whats cooking in my kitchen

So not as exciting as my last post, but it's good.
I made some homemade Samoa cookies.
Time consuming? Yes.
Hard to do? No.
Worth it? Yes.
Delish? Yes!
Did I find the recipe on Pinterest? Yes!

So there you have it!
Have a great weekend all!

black bears..oh my

Yes please may we have some black bears!!! I just love bears. I find them wonderful and amazing creatures. I've had one right across the street from my house. I gotta say I'm glad he wasn't hungry for horse that night. My horse was going crazy one night, this was years ago when my husband and I were first married, and I was NOT a country girl at that time and creepers the things that went bump in the night out here! Yikes. Gives a girl chills! Not any more though. I love the back roads, no lines in the roads, the pot hole you swerve to miss and cringe when you hit a new one, no street lights, and the quietness you get in the country and the sounds of the night critters. Ah I love it, and am anxiously waiting for spring peepers...Anyways the bear across the street wanted my neighbors corn, not my beloved Abby.
But that is not what this post is about, that was a um, well, a little rabbit trail for you reading pleasure, and for you to get to know me a little better...
Any who..
My husband, son and father in law got to go on a once in a life time trip with the Boy Scouts. Gotta say I really wish I could have gone, but couldn't. Only 12 people were allowed on this trip, and I didn't make the cut. Hehehe. Now you are probably wondering what it was well it was this...

They were offered to go to a bear den with the biologist!! Every year they (biologists) go out and check on the bears. They are tracking some of them to see how the bear population is doing overall. They tranquilize them, weigh them, change the batteries in their tracking device, and check the overall health and well being of the bears. One of the biologists has been doing this for 31 years. And the bear den they went to was the den of a mother bear who he has been tracking since she was a cub! She is now 11, and they don't have cubs until they are 3-4 years old! How cool is that. Now he's got her cubs to track. What happened was she had only one cub. Then another bear had one cub and she rejected it (don't ask me how this happens since they are in hibernation when all this happens) and they put the cub with this other mother, and she is fine with it, and when she wakes up she'll have 2 babies. They called it a forced adoption. I find it all very fascinating. And slightly confusing, but all are doing well.

Here is mama bear weighing in at a healthy 200 pounds. She's soft and beautiful, and in a nice sleep for the safety of all concerned.

Here are the two handsome men in my life. Gosh I love them so much! Oh and don't over look the two wiggly, fuzzy bear cubs they are holding. I was told they were about 7-8lbs, soft, warm, healthy, wiggly and made funny bear sounds.  What an amazing experience for them!  They had to hike in about a mile on snow shoes to get to the den too. There was lots of snow! (The red tags in the ears is the tracking device).

Here is the den they live in. It's trees and brush with about 2 feet of snow on top of it. My son was way impressed with it too.
I had my son write a paper on what all they did that day and hope he always remembers this amazing experience. How often would something like this happen?! I'm so happy they got to go and do this together.
Have a great day all!!!

so this is my life...

So as I sit here and stare at the blinking cursor,  and try to think of something witty and fun to say I'm drawing a blank. I haven't even been on the computer for about 3 days now. I guess I'm still unplugged. Gotta say, it's been nice too. I've had days that I'm running from the time my feet hit the floor to the time I drop into bed and pass out. And then the flip side of all that is nothing. No fun blog posts.
Our maple syrup season is coming to an end and I gotta say it's been a fairly good run too.
 Maggie is doing well and getting bigger everyday it seems! She is drying off well. And we've had no bad side affects from it either, or rather she has not had any bad side affects. We'll be having a new little calf in May!!! Can't wait! With the time change and drying her off it knocked me off me feet. It would be close to 7 before we would sit down and eat, and then it seemed to be in shifts. Not together. And I hate that. I love to eat supper together as a family. The kiddos miss it too. It's not the norm around here. Family time is most important around here. I guess we have fallen into a new routine, that will only last a while, then life will shift again and we'll work it out again. Guess that's my life. Don't get too comfortable with one routine, before we get a new one! But I like it that way.
Sad to day that Dandie aborted her calf. She was about 2ish months along. She is doing fine and suffered no ill affects either. Not sure what the cause was. A bummer for sure, but I'm glad she's ok, and we'll try again!
We should be getting things ready to start some seedling soon!!!! Round here it's still too cold. Buurrrr I thought it was spring, but we got a foot of snow on the first day of spring and it's not been warm. At all.
We bought a disc mower!! Very excited about that too. Will make haying that much faster! Next up is a rake...still need a better one, but in time. We also bought a hay conveyor. That will make putting up the hay that much faster, and not to mention help the helpers that do it too! So thankful for those two pieces of equipment. Got them from an old timer farmer who was selling all his farm stuff. Retiring from the farm life I guess. But here the are!

The disc mower and the hay conveyor.  As you can see it's wet here too. Pardon the sad swing set. It's waiting to be thrown...this winter finished it off!

And a quart of our maple syrup! Gotta say it's gotten better over the years! I love the stuff. Looks good too! I'm thinking pancakes, waffles, ice cream, french toast...
Have a great day all!!!

i'm back..sorta

So you may or may not have noticed I've been MIA for a while. I have been unplugged! Hahaa

No blogging for me. I didn't have much of anything to say, well let me reword that, because if you know me I usually can find something to talk about, I didn't have anything I was going to blog about. I've been using my time otherwise. I'll let you know what I've been up too. Don't worry it gets better!

For starters I've been knitting the two baby blankets. One is done, the other is coming along nicely. I'm trying out a new pattern. I'll post a pic later.

 I've actually read two books too. Really good ones.  True stories at that! I love to read, but I'm the kinda reader that won't put it down until I'm done the book. I can read fast so that is good! Also the book has to grab my attention real fast and hold it. Oh and neither book was about farming! 

No I have not been successful at finishing all the laundry either, try as I may. Nor getting all the house work done, which I'm neglecting by sitting here typing!
My sister came over and we created something wonderful! I'll tease you with that and show you a pic later! But I'll tell you it was something sweet and pastry like!
And the kiddos and I have been banging out the home school days. I finally feel like we are almost to the home stretch! 

But something fun we have been up to farm wise is tapping, collecting, boiling, and finishing off maple syrup! It's a time consuming and sticky business, but we love it! The weather has been ok. Had some snowy days that were just a dusting, down pours of rain, and some really great days of sunny warm and cold nights. Which is what you want. Above freezing during the day and freezing at night. I've got some maple syrup finishing off as I type this. My husband is in the sap house boiling down some more! 

So here are a few pics to see of the maple syrup stuff we do!

Takes a little time to get this picture. The sap dripping off the end of the spicket! But I do love that!

 Some of my loved ones collecting sap! It started to snow while we were collecting.

 Some cows of a neighbors. Nice looking herd I think!  They were watching us with interest. Wondering what we were doing.

A shot of down the road. I liked the way it looked so here I show you. Nice quiet country road dontcha think?
Well I'll be back sometime soon! Have a great day all!