the moon on the day after Christmas

I didn't get any of the full moon on Christmas. The first one on Christmas day in 38 years, and I missed it! I've never even see one! I forgot all about it actually. I was kinda bummed. But then I saw the moon last night!

Last night while the moon was coming up my husband and I were off getting hay. As we were driving down the road it looked like there was a huge fire off in the distance. The moon was behind the clouds and just starting to peek over the hill and was still behind the trees, but the sky was lighted right up. Oh how I wished I had the camera! But I didn't. We got the hay we needed and went back home. Once we pulled in the driveway the moon was up and was looking huge. I had my son get the camera and I snapped a couple of pictures. I thought they came out kinda cool looking.

I zoomed it in a bit more and moved to get the shape of the trees in front of the moon. Kinda haunting looking against the black of the night.

I then zoomed the lens out and snapped another one. More black and less shadow of the trees.
I didn't photo shop these either. These are the original. 

Have a great day ya'll!

a muffin dilemma

OK. So I didn't get any pictures of the chocolates  that we made the other day. But! I will tell you we made Needhams, gotta have those, peanut butter balls oh yum, Oreo balls oh my, and pretzel candy cane kisses that is what I will call them. I didn't make as many as I have in the past, I didn't make my Reese's squares either. And I hate chocolate covered cherries. Yuck. So much for that. We did have a good time making chocolates and then eating them. I didn't even make egg nog or chex party mix. Much to my shame. LOL. Just kidding. I'll make them on another day. Ahem. I hope to.
My week before Christmas was a blurrrr of activities and getting stuff done, and even last minute shopping. I will say that Christmas day was so great! We took our time, did chores and then went about our day visiting family! It was no stress to rush and well, just an enjoyable day. I hope ya'll had a great day too.
But on to the baking that I did today actually. I got a new muffin tin! I must confess, I love muffins. Fresh and piping hot from the oven with butter melted on top,  as do my family members. Blueberry tends to be my favorite. They are big eaters. And to bake and cook takes a lot of my time. Good thing I love to cook. Although I do have those days (few and far between) where all I see in the cupboards and fridge are ingredients to made into something! Ever feel that way?!
But onto the muffin tin. I have a stoneware pan that I just adore, except when I have to wash the thing....when I forget the paper muffins holders, ...but it only makes 12~
What is wrong with that you ask?! Well it's only 12 and that means I need to make a second batch to feed the hungry family, if I'm only making muffins for breakfast. That means that is only 2 muffins each. Not nearly enough to feed the brood. So when I opened up my gift from my sister and saw a 24 hole muffin tin I was excited and couldn't wait to make muffins. I feel like I've used the word muffin 100 times already.
So today I actually had time to bake. Since I don't really feel like doing too much house work today, baking sounded like more fun.
So I made...

Blueberry muffins for breakfast! Oh yum. There they are! All 24 of them. 20 minutes and I had a double batch of standard size muffins! Rather then taking 40 minutes to get breakfast cooked and done with, it only takes 20!  I told my husband I was getting efficient!

Then I made 24 banana muffins. I'll freeze these for a breakfast later next week probably. Banana are probably my second favorite in the house.

So there you have it. My muffin dilemma solved.

Have a great day ya'll!!

Merry Christmas

My family wanted to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas from our farm to yours!

To everyone celebrating at home!

 To the soldiers who are off protecting our country. Thank you for your sacrifice and service. We appreciate you, and your families. May you be returned safely home.

Have a blessed day!

so this happenend

Yup. That's right! 8 pounds of powdered sugar!!!

I had to laugh when the cashier asked me what was I going to do with all this sugar?! I smiled and said I was going to make homemade candies with it. He said who does that? I said I did with my kiddos!
Which started a conversation about cooking. Now I love to cook, and get to do lots of it due to a large family with large appetites! 
So anyways I will be making candies with the kiddos this week. I'll be sure to snap some pictures of the candy making fun and share it with you as you drool over the candy. haha

I take my candy making seriously!

Have a great day ya'll

good quote

"Why do farmers farm, given their economic adversities on top of the many frustrations and difficulties normal to farming? And always the answer is; "Love. They must do it for love." Farmers farm for the love of farming. They love to watch and nurture the growth of plants. They love to live in the presences of animals. They love to work outdoors. They love the weather, maybe even when it is making them miserable. They love to live where they work, and to work where they live. If the scale of their farming is small enough, they like to work in the company of their children and with the help of their children. They love the measure of independence that farm life can still provide. I have an idea that a lot of farmers have gone to a lot of trouble merely to be self-employed to live at least a part of their lives without a boss."

