One of the neatest things about traveling for harvest is that it feels like I have several home towns.
I’ve become quite well acquainted with the local libraries, parks, and grocery stores. Perhaps I’m a little too acquainted with the grocery stores; I go about three times a week, and they ask me about my children if they’re missing.
Our trailer house is very large, nearly fifty feet long, but it seems to get smaller and the kids seem to get louder as the summer progresses. To combat cabin fever and to keep my children alive, we like to go out and do something in town most mornings. Today we visited the library. Most librarians, I have found, are more than willing to allow us to check out books, even if we are only in town for a month. In fact, the librarian here in Haskell recognized us when we walked in, even after being absent for a year!
Haskell also has a Dairy Queen, or “Fairy Queen”, as Gracie likes to say. It’s the only Dairy Queen we have along our harvest route, so we frequent it…frequently. We decided to go today after our library visit. Just because we wanted to. It’s nice being the adult, because if I want ice cream, then I go and get myself some ice cream. Oh yeah, I guess the kids had some too.
The crew was cutting all day today, so I cooked up supper and took it out to the field this evening, the kids watching Mickey Mouse on the van’s DVD player like a group of tiny, mindless little zombies. They watch a lot of movies in the summer. The menu tonight: ham and potatoes, salad, strawberries, rolls, and chocolate chip cookies.
I’ve said before that I make an awesome chocolate chip cookie, and I meant it. Seriously–I am patting myself on the back for this one. The rest of the meal is going to fill your belly, and will probably taste just fine. But those cookies… I tell ya. You’re missing out.
Calories
Fat
Carbs
Protein
Randi Beckley of Beckley Harvesting
10 minCook Time
10 min
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 4 cups flour
- 2 tablespoons corn starch
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 bag chocolate chips
Instructions
- Mix the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.
- Add eggs and vanilla.
- In separate bowl, combine dry ingredients and slowly add them into dough.
- Once dough is fully formed, mix in bag of chocolate chips. No, really, the whole bag.
- Refrigerate for 24 hours. This step is crucial.
- The next day, roll the dough into 1/4 cup balls. It will make your hands hurt because the dough is tough, but the cookies are worth the pain. Push through the pain, and picture those glorious, warm, gooey cookies awaiting you on the kitchen table.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, or until edges just begin to turn brown.
1. Be ready to go at the drop of a hat...sometimes without a lunchbox.
2. Has removed the word impossible from her vocabulary!
3. Can hold a baby, take care of a toddler and drive a tractor or combine all at the same time.
4. Must be able to cook for a crew - large or small.
5. Must be able to read minds.
6. Must be able to banter with a parts man until he realizes you DO know what you're talking about.
7. Must be the entertainment director for those rainy days.
8. Be a wife, mom, friend, helper, cook, problem solver, taxi driver or extra crew hand at all times.
9. Can handle the call that makes you react, "You need what? When?" Dropping everything you're doing to make it happen.
10. At the end of the day say, "I really do love this life".