Winter Wonderland

I love where I live. I abso-freaking-lutely love where I live.

I think it is pretty close to being the most beautiful place on Earth.

And there are plenty who agree with me.

This morning the beauty was almost unbearable.

We had hoar frost this morning.

If you have never seen it it is amazing.

It's a crystalline growth that forms on trees, fences, twine everything that stays still long enough & up close it looks like millions of tiny ice feathers.

Glorious.

The whole world looks like an ice sculpture.

It forms on very cold very  clear nights.

So yes.

You walk outside & the air hurts your face.

But this is what you see...

See how it looks like feathers?

This is a horse hair.

Look at the blue of that sky. Clear & bright & blue, blue blue for miles.

I will take this over almost any other weather every day of the week & twice on Sundays.

11 Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it. 

12 Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them; let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.  Psalm 96: 11-12

Blessings.

A Mother's Lament

Tucking in my babies tonight we started talking about DP's bear "Peppy".

Peppy gets her name from the movie Alaska where 2 kids make their way thru the wilds of Alaska to rescue their father. A polar bear cub keeps them company along the way.

The bear is named "Cubby" but for whatever reason DP heard it as "Peppy" & that is what he named his bear.

She's also a brown bear instead of a Polar bear but let's not get bogged down in details...

So my sweet boy has this bear named Peppy.

 Peppy wears a pair of red little boys underpants. She used to have a little shirt as well but she shed that somewhere along the way.

DP used to bring her everywhere. She's been to Reno & to visit friends near Portland. To the Red Bluff Bull Sale and the Tulare Farm Show.

He used to send Peppy with his daddy when daddy went on business trips without us. And being the excellent daddy that he is, he always brought Peppy into the hotel room & sent pictures of her home to DP.

Even when his coworkers gave him a hard time about it he still did it to make his little boy happy.

DP is 10 now & Peppy doesn't travel with us much anymore.

And I'm sitting here crying like a sap because Peppy doesn't travel with us anymore.

My youngest is 7 & he still loves his stuffed animals & brings them out & about but it won't last much longer.

My mama heart is struggling with my babies growing up.

I know it has to happen.

I know I will like them as grown ups.

I have 3 grown ups already.

I just don't want to be out of babies.

Lots of parents complain about the younger years.

Heck I'm sure I've complained a time or 2...

But I love babies.

Love love love little chubby hands & sloppy kisses & speech impediments & tiny clothes & even traveling with a backpack full of animals.

I don't want them to outgrow it.

Can I turn the clock back just a few years?

Hold on to a moment in time?

I know I can't...

And I know I've written about this before. It's becoming my theme song...

Because it's my reality & I'm struggling.

It's a whole new world of uncharted waters.

And my boat keeps growing older.

Maybe someday soon I will have grandchildren to fill the empty baby spots but for now I'm going to hold on to my bubs & encourage them to be little just a little while longer.

And maybe Peppy & I will take a trip together somewhere.

Kiss your little ones. Hold them tight. Because if you blink you will miss it.

Blessings.

The Christmas Card Saga

Every year we send Christmas cards.

Which means every year we take pictures for said Christmas cards.

For the last several years we've had friends come over & I take pictures of their family & she takes pictures of mine.

We get everybody into coordinating outfits & threaten them encourage them to smile & stand up straight & not dork around.

And we pick 3 or 4 backdrops & several poses & then we take, oh, I dunno, maybe  12 million shots & we almost always get at least 1 or 2 that don't totally suck.

Because small children.

And, being the glutton for punishment that I am, combined with my PollyAnna tendencies I not only pose my kids but I add the animals in as well.

Because hey, what could possibly make taking photos of small children harder than adding in 3 or 4 dogs, a couple cats & an equine or 2???

But who can resist photos with puppies & ponies? Seriously.

After all, those are memories right?

Like this one here. The "before" shot...

Which led to this one which is absolutely perfect except for decapitating the dog. Darn it.

This is one of those squirrelly bob moments...

Which led to this one which ~ buy golly! ~ is a keeper!