Wendell Berry, Bringing it to the Table: On Farming and Food

friends

We all need a good friend in life. And we never know what that friend will look like. :)

Here are some unlikely friends. T.O. the horse, and Minty the sheep. They share hay and T.O. gives Minty a scratch on the back sometimes too! They have been friends since T.O arrived on the farm.

Have a great day ya'll!

the blade

Well since putting in the hay bin for the cows, we have come to realize how much they poop in the same spot where they eat. I mean we knew they did, but three cows eating and pooping in the same spot while they happily munch on hay, makes for a lot of manure in one spot! Since they are in the area near the barn it needs to be cleaned out. Regularly. Like a free stall it's wet and soupy. We also realized we don't want a free stall. So my husband has been using the bucket of the tractor to clean out the manure. We don't have  cement pad in front of the barn, only a gravel pad the bucket has been digging up the gravel every time my husband scrapes it down. Or all the manure doesn't get scraped up because we need that gravel there.  And that is just a mess. Gravel isn't cheap, and it's not being delivered any more until spring time. So what to do? We've made the bucket work but we started to look around for a blade. Meanwhile I had no idea what he was talking about when he said we needed a blade. So he told me it was something that would scrape down an area and do just what it was made to do. And showed me a picture. Oh. Now I know.
 They had some at a supply store, but the quality wasn't what we were looking for. We tried the tractor store where we have bought equipment, and they didn't have any in. So online we went. He found some of the brand he was looking for. Woods is the brand he wanted. They have a good reputation and hold up.
Well he found one. About 21/2 hours away from where we live! That's a haul. So the other day, off he went to get it. I was unable to go due to a previous engagement.
Well when I got home that night he had hitched it onto the tractor, with the help from our son and used it! What a fabulous thing the blade is! Yay!

Here it is. 7 feet long! Scrapping the poop time!

Liquid manure. Before.  About 4 inches worth. Plus we've had rain. So that only adds to it...

My handsome hubby :)Ya, I think his tractors sexy ;)

Well here it is. Mmmm hope your not eating breakfast with a weak stomach ;) Haha But really this is wonderful. It's scraping the gravel pad clean and not digging it up! All the manure is being pushed away!

Here is a picture from the next morning after scraping. The girls slept in the barn due to the bad weather...See we have some snow. Yuck. I've been enjoining the mild winter and no snow to be honest. The girls are out and standing on a cleared gravel pad. Eating their hay!

 Here is another picture. Happy cows. Happy life.

Have a great day ya'll!

are the cows out???

Living on a farm makes for an interesting lifestyle. Especially when the cows go into heat with no bull around. Well, some cows are totally obnoxious and others are not so bad.
The other day we were gone, and I knew Suzie was in heat that morning by her behavior. But I had things to do. So we left. When the kiddos and I got home that night Suzie was not in her pasture with the steer we have. She was, thankfully, in with the big girls. She was hanging out with them.  Well we managed to get her in the correct pasture and I fixed the fence she took down, and plugged it back in. But she just decided she wasn't going to stay  put where she was supposed to be, but go where she wanted to go! Through the fence, again! I had my son go get the fence tester. I love that fence tester. Such a good investment. Well come to find out the fence was only a .2 charge. OK. So that was why Suzie just walked through the fence with no problems. Well after wrestling with her for a while in the dark I got my fingers in her nose to keep her head still so I could slip her rope halter on. She has a chain around her neck, which is normally fine for her, but not when she's in heat! I wanted a little more control! I got her in her barn with the other two young heifers and shut her in her stanchion for the night. Phew! That done and knowing she wasn't going anywhere I could look for the fence problem. We still had all the chores to do and my husband was working late at the mill. So the kiddos and I looked for the down fence. Well it wasn't down anywhere. I ceased my looking and started milking and while I was milking I was thinking about where the problem could be. It's great milking cows by hand. You have time to think in the quiet and enjoy the sounds of your cow munching on grain, the gurgling of her big belly when she's done, the slurping of her tongue on her water pail as she drinks, and the warmth of her body on a cold winter night. It's in that time my brain slows down and I'm just able to milk and let some of the stress of my day go.
Well as I milked I was thinking, and had my son check a few things because he was done milking by then. All was plugged in and working and the charger was ticking. I knew it had to be the fence. But where? Once I was done I was back in the house, and starting a late supper. The big girls were still in the barn. I was keeping them in until my husband got home to help fine the problem. I had noticed that the red light on the fence (which is amazing thing to have. One glance at night out the window and seeing that red pulse of light on the fence tells me the fence is on and hot)! that light was not blinking as bright as it should be, and the fact it was only .2 I knew it was close to the source of the charger. Well once my husband got home he went right to work on the problem, once I told him all I had discovered. He found it quickly and fixed it. I went out to help and asked what it was. Well the wire that was connected to the charger was all but rusted off. So he snipped it off, put new wire on and boom! Problem solved. Now the fence is a hot snapping 7.9!! Suzie will be sure to stay in now! As well as the rest of the cows.
So, before you leave make sure your fences are hot!! Haha!!
Have a great day ya'll!!!

