I have been reading.  I tried to read a book by the football player that was on the shipwreck off Tampa Florida where three of his friends onboard died a few years ago but it was way too depressing.  Now I am reading Arabian Sands by Wendell something or other.  He was an Englishman that crossed the desert of southern Saudi Arabia  in 1948 with the help of nomads from the Bedu (Bedioun) tribe.  It is really interesting.  The area is called the Empty Quarter.  I had never even heard that name for a desert.  He writes about the desert, plants and animals but mostly he tells about the people and their way of life.  He had a very high opinion of the Arabs in the desert which is unusual for a modern day writer writing about a primitive people.  Within a decade after his exploration, the life he writes about of the nomads of this desert had largely vanished.  They had lived much the same existence for centuries, protected from civilization by the harshness of their environment.   Motorized transportation, both land and air, took away that protection.

George says he sees a bunch of deer outside.  They are mostly does and babies we see now, but occasionally he says he sees a buck.  We have a heard of a dozen or more that hang out within  a quarter to half mile of our house all the time now.  We enjoy watching them.  I can't tell anymore which ones are our Mama and the twins.   All summer they would come out of the corner where the dogwood tree is almost every evening.  Now, they all hang out in the woods to the right of us on Dan's [the woods he bought from Daddy].  It is odd that I do not remember ever seeing a deer on this place until fifteen years ago or so.  I wonder what the difference is from when we were kids.

Day Twentytwo

This was a hawk up by Barnhill's place.  The electric pole is the one in front of the Gibbs house.  Grandson was here and was driving so I had time to take pictures.  

It is a  beautiful day today, temps in the low 50's but the wind is howling.  We saw our herd of deer this morning.  First in the pasture over by Clayton then down by the salt block on our side of the road.  We saw at least 8.  We enjoy having a large herd of Mamas and babies.