Moving to a different spot & chaos ensues. See the crying child? Dad made him let go of his kitty. *sob*

But a few threatening encouraging words & we were back on track. Another keeper.

This is the one my daughter wants to use for the card. No. Just no.

I have no idea.

But this one is awesome.

A little too much enthusiasm going on here...

Recovery...

Chastisement...

Success.

Merry Christmas. Happy Hannukah. Joyeux Noel.

Blessings.

Election 2016

I woke up this morning to my 10 year old shouting "Hallelujah Donald won!" And giving me a hug.

He may have been a little caught up in the election process...

But the little boys & I still went to bed long before the results were in. And we had spent the day avoiding election coverage as much as we could.

As a survival mechanism I've had to keep this election process on the periphery of my life. For the last 2 years (rolling eyes) I have tried to keep it arms length.

Not because I don't care but because I care too much.

And the ugliness of politics starts to reflect off my soul if I get too involved. So I have to not get too involved.

So the 64 Million Dollar question (reference to an ancient television show. I'm sure you can google it.) this morning is "How do you feel about the election results?"

Technically **we** won. I voted for Trump. But was he **my guy**?

No.

Early on in the election process there was a candidate who was very much **my guy**. For the first time in a looooonnnggg time there was a candidate I believed in. One I thought would be a great choice not just the lesser of evils.

But, sadly, he didn't make it through the primaries. That took a lot of wind out of my sails.

The election went from having such promise to being something to be feared.

So am I elated this morning? No.

I am sobered.

Am I relieved? Yes.

Am I thankful? Yes.

To be honest, the other candidate scared me.

Not because of the title "democrat" or "republican" because I am neither.

But her vision of what America should be is frightening to me.

Her utter lack of reverence for life is horrifying to me.

So I am exceedingly grateful this morning that God did not raise her up as our leader.

I am saddened too.

Saddened by the choices we gave ourselves.

Saddened at the lack of respect & honor within & for the office of president.

Saddened at the lack of respect & honor our once great country receives from the outside world because of our choices.

Saddened at our fall.

I do not think Trump is a bad man. But he is brash. He is foul mouthed. And he is on his third marriage. Not attributes I look for in our Commander in Chief.

It is my great hope & prayer that he will be an excellent president.

That he will bring our greatness back.

I love my country.

I am thankful I was born here. Born free.

But we need revival. We need to turn our faces back towards God.

We need to become a God fearing country once again.

We do that thru prayer.

I pray for our new president. I pray the Lord will use him to restore our country.

I pray for revival.

I pray we will become a Christian nation once again

I pray you will pray with me.

God Bless America.

Blessings.

The Story of Soup

Today was a soup day. For sure.

Rainy, dark, cold & blustery.

A good day to read & make soup.

So we did.

Lot's of soup.

Our cupboards and freezers are looking pretty bare these days.

It's been a long time since we butchered anything. And  I haven't run the canner in a while.

And since we make everything (mostly) from scratch when the freezers & cupboards are bare dinner starts to look darn near impossible.

I cooked up a HUGE ham hock the other day & picked most of the meat off that to go in some cheesy potatoes for dinner yesterday.

Then I threw the ham hock back in the crock pot with water to make broth.

So this morning I picked & strained that, added beans & onion & put it back on the stove until it simmered thick & yummy into ham & bean soup.

That was 2 (count them 2) full meals from a ham hock.

We also had a package of beef short ribs in the freezer.

Since nobody here is extra fond of short ribs I boiled those down into lovely broth. Strained & picked that this morning. Added in carrots & onions & split peas & lentils & tomatoes & boiled up a huge stock pot of beef veggie soup.

I have 7 jars of that in the pressure canner right now & enough still in the pot for another batch.

It will be nice to have some meals basically ready to go in the cupboard again.

Now I just need to make a big batch of the ham & bean soup to can. And some chili. And then the cupboard will not be so bare.

As for the freezer we have 40 some chickens waiting for a sunny day to die.

And the hogs are going on the 1st.

It will be fabulous to have pork again.

