Describe

It's dark. The air feels crisp, clean and a perfect 75 degrees. With the soft, cool breeze comes the sound of rustling leaves and swaying trees and further out I can hear the hooves of five or six large horses chasing each other around on the hillside just outside of our camp sight. I also hear the crackling and hissing of our dying campfire. I look up at the sky and see millions of stars shining bright and the biggest orange-colored moon I've ever seen. Just below, I see the glowing embers of what was a raging campfire just moments before, and it sends sparks into the air every now and then. The trees and galloping horses in the distance are beautiful silhouettes against the deep dark blue mountain sky. I look over at Michael, who is sharing the raw tree-branch bench with me next to the dying fire, as he takes another gulp of his fresh lime margarita and finishes with an "ahhhh". I've never in my life felt so relaxed, so happy. I feel honored to have such a beautiful world to explore.

Touch

I feel the loose dirt under my boots and I feel my spurs wiggle and spin with each step. I feel the wetness dripping off of my cold beer. I feel a clean, warm breeze blowing on my face and I feel the moisture of the clouds as a storm rolls in. I feel barbeque sauce drip down my hand and I feel the crisp yet soft bun on my fingertips. I feel the heat coming off the fire and I feel the roughness of the bench formed from raw tree branches on my palms and the backs of my legs.

Smell

I smell the mustiness of a storm rolling in over the mountains. I smell meat cooking and I smell the campfire that's cooking it. I smell the beer I hold in my hand. I smell horse manure and sweat, but it smells great. I smell a multitude of foods coming from the kitchen in the eating hall and I smell sweet tea and lemonade that my kids are drinking.

Taste

The air tastes fresh, crisp and natural. I can taste the rain that is coming in from the South. I taste the spiciness of barbequed pork and crispy, creamy coleslaw on a homemade country wheat bun and I wash it down with an ice cold beer, crisp and sharp. I can taste the smoke coming off of the fire, which is blowing in my face and tastes like freedom.

Hear

I hear hundreds of hooves against the loose dirt. I hear cowboys and wranglers, "Whoa!" "Heeeyyyy now" "Good boy, Barney" "Y'all ready to go?" I hear the laughter of children playing horseshoes in front of their cabins. I hear the long blades of dry grass rubbing against one another as the breeze picks up. I hear meat sizzling and grease popping over the campfire, which is hissing and crackling. I hear glasses clinking together on the patio outside of the bar and a group of middle aged adults say, "To getting away!"

See

I'm on a dude ranch in Colorado. I see mountains against a beautiful blue sky, big fluffy white clouds moving slowly away. I see horses grazing on the hilly pastures. Some are eating grass, others are running, and a few are on the ground under the trees. the trees, mostly pines, are swaying in a gentle breeze. There are cowboys in the corral next to the brick red stablehouse saddling up a few horses for the a family about to head out on a day trip through the mountains.

Lemon Pound Cake

   Growing up my mother used to make this incredible lemon poppyseed pound cake with a sweet lemon zest glaze. It was seriously life-changing - moist and dense and sticky on top from the glaze, which was my favorite part. I could sit down and eat the entire cake. Of course back then it didn't really matter if I did things like that as back then I had metabolism, something I've seen no sign of myself having for a few years now.
   Tonight is our bi-weekly family dinner. We follow a rotation to determine who hosts on which weeks and I always bring dessert. Something - I'm not sure what - jogged my memory several days ago and I have been dying for a piece of Mom's lemon poppyseed pound cake. After having two c-sections in two years I've had to start really watching what I eat and, because I'm doing Weight Watchers I calculate the nutritional values of everything I eat into Points. After calculating the points for my mother's pound cake let's just say it's not practical in any sense for me to bake this caloric monstrosity if I want to continue not being fat. So I converted the recipe into a Weight Watcher friendly version and I'm about to give it a go!
   Here is my converted recipe:

1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp of salt
1/2 cup light sour cream
1/2 cup applesauce, unsweetened
4 TB butter, softened
1 TB lemon zest
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp of vanilla
1/4 tsp of almond extract
2 TB lemon extract
1 large egg
3 egg whites

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Combine flour, salt and baking powder in large bowl, whisk until thoroughly combined.

Cream butter, sugar and lemon zest together. Add eggs. In a separate bowl mix sour cream, lemon juice, applesauce and extracts. Mixing well after each addition. Add to sugar mixture.

