Missing In Action

Well, our dear and beloved rooster has gone missing. The last sighting of him was on Saturday and nobody has seen hide nor feather of him since then. We do have our suspicions as to what has happen. On Sunday my DH found a skunk under the red barn on the other side of our property. He went to kill it but discovered it was already dead, (and might I mention it was well fed.) It wasn't until yesterday that we made the connection between the rooster missing and the skunk. I'm sure going to miss that friendly rooster but at least I know he went down with a fight.

This past month and half hasn't been so good for our chickens. Two were found dead in a watering trough and one had to be taken care because it was eating all the eggs. Sadly we are down to 4 hens, so you can bet on the fact we'll be getting some chicks this Spring!

On a completely different note we hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We sure did. It was a great time to spend with family and friends not to mention all the yummy food we got to eat.

Now we are looking forward to the New Year and all that it has to bring!

A Winter Waterfall

The other day my DH got off work early and took me up into the woods to show me a breath- taking sight. It was almost unreal to see the touch of frost and ice in such a small area. Pictures really don't do it justice. It was an amazing sight!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Oh and by the way, I thought 19 was cold well the last three days its been around 10 degrees in the morning with the high sometimes getting to 20. Brr!

Current Weather Conditions

At 7:37am the temperature reads 19 degrees with clear skies. The expected high is 32 with tonight's low of 15. Chilly!!!! Believe me I have the fire roaring and will be very bundled up before I take the doggie for a walk and break the ice on the animal's water! Sure is different then S.C.

Time for Change

Well, I think its time to up date some of the blog pics and background. With the ground freezing outside and the weather prediction of possible snow I think its time for the fall leaves to go. The last three days it has frosted so hard that the ground looks like its been dusted with a small amount of snow. Yesterday my sis-in-law and I took advantage of the frosty morning to get a few pictures. I have to say its hard to capture the beautiful the frost. It's so magical and delicate. One has to almost be there to experience it but here's the best I can do with pictures.

This is before the sunlight shines on the grass.

And after...check out the frosted tips!

We sure had fun! Thanks again AJ!

Introducing...

but before I go any further I know many of you will be surprised at what our new pet is. It's not something one would expect me to have. Let me clarify this pet is really JB's. It was given to him by a friend and now makes it home with us. I can't tell you how excited JB was when he told us his friend wanted to give him his pet. We talked about what all it would entail and on Saturday we went over and picked it up.

Let me introduce to you Titan, JB's Bearded Dragon

Titan is a 3 year old lizard that is 19 inches long (including his tail.) His meals consists of six meal worms and a few crickets each evening. He really is a very calm lizard and only puffed up slightly the first time JB picked him up.

Here's Titan's home. Right now his cage is on the floor in the family room until the guys come over to hoist the cage upstairs.

So there you have it, our new family member, Titan.

A Wonderful Busy Two Weeks

It is hard to believe that two weeks have past. So many things have happened that its hard to know where to start. At the begin of last week while my DH was elk hunting I spent the week at my family's home. Oh what fun we had. There was a lot of talking, laughing, eating not to mention sisterly goofing and shopping. It was also wonderful to visit with friends I hadn't seen in almost a year!







And while I has enjoying my time with my family my DH was having a wonderful time with the guys elk hunting and I'm excited to say he was very successful. He killed a 5 point bull elk on opening day. He spend the next two days packing it out of canyon. My DH's elk is the one of the left. The other two elk were killed by a son and his father. And the birds are grouse which they ate and also brought home some of the meat.






















The Monday of his return we cut and packaged all the meat. My DH and bro-in-law have been doing this for most of their life. I was the newbie! We set up folding tables in the kitchen covered them with butcher paper and began the process. DH rinsed the meat, Mar (bro-in-law) cut the meat, and I packaged and labeled it all. It took from 7-11pm to get it all done! It was only about 200lbs. of meat.