And we have a calf we will turn into hamburger & soup bones in a few weeks.

So the freezer shouldn't be empty much longer.

We also have about 7 rabbits almost ready.

And 2 turkeys (Thanksgiving & Christmas of course).

And I've been thinking about pre-mixing some of our most used baking recipes to save time & make it easier for my 7 year old budding pastry chef.

I'm thinking biscuits, pancakes,muffins, chocolate chips cookies... maybe fritters & some quick breads.

That might help breakfast to get on the table a little quicker.

If I put enough time into having things ready beforehand it is almost as simple as just opening a box or a can like most folks do.

Why don't we just do that you ask?

Well. Partly because it's important to us to know where our food comes from.

And partly because my husband has some serious health issues & many many prepackaged processed store bought foods have additives & ingredients that make him very sick.

So the easiest way to make sure he avoids those is to make pretty muchly everything ourselves.

But most of the time the food we make tastes better than what you can buy anyway so it all works out in the end.

Right? Right.

Plus I get to see how many meals I can get out of 1 cut of meat. It's like a game...how far can we stretch these bones?

Yeah I know. It's a weird housewife/farmwife thing...

Blessings.

Divided

I've been saying for awhile now that we, as a people, are too stupid to continue much longer.

Everyone laughs, ha ha, and agrees in a joking manner.

But I'm not joking. The levels to which we have fallen in such a short amount of time are mind blowing.

Compare our current political & racial climate to 15 years ago.

Unrecognizable.

Discussing it with my husband it isn't even what you could call hypocrisy. It's abject stupidity.

A lack of knowledge.

I have 2 specific matters that are on my mind right now. These matters serve as examples of discordance in our society.

I am not holding one or the other up as a good or bad so please don't read this & think you will take away an accurate picture of my political thoughts or views because you more than likely won't.

The current Trump outrage has me thinking.

I have not listened to the tape that has everyone in an uproar & I don't plan to. From my understanding he was a disgusting pig in word & deed & I am not defending him in any way.

But some of the loudest most wildly offended parties to this are  women of a liberal leaning.  Women who "object" to being "objectified".

And I have some issues with this.

I'm just going to bring up one recent event which received much coverage by the media & was all over the place with photos & videos & interviews.

The University of Texas, in Austin, had 'activists' who are against a persons right to carry a concealed weapon, stage a protest to "carry meat not heat".

Their protest consisted mainly of pretty young women walking around holding large plastic penises, commonly known as "dildos" while they smiled & posed for the camera & proclaimed their stance against gun violence.

Everything about this protest was designed to be sexually overt, in your face, shocking & offensive. And by walking around fondling giant plastic sex organs those young women OBJECTIFIED themselves.

They made themselves a sexual object in the eyes of everyone watching.

And that was okay? That was funny? That was light hearted & free speech & those of us offended by it are just stodgy & need to get with the times?

Yet those young women & others like them ~ with the same ideology, the same belief system~ are the ones crying out the loudest about Trumps dirty mouth.

So let me get this straight~ it's okay for them to make themselves a public spectacle of a sexual nature but not it's not okay for anyone to notice or call them on it or respond in kind?

Welcome to America in 2016.

Now again~ I am not defending Trump. I am not saying speaking about women as sexual objects is okay.

I'm saying it's BEYOND hypocritical to put yourself out there as a sexual object & then cry foul when it comes home to roost.

I know many many women who do NOT put themselves out there as sexual objects. They dress modestly. The behave modestly. They have decorum. They are ladies.

These women have expressed offence & outrage at the words on that tape.

I know many men who would never speak like that about a woman. Or anyone for that matter.

They express offence & outrage. From these sources it rings true & honest.

From the young women fondling the giant plastic penises? Not so much. From the people who listen to certain music types where filthy language, violence, sexual abuse & just plain nastiness IS the common thread of the that genre?

It rings empty.

Yet if you call them upon this hypocrisy, this complete inability to follow rational thought, you will be met with outrage & anger & accusation.

I'm not even going to visit my second example in this post. I can barely stomach what I have covered.