Stir dry ingredients into wet, mix until just combined. Do not over-mix.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45-55 minutes.

For Lemon Glaze add lemon juice to powdered sugar 1 tsp at a time until desired consistency. Glaze cake once when it comes out of the oven and once when completely cool.

   It's a nasty, cloudy morning, still early for my fella so the house smells of fresh coffee. It's beginning to heat up outside so the house is beginning to get stuffy. Before I begin I will open all the windows and let it that cloudy, pre-rain smell that I love so much on a beautiful Spring morning. Upon beginning this process, my first instinct is to smell the lemon extract. I could drink it if I didn't think it would knock me straight over. It smells sweet and sour, not at all bitter. It's a very natural and clean smell. I wonder if I could just put this awesome-smelling liquid in my wax burner and make my whole house smell like a Springtime Heaven? I realize as I'm setting everything up that, as usual, I forgot to set out the butter to let it soften. Shit. I microwaved it on 50% and it seems to be just soft enough. Now I realize someone used all of my sugar and failed to tell me. Fantastic. Guess I'm running to the store. I'm beginning to think this is not going to go as well as I had hoped.

   Let's try this again. I've got all my ingredients ready. The oven is preheating - 5 minutes and 49 seconds until it reaches 350. Turning on some Miranda Lambert and I'm getting to it. While separating the egg whites from the yolks I noticed that every egg I pulled from the carton had double yolks. I've never seen an entire carton contain double yolks. Very weird. It took two whole lemons to get the amount of juice and zest that I needed and I managed to zest the entire side of my left hand while zesting my lemons prior to juicing them, which was total torture to my freshly skinned palm, but oh my goodness, the smell! It's fresh and summery and absolutely heavenly! I now have all of the ingredients mixed in their separate bowls and I'm preparing, along with my helper, to combine them all together to get my batter.

   Now that all of the ingredients are mixed together the batter looks almost identical, minus the poppyseeds, to my mom's pound cake. The smell is nearly intoxicating - smooth, sweet and a little sour packed with fresh lemon aroma and a hint of almond. The color is a lovely butter/lemon combination and the batter seems to be the perfect consistency. Thick, but not doughy with tiny little slivers of lemon zest. Time to pan it up and pop it in the oven.

   Now it's time to wait. Fifteen minutes in my house is already filled with this enticing aroma. While baking, the mixture smells much more buttery than the batter did. I could literally eat an entire stick of butter, so this smell is torture. It's going to be almost impossible to wait nine hours to eat this concoction of the Gods. I'm thinking my mother is going to cook something not so Weight Watcher friendly tonight, so I'm rethinking my powdered sugar glaze as I will be eating bad and drinking a gallon of wine and I doubt I need the extra calories. I've just opened the fridge and noticed I have a carton of blueberries and a carton of blackberries. I love the combination of lemon with berries so I believe I'll make a black and blueberry sauce sweetened with Splenda to top the cake instead. This will be "free" on the Weight Watchers program since fruits contain no points and it will lower the points value a bit.

   I bought the berries I'm using five or six days ago, so I have to pick through the cold, moist berries to pull out the ones that have softened a bit too much. My hands are sticky from the small amount of juice that had gathered at the bottom of the cartons of berries. I've pureed the berries together with my immersion blender and added the Splenda, but there's still something missing. To make the sauce better compliment the lemon cake I've added 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice and a splash of diet cream soda. It is perfect. It has a pretty deep purple color to it and the little blackberry seeds suspended in fresh fruit make it look extremely appealing.

  
   I have 17 minutes left until I can pull the cake out of the oven and the smell has become completely unbearable. The combination of butter, almond and lemon smells like a heart-attack in a pan. I took a whiff of the berries while leaning over the oven where the cake is baking and the two smell absolutely divine together. I think I made a good choice in substituting for the glaze.
   Finally, time's up! As I pull the cake out of the oven, the heat burns my chapped lips, but smells divine! I'm tempted to jump right in the pan and eat my way out of this incredible pastry. The top of the cake is perfectly brown, has a beautiful crack down the middle where the better has risen and it is firm to the touch. I can tell just by looking at the loaf that it is super moist and is going to be delicious. I'm very excited to eat this! I may just skip dinner and go straight to the wine and sweets! (Don't tell Weight Watchers.)