The Monster Chicken

 Typically, when I raise broiler chickens, they all end up basically the same size.  Most in the 4 to 4.5 pound range at 7-8 weeks.  Occasionally a runt at 3 pounds.  Sometimes an aggressive feeder (the 'alpha' chicken, if I may) at slightly over 5 pounds.

Last summer I had some big birds at 7 weeks when I took them to the processor.  A lot of them were 5 pounds.  The smaller ones were 4.5 pounds.  And then there was this one that I didn't really realize how big he was until he came home from the processor, packed in ice, and I took him out of the cooler.

This was a giant chicken like I'd never seen, never mind raised.  He was so massive that DH asked if it might be a turkey accidentally stuck in our cooler.  

Nope, not a turkey.  Too small for that.  But still, a ginormous chicken.  He (usually the roosters are larger than the hens, so I assume he was alpha rooster) dwarfed the rest of the batch.  

That's him on the left in the picture. On the right, a chicken that was normal sized, weighing in at about 4.5 pounds on my kitchen scale.  The big guy spun the dial around that scale, which goes to 6 pounds, and I had to get out the larger scale we usually use for weighing batches of sausage or venison burger.  He weighed a whopping 7.5 pounds!

When I prep them for the freezer, I cut up any chickens 5 pounds and over, leaving the smaller ones as the roasting chickens .  This guy I just couldn't bear to cut up.  He was the King Kong, the  Godzilla, the Goliath of chickens.  He needed to be preserved in all his massive glory.

Since he wasn't going to fit into the gallon sized bags I have (both Ziploc and vacuum seal), and I was out of anything larger, DD2 ran to the store for some 2 gallon ziploc bags that I used to use when I'd raise turkeys. When she got back with the big bags, we slipped him into one, marked it "Monster Chicken 7.5#" and the date, and into the freezer he went, where he would be the main entree in a future meal when we had more than three mouths to feed.

Monster Chicken ended up being the guest of honor at our (downsized, since both DS1 and DS2 were out of state visiting their in-laws,) family Christmas dinner.  

He was delicious; he roasted up so tender and juicy I don't think I've ever eaten a better chicken.  And, despite there being six adults and a two year old chowing down that meal, there was still enough meat left over for a chicken pot pie a few days later and a package of chopped cooked chicken to go in the freezer for a meal sometime in January.

I Should Know Better

 I really should know better than to trust something I saw on the internet.  

But I couldn't resist trying a new cookie recipe. It sounded good, the pictures looked good, and I thought it would be a perfect addition to the homemade goodies I was gifting a few people for Christmas.

Yeah, I should have tried it first.  Or at least scrutinized the directions ahead of time, instead of skimming them for basic info--ingredients?  Chill time needed?  Baking temperature and time?--and then jumping in.

I'll say they tasted okay.  But visually, they were a mess.  Really, they looked like there'd been a bloody massacre in the oven.

Obviously the red food coloring from the crushed candy canes the recipe called for ran.  In the internet pictures, these were tidy looking normal shaped cookies in which you could clearly see the white chocolate chips and the pieces of candy canes.  In reality, bloodbath cookies.  Hand through the wood chipper cookies.

Needless to say, none of these cookies got gifted.

Maybe I'll make them again, following the recipe as written, for some future 'gross me out' contribution to a Halloween party.

Or, maybe next year I'll tweak the recipe like I should have done this time, and make them like I thought they should be made (chilled longer, then scooped and dipped in candy cane pieces instead of candy canes mixed into wet ingredients with the rest of the dry ingredients, shaped, dipped, then barely chilled, and cooked slightly longer) and see if they come out less runny and raw-ground-meat looking.  

Live and learn.  And don't trust the internet!

Our Homegrown Christmas Tree

 This year, we didn't buy a pre-cut tree for our Christmas tree.  Neither did we go to a tree farm and cut one down.

Instead, we went to the front of our property, and culled a spruce tree that needed to be removed because it had been planted (by us) too closely to some other trees.  Now, about 18 years ago, when we planted it as a 12" seedling bought from the local garden club for 25 cents just before Earth Day that year, we had thought we were planting those seedlings far enough apart for them to grow forever and become a screen between our property and the road right of way.  

About four years ago, those trees took a big growth spurt (seems like trees planted at this little place here struggle and grow really slowly for the first 8-12 years, then finally get their tap root through the incredibly dense clay into nicer soil and grow like crazy after that).  Three of them were definitely too close to each other.  Plus, volunteer maple trees had sprouted on either side of that clump of three spruce, and we wanted to keep the maples growing rather than chop them down.  I tried, that fall, to contact local tree companies and see if any of them could/would dig up two of the spruces and transplant them via tree spade.  Only one company called me back, just to request photos of the trees and their immediate location, then ghost me.