Then to add to the excitement of our week back it was last week of deer season. Both JB and I had tags so every evening we went out hunting and hardly saw a thing. On Friday my DH took the day off of work and we spent the day hunting and saw nothing except other hunters.





Both of us were disheartened and were looking forward to deer season being over but we wanted JB to have one last chance to go hunting. We picked him up from the B & G club at 3:30pm, 10minutes later he spotted a deer outside of town and he got it. It was a spike with little button antlers. JB was so happy. A smile stayed on his face all evening! He helped DH gut and skin the deer. He is going to keep the head and tan the hide!





And the week doesn't end there. On Saturday we added another animal to our household. We added a....well, I'll just save that for another post! :)

A New Flower Bed

Back in June my DH and I came up with a way to help disguise the "lovely" power pole that the previous owners had placed in very awkward spot in the backyard. It stood out like a sore thumb so we thought if we incorporated it into a flower bed it wouldn't be as noticeable. I've taken my time with this project and even now I still need to put down more bark dust and plant more flowers but I'm going to wait until spring. My mother-in-law was a great help on this project! Here is a few pictures of the project!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Oh and I want you to know my sister didn't even notice the pole the last time she came to visit. She actually had to go outside and look to see if it was there! Goal accomplished!

Iced Coffee

While my sister was out visiting she made a batch of iced coffee and I have to say after that I had the bug make some more. Well I did a little searching and I found a great Iced Mocha recipe at allrecipes.com . My DH really likes this and I have made it quite a few times since finding this recipe.

Iced Mocha
1 1/2 c. strong coffee
2 c. milk
1/4 c. chocolate syrup
1/4 c. sugar

Freeze coffee in ice cube trays then blend ingredients in the blender.

I don't freeze the coffee instead I just add 3-4 ice cubes. I also recommend that you don't use all the sugar as I found it to be a bit to sweet.

Enjoy!

Fall

The signs of the season's change are here...

~Dark by seven

~Frost on the grass

~Flannel sheets on the beds

~Carhartt jackets out of the closet

~Wood on the front porch

~Leaves to be raked

~Soup for dinner

~Fire in the fireplace

Ah, yes fall is here!

The Last Views of Summer

My dear hubby and I went out for dinner last night and decided to enjoy the last few warm sunny days before the coldness of Fall and Winter set in. Here is the view we had from our table.

Grape Juice

This last week I've been working on grape juice. Our dear neighbor allowed us to pick his grapes and with the help of my mother-in-law we have canned quite a good amount and there are still green grapes that aren't quite ripe yet.

Oh, and we did finish painting the carport/shop. The only picture I have of it painted was taken through a rainy window but it at least gives you an idea of what it looks like.

Corn and Painting

Yesterday was a fun day of picking, shucking, cutting, and freezing corn.

Make a Smilebox photobook

Plus I also prepped the shop/old carport for painting and managed to get one side painted. I hoping to get the other two sides done today but we'll see. Here's what it looked like before...

From Our Garden

After taking this picture I felt like I had my own produce stand! We had apples, tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, potatoes and our first cantaloupes of the season! It sure is exciting to see the garden growing.

So what did we do with all the garden goodies...my sis and I made applesauce, pico de gallo, dill pickles, dried apple rings, fried potatoes, and of course ate the yummy cantaloupe!

A Happy Flower

About a week ago JB came back from my DH's job site with this beautiful sunflower that he had found along the side of the road. He wanted to bring it back home for me to plant in the yard. It was a cute sight to see this tall sunflower plant sitting between the two of them in the pickup cab with my DH's sweater shirt wrapped around the roots to keep them moist.

We transplanted it into the front yard with only one flower blooming and waited to see. At first it looked very sad and wilty but several days later it took on a new life and now it had many beautiful blooms.

Thanks JB for the beautiful flower!

Just Peachy

Canning season is in full swing and last week my mother-in-law and I got into peaches. We spent two days plus I spent a third day canning. After picking 200lbs of beautiful peaches we dug right in and canned 45 jars of peaches and 21 jars of peach pie filling. Not to mention about 8 pints of jam, two fresh cobblers, some smoothies, and of course we had to eat a few fresh ones ourselves! We had a lot of fun but by the time we finished two days of canning we were ready to be done with peaches at least for now...

