Pumpkin Ginger Dog Biscuits

First frost Tuesday. The garden is mostly done. Worked at the construction company in Lexington this week. The body holds. Most days.

Connie at the vet clinic, four shifts this week. Her back is tired. She does not say so. I see it. Mama is 86. She is the toughest person I have ever known. She still cooks every day in the company house in Evarts.

Pumpkin bread. The freezer is full of loaves.

Travis called Tuesday. The landscaping company is busy. He sounds tired in a good way. Amber called Sunday. Things are good. James sends his regards.

The week held. The mountains were the mountains.

The dog — old Beau, fifteen years old — slept by the wood stove all afternoon Tuesday. He used to be a hunting dog. Now he is a heating pad with opinions.

The creek was running clear Sunday afternoon. I watched a kingfisher work the riffle. Did not move for an hour. Some Sundays the watching is the worship.

Connie made jam Saturday afternoon. Wild blackberries from the patch up the hollow. Twelve jars. The pantry is filling for winter.

Amber sent the kids' school photos this week. Nadia is taller every year. Marcus has Amber's serious face. Little Betty has Mama's eyes.

Travis sent a photo of Earl Thomas riding on the mower with him at a job site. The boy is wearing a Hensley Landscaping T-shirt that's too big. Three generations on a mower. I saved the photo.

Worked on a basement remodel job in Lexington. The work was good. The pay was good. The body is tired.

Drove to Pineville for parts Wednesday. The hardware store man knew me. We talked about the weather and the price of feed. Forty minutes for a five-minute errand. That is rural Kentucky.

I checked the truck oil Saturday. The mileage on this truck is criminal.

I sat at the kitchen table Tuesday night working on the recipe project. Mama's soup beans. I cannot get the words right yet.

My back was tight after the wood-splitting Saturday. Took an Aleve. Slept eight hours. Got up.

I went up to Earl's grave at the Evarts cemetery Saturday. Brought a beer. Drank half. Poured the rest on the dirt. Some traditions are mine alone.

Sunday service at Harlan First Baptist when we go. Pastor preached about Ruth and Boaz. The choir sang. Connie wore her gray dress.

Drove the truck to the dump Saturday afternoon. Saw three deer crossing the road on the way back. The mountains have been giving back this year.

Read the paper at breakfast Tuesday. The county news is not great. The mines have not come back and they will not come back. The young people leave. The hollows empty. We stay.

Connie cut my hair on the porch Tuesday afternoon. She has been cutting my hair for forty years. The barber in Pineville cannot do what Connie does, which is also love.

I sat on the porch with bourbon at sundown Friday. The fog rolled into the hollow the way it has every fog of every year. The porch was the porch. The bourbon was the bourbon.

Connie read aloud from a novel Tuesday evening while I worked on the bench. Some Appalachian writer she had picked up at the library in Whitesburg. The voice was the voice of where we live. We listened together.

The neighbor up the road — Old Roy, eighty-seven, lives alone — had a small heart scare. We took him soup beans Tuesday. Cornbread too. He cried a little when he ate. We all cry over soup beans eventually.

We had pumpkin on the mind this week — Mama’s loaves in the freezer, the frost on the garden, the smell of the season settling into the hollow — and I looked over at old Beau there by the wood stove and figured he deserved something out of the oven too. Fifteen years is a long run for a dog. He hunted hard for a long time and now he sleeps hard, and that seems fair. I found this recipe and it uses pumpkin, which we have plenty of, and the ginger is easy on an old stomach, which Beau has earned the right to have. You bake these the same way you bake anything in this house: with whatever time you have left at the end of a long week, and with some gratitude that there is still someone in the house who is glad to see you come through the door.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: About 24 biscuits

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour, plus more for dusting
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup canned pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons unsalted natural peanut butter

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat your oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or lightly grease them.
Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the whole wheat flour, ground ginger, and cinnamon until evenly combined.
Add wet ingredients. Add the pumpkin, eggs, and peanut butter to the flour mixture. Stir until a stiff dough forms. If the dough is too sticky, work in a little extra flour one tablespoon at a time.
Roll and cut. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll to about 1/4-inch thickness. Cut with a bone-shaped cookie cutter or any cutter you have on hand. Re-roll scraps and cut again until dough is used up.
Bake. Arrange biscuits on the prepared baking sheets and bake for 20–25 minutes, until firm and lightly golden on the edges. The biscuits should be dry and hard all the way through — that gives them their shelf life.
Cool completely. Let biscuits cool on the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. They will continue to harden as they cool. Do not give to your dog until fully cooled.
Store. Keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to one week, or freeze for up to three months.

Nutrition (per biscuit)

Pumpkin Ginger Dog Biscuits — For the Old Dog Who Earned His Rest