whats cooking in my kichen

You know how you see those short little cooking videos you see on face book? Like when your scrolling down the page and you see the 30 second video? Yes? Yes. OK. So I was scrolling down my face book page the other day and I saw one of those short little clips. My sister had posted it actually. You know the one I always cook with. Anyways I clicked on it because she had captioned the top something along the lines of maybe we needed a winter fry daddy day. That caught my attention.
Now just what is a fry daddy day, you ask?! Well it's exactly what it sounds like. My family gets together at my parents and we bring our fry daddy's and oil. We do this on a nice day outside so my Mom's house doesn't smell like grease. Then we proceed to fry whatever we so desire. Any thing. We fry the regular things like chicken, fries, onion rings, dough boys, Oreo's, pickles. Then we move on to some fun stuff. Cream Horns. Oh my. those are amazing! Butter! Yes you read that correctly!! Butter. Now it's not a stick of butter. No. We cut up small chunks of it and freeze it. Then we dip it in the batter. The batter is along the same line as what you would fry an Oreo in. Well the butter melts, and the dough crisp up and it's like eating a really buttery dough boy from the inside out! Go ahead. Try one! Live on the wild side! LOL Homemade egg rolls, which are really more like the vegetarian spring rolls full of fresh veggies. They are really good. And candy bars, although those are not my favorite. And whatever else we can think of that would be good fried.

Anyways moving along here, before I clog up the ole arteries any more..
I was too impatient to wait for another fry daddy day, so I made it myself!
The video my sister posted was a left over turkey egg roll. It had stuffing, turkey and potato in it. Equal amounts of each. Wrapped in the egg roll.

By the time I thought to take the picture the second batch of mixture was almost gone! But here it is! Can't really see the potato, but it's there.

Now here it is all wrapped up in the egg roll. Waiting to be fried.

Oh yum! All fried. And now for the dipping sauce. It's cranberry sauce, sugar, and Apple Cider Vinegar. Mixed and cooked down on the stove.

Tada!!! It was really good too. I would make a couple changes. I would add more stuffing to the mix to give it more flavor, and maybe some spices to the turkey. Then the sauce I wouldn't put as much vinegar. But other then that. Yum. If your into frying food then give this a try.

Mixture 1 C Turkey, stuffing, and potato. Mix and fill egg rolls. Fry in hot oil till crispy brown.

Sauce 1 C cranberry sauce, 1/3 C apple cider vinegar, 1/2 C sugar. Mix in sauce pan and cook on low for a while to dissolve sugar. Set aside and cool.
Put the two together and there you have it.

Have a great day ya'll!!

good quote

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

hey

Black Eyed Susan "Suzie" asking                  "Hey. How you doing?"

This is last years heifer. She's as sweet as she looks, and just as sassy too. She loves to hang out with the younger stalk we now have. She makes a good baby sitter for them.

Have a great day ya'll!

magnolia

Maggie turned 8 this fall. The mother of our herd. She's been a great family cow for us and the beginning of our small growing herd.

"

Maggie"

She has a forever home with us.
Have a great day ya'll

snow play time

We got some of the white stuff. Didn't amount to much, just enough to make a mess of everything. At noon time chores none the less, and into the evening. The kiddos were excited. But not as excited as Belle was! We let her out as it was coming down and blowing around in the wind.

 As you can see here she is leaping in the air!

 LOL. She was so funny to watch!

Tongue hanging out running after more snow!

Have a great day ya'll!

good quote

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

part of the herd

Here are our girls. Nice looking girls I'd say!

Left to right - Dandie, the first heifer born on our farm. Daffy, the second heifer born on our farm. Maggie the mama.

Daffy and Dandie in the barn waiting to be milked!

Have a great day ya'll!

country kiddos

This is what country kids do for fun! 

Pull each other around on a little wagon! They had so much fun! They took turns as to who rode and who pulled. I just didn't get a picture. Belle even got to go for a few rides. I told the kids they needed to train her to pull the wagon to earn her keep ;)

Have a great day ya'll

full moon

I love this picture.
 The moon comes up behind our house, and my neighbors have trees on the back hill. So I moved to get the right angle of the moon peeking behind the tree, and used the super zoom on my camera.

Here is another cool one. I love how the clouds look all wavy in front of it.

The blood moon. The kiddos stayed up to see this one. That was really cool too.  See it?!

 Have a great day ya'll