As a people we are lost. We are discordant & in a word, stupid.

You doubt me?

Look around you.

Look at our choices for President of the United States.

Our once great nation is joke.

We are crumbling from within.

Just as the saying goes: United we stand. Divided we fall.

We have never been more divided.

Politically.

Racially.

Religiously.

Something to think about.

Blessings.

Autumn

I was recently chastised for not blogging enough...

So here I am. And I'm thinking I really do need to blog more. If nothing else it's helps to get the words out of my head & it gives some place to put things I may need to find again.

I had to take some pictures of the goats to put on Craigslist so I took a bunch of a random pics of the garden & some of the animals & my pumpkins.

(I love pumpkins. I adore pumpkins. And all things pumpkin related. Bread. Cake. Muffins. Cookies. Pancakes. Pie. Sigh. Now I'm hungry...)

We've had almost a full week of freezing nights so there was no saving the garden. I had to face facts & call it a season.

I was really really wanting more time for the pumpkins & the tomatoes but, alas, it was not to be.

I picked all of the green tomatoes I could & put them in boxes to ripen. And I picked all of the pumpkins that had hardened off enough & artfully piled them about as decorations.

Very few of my pie pumpkins ripened so unless I can glean some from someone I won't be processing any this year. We keep the big ones & the gourds around to look pretty until Thanksgiving & then we feed them to the pigs & the cows & the chickens.


I got lots of beautiful Cinderella pumpkins this year but no bright orange ones. They all came out a creamy yellow. Cross pollinating with some of the squash would be my guess on why.

It was kind of a rough gardening year. We had a hard frost in the middle of June which bit back the tomatoes & took a big chunk out of our 90 day growing season. It wiped out the cukes & the peppers.
Then just as everything was getting a good start we had another hard freeze in the middle of July.

So all in all I'm pretty pleased with our harvest.

The cabbages & kale did great. Beets were so so. I have more turnips & carrots than I can shake a stick at. Potatoes did well. Onions were a little puny. Green beans did well. Tomatoes were pretty sad. I'm pleased with my pumpkins & sgetti squash.

We're working on pulling up all the plants to feed to the animals.

We've had a good barter year. We traded a heifer for several ton of wheat hay. We traded a butcher hog for several ton of oats. Which is all good because the animal inventory on the farm keeps expanding.

We have 2 milk cows, 26 calves, 8 hogs, 6 goats, 18 rabbits, over 100 assorted birds, 3 horses, a donkey, 2 dogs & 4 cats.

Holy moly.

Thankfully more than a few of those are slated for the freezer before winter sets in.

We have our personal wood cut but not split & stacked. That is something the boys work on after school on nice days. We're hoping to get enough cut to sell some this year.

Winter is staring us down & we still have much to do to be prepared & ready for it. Still lots of general clean up & moving pipes & equipment to safe places where it won't get lost or damaged under the snow. Some fencing repairs & barn fortifying needs to happen.

Chickens need to die. Calves need to get sold. Pigs need to get fat. The rest of the veggies need to be stored away.

I love autumn. It's definitely in my top 2 seasons. I think winter beats it though. Snow trumps all.

I hope you've enjoyed this farm update!

Blessings.

Fall 2016

We decided to take advantage of the ripe wheat & the beautiful fall skies & take some pictures. 

They could technically be our "First Day of School" pics because, well, it's our first day of school...

But since I didn't make everyone hold up signs with their grades on them I think we'll just not go there.

So how about Fall 2016 pictures? 

That works for me...

I started with the boys & I took about 472 pictures of NJ with his eyes closed. 

He would not keep them open.

He would step out of the frame, be bright eyed, smiley, all good. I would turn the camera on him & those babies would slam shut. 

I gave up. 

This is the best shot I have of them.

At least it's a 'realistic' pose...

This girl here is easy to take pictures of. 

A) She's gorgeous

B) She keeps her eyes open

This is the best of the 3 of them. (Look! NJ's eyes!)  No smile on DP though...

This guy here was dream to photograph. Very photogenic as well.

Yippy ki yay.

Blessings.