More Highland Games photos by Author Nancy Lee Badger

As I mentioned in a previous post, hubby, son Eric, and I attended the recent Loch Norman Highland Games in Huntersville, North Carolina. It is held annually about three hours southwest of Raleigh and just north of Charlotte at the Rural Hill Historic site. Since I am soon releasing a new Scottish historical novel, I took tons of photos and am sharing a few here again, including my favorites, the turning of the caber and the  Highland cows.

                                                    Turning the caber 

(aka a telephone pole-sized log!) 

And yes, that is a woman doing it!

Wrestling: all ages, girls and boys...

Throwing the stone. Yikes!

A large and really authentic historical village,

from the Pics to the Continental Army Scots.

Click here to watch a little of the

SEVEN NATIONS Concert

And my cover model... Bubba!

This year, travel more and try experiencing a Scottish festival! 

This EARTH DAY Read ebooks!

Earth Day comes around every year, but have you done anything to celebrate? We planted a new dark pink azalea bush and will soon trim the bushes to get them ready to re-bud for next year.

 I took this photo of one of the 

more mature azaleas in our garden

Not into gardening? An easy suggestion to save trees is to use your Kindle, Nook, Phone, etc. to download ebooks. They are less expensive than paperback or hardback books. Need ideas? Here are a few...

AMAZON

AMAZON

AMAZON

AMAZON

Happy Earth Day 2022!

Nancy Lee Badger

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Highland Games are Back! Photos by Nancy Lee Badger

Hubby, son Eric, and I attended last weekend's Loch Norman Highland Games in Huntersville, North Carolina. It is held normally annually about three hours southwest of Raleigh and just north of Charlotte at the Rural Hill Historic site. 

We watched a blacksmith create tools

and weapons over a hot air-fired furnace.

We attend the Loch Norman Highland Games every year EXCEPT in 2019, because my dad had recently passed and I was too busy helping mom in Florida to think about the games. The games were canceled in 2020 and 2021.  

The rock band SEVEN NATIONS was awesome!

Taking a chance to attend these games was fulfilling, especially taking photos of the historic encampment site AND of my favorites...the Highland cows. 

Recognize 15 year old Bubba? 

I used his image from about five years ago

 to make my book cover for LOVE, HAMISH

More to come, or you can check out my Facebook page HERE!

Thinking About Chocolate! by Author Nancy Lee Badger

I admit that I think about chocolate all the time. Is there anything so delicious? The price of everything is skyrocketing. We need to buy cautiously and get back to baking and cooking from scratch. Delving into my recipe box (yes, us older folks still keep files with recipes written on index cards!) I found the following:

Nancy's Homemade Cocoa Brownies

1 cup butter, melted

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups sugar or equivalent sugar substitute

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs

1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Look what I made!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray bottom of 13 inch by 9 inch pan. Melt butter and add to electric mixing bowl. In another bowl, mix together cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. To the melted butter in the mixer bowl, add the sugar and vanilla and mix on medium until smooth. Add eggs one at a time and mix 2 minutes until well blended. Slowly add the flour mixture. Beat until smooth. Add nuts (optional) and mix well. 

Spread in the pan and bake 30 minutes. Knife inserted should come out fairly clean or until brownies pull away from sides of the pan. Cool. 

Grab a glass of milk and a book and relax. Find all my available books HERE and check out a few suggestions of books by North Carolina authors I know: 

Amazon 

Amazon 

Amazon 

Enjoy the spring weather and keep safe. Someone I know and love came down with Covid recently...it is still out there!

Nancy Lee Badger

Why I have Stopped Writing

APRIL FOOLS! 

I cannot stop writing. Whether it is a blog article, a poem, a letter to a friend, or my next novel, I seem to bubble up with stories that need to be put to paper (or in my case, typed into my laptop). Here is the plan:

*Finish writing the sequel novella in my Clan of Dragons series

*Continue editing and formatting my Clan of Dragons 5 book series into a Boxed Set to release in early July.

*Finish formatting and make a cover for my currently untitled medieval Christmas tale coming out November 1st in a multi-author Boxed set

*Finish the ending, then format and create a cover for The Rogue's Ring, the third and last book in my Treasure Tales series to be released in Early January 2023

*Continue to collect and set-up author craft-based articles for the FFandP Blog

*Create Friday blog posts for the rest of 2022 for this blog

Other than this, I am a retired person who keeps writing and working toward creating a nice retirement for my husband and me. So, please check out all my books wherever you purchase books, or click on my Book Page HERE for buy links and don't miss the latest releases.

Eagerly awaiting the second booster,

Nancy Lee Badger