Ranch Wife's Slant

Category: Home Sweet Home

  • A Chilly Day for Comforting Chili on the Kirk Ranch

      This past Monday morning was a rude awakening, not just to freezing rain early in the morning that turned to sticky snow but plummeting temperatures. I had just spent a week at a writer’s retreat in Florida and thankfully, got home late Sunday night before the snow rolled in. The next morning it was…

  • “Homemade” Cereal–A Suppertime Staple

    At our house, we love our cereal, especially on nights when nobody feels like eating leftovers another night, I don’t feel like cooking, or I can’t think of something quick to fix and everybody’s hungry and nobody wants to wait to eat. Being distanced from town and out of store-bought cereal, sometimes this recipe comes…

  • A Mudroom Made of Old and New

    (Note: I tidied up our mudroom just for you. Normally it does not look nearly this neat, or have the floor swept up and clean. Knowing that I cleaned the place up a bit don’t you feel special?) Mud, dirt, manure, and bits of grain, hay, and gravel are all part of living on a…

  • A Perfect Afternoon for Book Reading

    I caught my husband Art re-reading parts of my book this afternoon after he returned from checking on our cows up at Pringle. Just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who’s shared posts on Facebook, showed an interest in, and purchased my first book, A Ranchwife’s Slant: Cowboys, Kids, and Ranch Life….

  • Let Your Home Inspire You

    Sometimes it takes leaving home for me to appreciate where I live. This happened recently when I went on a week-long writer’s retreat in St. George Island, Florida. I deliberately picked a retreat in a location that was totally opposite from the environment where I live, hoping to trigger my censor and become re-inspired as a writer when…

  • A Thing of Beauty

       photos by Amy Kirk  A lot of the pictures I take on our ranch are of our livestock, but this summer I’ve enjoyed seeing photo opportunities of our hay. As you can see we don’t have an abundance of these round bales sitting in our hayfield, but compared to last year hay crop these…

  • Preserving a Favorite Summertime Tradition

    One of the greatest pleasures of living in the country is picking berries and preserving them in jams and jellies to savor all year.  Nothing says a country summer like a therapeutic couple of hours walking around on sticky floors from making batches of wild berry jams. And there’s nothing more gratifying than opening a…

  • The Peanut Butter Pie Branding Day Tradition

    This past weekend we had our branding and much to my disappointment, I didn’t get to spend any time up at the branding corral. I had so much to tend to in the kitchen, the only time I was up there (it’s within walking distance from our house) was to bring coffee and cinnamon rolls…

  • Girlfriend Survival Kits

    When I have time, I like to make gifts for my friends either for Christmas or their birthdays. I enjoy giving thoughtful gifts from the heart but when I have a lot of friends on my Christmas list I want to give gifts to and can’t spend a lot of money for several gifts so…

  • Hankies and Bandanas

    Hankies are a necessary staple at our house. We have stacks of them and there’s one in every pickup and car. My husband and I also both carry one around in our coat pockets as well. The ones in the vehicles come in handy for other things besides blowing one’s nose into. They’ve become good…