Late last winter, DH and I sadly admitted that those trees were definitely too tall to successfully transplant now, even if we could find a company that had that capability.  And so, we decided to cull them by turning two of them into Christmas trees.  One this year, and the other for Christmas 2023.

The Sunday before Christmas, DH hooked the wood hauler trailer to the 4-wheeler, and we drove out to the front of the property where we choose this year's cull.  With one quick cut of the chainsaw, DH felled it right onto the trailer.  From there, we drove it up to the front porch where DH measured from the top to the length we wanted the tree to be in order to fit into the living room, and trimmed it to size.

In the house, it looked much bigger than it had outside!  We were happily surprised to find that it had a really good symmetry for a tree that had grown however it wanted rather than being groomed and trimmed into proper Christmas tree thickness and shape for years.

Not bad for something we'd invested an entire quarter in.

Talkin' Trash

 Or, rather, complaining about trash.  Actually, the cost of removing said trash.  

About Spring of 2016 we cancelled our residential trash pick up service.  At that time, it was just DH & I home, as DS1 and family had moved out of our basement and into their own place.  Since DH and I recycle everything that can be recycled, compost everything that can be composted, and burn everything made of wood products (it's somehow satisfying to throw the junk mail into the wood boiler and know you are getting some BTUs out of that annoying stuff that shows up unbidden in your mailbox), we only created roughly one 13-gallon size trash bag per week.  But yet it cost us around $13 a month for that one small weekly bag to be taken away.

We had recently found out that our township offered it's residents monthly trash pick up.  All you had to do was call the township hall, be issued a card, and then bring your trash to the hall parking lot on the designated Saturday for each month at the appropriate time to meet the trash truck.  

BINGO!  WINNER!  15 minute round trip to drop off four measly bags of trash (all of which fit into the wheeled bin we had) once a month for FREE was definitely better than shelling out cash and lugging the trash bin to the end of the driveway and back every week for $13 a month.

So that is what we signed up for, and did, until February of this year (2022), when we were handed a paper on trash drop off day.  That paper, from the trash company, said they were no longer able to provide monthly Saturday service to the township, but if we called the provided phone number and signed up for weekly residential service, they would gladly come to our home and haul away our trash.  Not only would they gladly do that, but they would give us a 20% discount for the first quarter of service we signed up for.

Looking at their website, I found out that weekly service was $95 per quarter.  *CHOKE*  Seriously?!?  More than $30 per month to haul away our one tiny trash bag each week?  Surely they had cheaper plans for those of us who don't generate mountains of trash.

Nope.

And neither did either of the other two trash companies who service our rural area.

Gulp.  I wasn't liking this.  I called the township to see if maybe, hopefully, they were just changing providers and would still be offering the monthly drop off.  

Nope.  They were, due to costs and more importantly, companies not wanting to be available even one Saturday morning a month, totally cancelling the trash service for township residents.  We were on our own to contract with some to deal with our trash.

Well, that really ground my gears.  I called, and called, and researched, and was unbelievingly laughed at by more than one trash company representative when I said I only produce one 13 gallon bag of trash per week, surely they had a lower priced tier for those of us who don't throw away much?  The best I could find was one company who had two price structures: a 96 gallon cart picked up weekly, or a 60 gallon cart picked up weekly.  And nowhere that allowed you to drop trash off to them and pay a per-bag drop off fee.

So, reluctantly, in late February, I signed up for the company that had the 'cheaper' charge for the 'small' 60 gallon cart. $72 per quarter!!  Oh man.  Nearly $300 increase in yearly trash removal cost would have to somehow be worked into our tight budget.

You can imagine how happy (read with dripping sarcasm, please) I was to receive my quarterly bill this month and find out that starting now, there's not only an increase in the service cost for the 60 gallon cart (and still not a plan for those who don't need such a large container), the company is also implementing a weekly fuel surcharge and some county and state fees.  So my quarterly bill will be nearly $79, not $72.  

GRRR.  

Will they do a bi-weekly pickup to save some fuel? I mean, that 60 gallon bin is still not even half full with two weeks of my trash in it. 

NO.  