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Check it out!

Check out what my bro-in-law got to do for his birthday! He was completely surprised by the gift and had a blast doing it. (My apologizes ahead of time as the quality of the video isn't great because I was taking it with my camera.) Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The Garden

Look how the garden is growing! Yummy, Yummy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

A Fun and Busy Week

It is hard to believe the week is almost over. As I was out on a walk this evening I reviewed all the activities of the past week and I have to say it has been a great week!


Monday day wasn't to exciting as I did laundry and grocery shopped but in the evening my DH and I had a wonderful dinner of Tuna steaks, yellow squash (fresh from the garden), and french bread with a yummy olive oil/herb dip. We enjoyed the nice quiet evening, eating our dinner out on the deck.


On Tuesday I went out to the back field and picked blackberries and made 5 pints of jam, plus I made 3 1/2 quarts of applesauce from the apples a friend gave us! They both were very tasty!



Wednesday I went down to my in-laws and my sweet sister-in-law and I hung out and did some cooking. I canned salsa with tomatoes and onions from our garden. My sis-in-love canned beans and made fresh salsa! We were going to make pies but my DH, JB and I had to go pick up a few calves. We did make it back to my in-laws after prayer meeting were my sis-in-law fryed doughnuts while I glazed them. They were sooo good! It reminded me of going out for donuts with my dad. We might start a tradition with this!!!!



Thursday morning I discovered that Callie has met a friend in the night and even though she is a friendly dog this new friend didn't take to well to her. Her friend was a skunk. I know I should have expected it sooner than later but wow, was it a scent!! JB and I gave her a bath in tomato juice, which made her white fur turn a slight shade of pink!



When my DH came home he gave her a second bath! Poor Callie girl. She hasn't been in the house since then!

I also had a very new experience as I cougar watched with my DH and JB for about 3 hours that night. My DH's cousin had a cougar attack and kill their pet goat the night before and it continued to stay around the property. My DH's cousin and his wife stayed up most of the first night watching for it but never saw it. Since my DH has a cougar tag he spent several hours the next night watching for it and JB and I tagged along. We never saw anything and we found out the next morning that the cougar had been back sometime after we had left. Who would have thought a year ago I would be doing that!!!



Friday was a fun busy day as I swept out the shop and added the wood shavings to the chickens' nesting boxes. Then JB and I picked 2 gallons of yellow plums, 1 gallon of strawberries and about 1/2 gallon of blueberries. Of course we ate a few along the way! :)



Today I made strawberry jam and I'm going to try a new recipe and see if I can make strawberry-lemonade concentrate! That will be tasty to have.


We also spent a good few hours of the day catching cows. Though I have been told that the cows are typically more afraid of you I still get fairly nervous when one starts running towards the gap that I'm guarding! If anyone would have seen us trying to corral those 4 cows they would have been laughing. The first 2 cows only took us 45 minutes to get caught and loaded into the trailer. The other two were quite a pain to round up. We tried to get them loaded in with the first two but one wouldn't be caught and the other one went into the chute and then broke through part of the fence to get back into the pasture. We came home dropped the first two cows off and went back when the owner had brought the other two into a smaller fenced in area. It then took us close to an hour and a half to get them loaded into the trailer. Though it really wasn't that fun I did get the giggles watching the cows go in every direction but in the trailer! We finally got them in and what a relief that was.


The next thing that happen makes me just laugh. Once we got the animals all dropped off I went to check on how the 4 pork steaks were thawing. I discovered meat bees all over the bag and only 1 pork steak in the bag. Apparently Callie had gotten into the bag while we were gone and had eaten all but 1 steak! One can only laugh and quickly switch to plan B which turned out to be hamburgers!


Looking back, I can say it sure was a fun and busy week! :)