LadybugBrown Butterfy

White Flower

Yellow Butterfy

I took a short walk through the front pasture this afternoon.  Sunny, 68F and beautiful.  I saw 4 varieties of butterfly, a big black one, several small yellow, brown and an orange.  The yellow butterflies were working hard on some tiny purple flowers.  They were hard to photograph.

Purple Spring Flower in Feb

We were inundated by grasshoppers last year. They ate everything the drought didn’t kill.  The unwelcome signs of spring this year are several small grasshoppers in February.

Grasshopper in February

Harbinger of Spring

Robins on the ground and in all the trees. I thought they were blackbirds until a took a close look. Click the link to take a look.
Robin

Armadillo Day is a holiday celebrated on February second every year.  In the traditional celebration the Armadillo sticks his head out of the Armadillo hole and if it is cloudy he comes out in search of Lone Star Beer.  If it is sunny he retreats back into the Armadillo hole for six more weeks of winter.

The Texas Armadillo

The rumors of giant Armadillos crashing tractor trailer rigs are not true.  A normal size Armadillo can roll into an armored ball and when the tractor trailer rig loaded with Lone Star Beer hits the sacrificial Armadillo, the truck will jackknife and overturn, spilling its beer cargo for all to consume.

Since the manufacture of Lone Star Beer ceased in 2000, there have been no reports of overturned beer trucks.  The Armadillo population is on the increase as a result. The Lone Star Brewery in San Antonio made Lone Star Beer, known as the “National Beer of Texas”.  The brewery was built in 1884 by Adolphus Busch.

Armadillo is Spanish for “Little Armored One”.  The Nine Banded Armadillo (Texas Armadillo) is an ancient mammal dating back much farther than that copycat Ground Hog currently hiding in a hole, in Pennsylvania.  Since the Texas Armadillo has no natural enemies, other than beer trucks, he has expanded his original range from Texas to as far as Nebraska, Florida and Southern Illinois.  The Armadillo will soon appear in Pennsylvania to take care of this groundhog named Phil.

Happy Spring, Texas!

Driving down the country roads this time of year you will see them growing wild.  This usually indicates an old home place.  The house is long gone, but the daffodil’s mark the spot where the flower garden or fence line was.  Mine were planted in the 1930′s.

Blueberry pecan box cake

This is no lightweight.  Eight inch cake with four pounds of blueberries and pecans.

This cake was baked the old fashioned way in a wooden cake box we manufacture.

http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=3345254

Good Luck tonight Texas, We will be watching.

Texas Pecan Apple Pie Cake

8 cups pecans

6 apples

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ tsp salt

4 eggs

½ cup sugar

½ cup honey

DIRECTIONS

APPLES

Apples, peeled, cored and sliced into 16ths
2 T. unsalted butter, melted
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 1/4 t. ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Place apples, butter, sugar and cinnamon into a mixing bowl and toss well to coat. Place coated apples in a shallow oven-proof baking dish and cover tightly with foil. Place dish on middle rack in oven and bake 20 minutes. Remove from oven, carefully remove foil and stir gently to recoat apples with sauce.

CAKE

Sift flower, baking powder and salt over fruit. Coat fruit well.

Set aside

1. Beat eggs until foamy, slowly add sugar.  Add honey.
2. Mix everything together until well coated with batter.
3. Pack into pan
4. Decorate top with pecans.
5. Bake at 275F for 1 ¼ hours
6. Let cool 5 minutes, brush top with honey.