Sometimes, I wish I had less morals and could be one of those people who just dump their trash in the back of their property.  Or bury it.  Or, maybe, put it in plastic bags from the grocery store and drop said bags into the trash receptacles at gas stations I pass on my way to work.  It's not much trash, after all.  Ought to fit in 3 grocery bags quite handily.  Not a whole lot different from being on a long road trip, and eating in your car and then putting your trash into the trash bin at the next gas station you fuel up at. . .   

Blech. I thought almost $288 a year for trash pickup I don't really need was bad.  $316?!?  Oh man, having morals is expensive.

Riding As The Weather Turns; December Horse Update

 For the most part, I've been able to continue my three times a week riding schedule on Camaro.  Now and then I've substituted a longeing session for a ride.  And last week, I just had to drop to two work sessions for him rather than three or else I was just going to go nuts trying to juggle everything (we had family Christmas with DH's side of the family last weekend).  I'm hoping to get three rides in this week even though there's more Christmas gatherings looming.

A few times we've worked outside, typically on a longeing day.  He is calmer and less distractable outside than he was even this Spring.  I'm really glad for that.  Once I get pasture fences in (the Spring) and stalls built in my barn (over this winter) and move him home to this little place here, we'll be riding outside every ride because that's all I have here.  Lots and lots of outside and zero indoor riding space.

When I look back over this whole year of riding Camaro, I truly see a lot of progress.  From week to week and sometimes month to month it hasn't felt like we've changed that much, but when I look at him now compared to pictures I took of him early in 2022, WOW!  This horse has gotten muscle!  He has buns of steel; patting his hindquarters is like patting a rock wall.  What I was afraid was his neck becoming too cresty (he does have metabolic syndrome, after all) is actually his upper neck muscles finally being developed more than his underneck.  It was really cool to hear his chirovet tell me in late November that he is in the best shape she has ever seen him, and she remembers doing his pre-purchase exam when his former owner bought him almost six years ago when he was 8.  To be in better condition at nearly 14, well, that's awesome!

Spring

Unfortunately, all these muscling changes this year have started to create some discomfort issues for him, and I need to find a saddle fitter who can adjust the flocking in his saddle.  Not what I expected to put in my immediate budget. . .   First world problems, right?

Late Fall

Our longeing sessions haven't been the 'let the horse zoom around at the end of the line like you're flying a kite' kind of exercise.  Nope, I've been using those sessions to school transitions into and out of the canter.  And he's really liking that.  His canter departs under saddle are miles and miles better than they were six months ago; so smooth.  And his trot is improving too, except right now it's kind of hard to tell under saddle because that's where the suspected saddle fit issues are showing up--trotting with a rider's weight on his back.  But on the longe, without the extra baggage (me), what a trot!

Under saddle we do a little cantering, a little more trotting, but I've really been focusing the last dozen rides on walk work.  Things like: suppling (2-3 steps left bend, straighten, then 2-3 steps right bend, straighten, repeat. . .), precision in the movements, beginning to play between collected walk and working walk, asking him to do just one sideways (leg yield) step every 3-4 strides down the long wall in addition to asking for leg yield from quarterline to the wall, or from centerline to quarterline back to centerline to other quarterline, lots of 10 meter circles both off the wall and at X when crossing on the diagonal or riding the centerline, 3 and 4 loop serpentines.  

The leg yields continue to improve slowly.  He seems to especially love when we work on square turns and by the end of those rides he just moves so much more proud of himself.  It's kind of funny to go from warm up where he's "ho-hum doing this again" to feeling him swagger around 30 minutes later like he's Mr. Cool the dressage superstar.

Mystery Food

 Several years ago, I wrote this post about a frozen hunk of meat that had been given to us by my mother in law.  It was missing it's outer wrapping and any identifying marks, so I referred to it as mystery meat.  Once I finally decided to gut it up, thaw the dang thing and cook it, I found that it wasn't too bad.  If I remember right, it ended up being pork and I made lots and lots of shredded pork dishes with it.

So, last year at Christmas time, when we went up north to visit Mother-in-Law, and she wanted to send us home with a bunch of items from the local food pantry that she'd ended up with and wasn't going to use any time soon, I wasn't afraid to take the can that was totally missing it's label.

mystery can

It was most likely a vegetable or a fruit, judging by the size and type of can.  So I felt pretty confident that whatever it ended up being, if it was something DH and I didn't like (fruit cocktail, for instance), I could feed it to the chickens and thus turn it into something we did like: eggs!

At some point over the summer, I felt adventurous, and took that mystery can out of the pantry to include with that night's dinner.  With anticipation not unlike unwrapping a birthday present, I applied the can opener and took the lid off of the can.  What would I find inside???

a mystery solved

Beans!  It was a can of green beans!  Phew!  We eat those. Although it's been many years since I've had them in a can from the store; typically I grow and can enough each summer to last a full year or more.  

They were little short pieces of bean, about 1" long, with lots of end pieces, but they tasted good.

Eating The Food We Planted For Our Food To Eat

 For the past few years, DH has turned one corner of our field into a deer food plot.  In part of the corner is ryegrass, and in another he seeds turnips, rapeseed, and radishes.  The turnips grow really well, and the deer really appreciate them from about this time in December all through the rest of the winter.  They eat both the tops (greens) and the roots (turnip).

Late in 2020, DH pulled up a large turnip and brought it to the house to show me how big it was, and to tell me that it was one of the few that wasn't at least partially eaten by deer while still in the ground. He was excited by the success of this crop, both that it grew well with little effort--other than tilling the ground before planting--and that it drew the deer to hang out in that corner (where he has been able to harvest venison in late season each December since).

Neither he nor I grew up eating turnips, but we knew they were edible to humans as well as deer, so we decided to give it a try.  Since, after all, he'd brought that turnip up to the house and we'd handled it with bare hands and subsequently gotten human scent all over it.  If he tossed it back in the food plot it may or may not make the deer wary of the whole plot (scent) and was not as likely to get eaten by them.  It was such a beautiful turnip we didn't want to waste it.  So I looked up turnip recipes, and we gave it a try.

We were both surprised to actually really like the flavor of that turnip.  Since then, we've eaten them off and on through the fall and winters.  I even tried growing them in the garden in 2021, but they seem to grow much better out in the corner of the field just hand broadcast and left to live or die on their own than they did when I cultivated them in the designated spot for growing people food (garden).

So, now we just throw the turnip seed out in the food plot and ignore the sprouts for a few months until DH is walking past them pretty much daily on his way to and from the deer stand.  At that point, he will pull a couple now and then, and I cook them up for dinner.  They are good roasted, sliced and fried, and in my pasty recipe (substituted for or in addition to rutabaga).  You can also boil and mash them, but we've found them to be a bit 'runny' this way and prefer mashed potatoes over mashed turnips.

Turnips can also be found in the grocery store, although I think we'll just stick with eating them for 'free' pulled out of the deer plot rather than adding them to the shopping list and paying for ones grown somewhere else.

homegrown organic deer/human food

A Whole Lot of Sewing, December Update

 After I finished Buck's baby quilt, I had a whole lot of sewing mojo.  And I had fabric from a internet forum quilt I'm participating in.  So I spent a little time using up every single bit of the fabric I had been given, and ended up with five different quilt blocks.

Dutchman's Puzzle

Indian Star

Sunshine Days

Triangles and Stripes

Woven Ribbons

And then I finished a Christmas Quilt I had started in early 2021. This is a back of the couch quilt that I made for myself.  The pattern I used is  Four Square by A Quilting Life Designs.  It's pretty much just made a row less so that I could end up with a throw sized quilt rather than a bed sized one.  I had pieced the blocks in early 2021, and sewn the top with the exception of the borders.

This past Spring, I put the borders on, but then got busy with other things and set it aside.  In November, I pulled it out again, and made the backing.  Then, last week, I sandwiched, quilted and bound it.  So glad to have it finished for using this season!

unfortunately, the colors didn't come out true in photos

I used this really cute mitten print for the backing.  

I also finished a couple of counted cross stitch ornaments, made two aprons, and am working on a flannel nightgown for Faline.  All of those, however, are Christmas gifts, so I'll wait to show pictures and talk about them until after the holidays.

The NOT She Shed

 Years ago, DH and I talked about building a shed near the garden to keep the tomato cages, stakes, hoes, tiller, and other garden-related tools in.  Like most everything requiring both time and money, it got put off, and put off again, and put off some more.  Three years ago, I picked the exact spot I wanted the shed erected in, and have made sure to not plant anything perennial in it.

In the summer of 2020, partly thanks to one window of DH's home office looking out over the garden, and partly thanks to him not working 60-70+ hours a week (covid's silver lining; it broke the cycle of DH having to be on site for meetings, tests, data analysis, etc, at all days and times no matter what our personal calendar might hold), and partly because DH remembered we had a big pile of salvaged lumber still, he decided that it was time to build the garden shed.

Oh hallelujah!

It went up over a series of weekends, and was weather tight by the time winter weather hit.

First, DH graded the site with the tractor bucket and back blade.  Then he erected the floor joists (salvaged wolmanized from somebody's torn-down deck) and put on the floor sheeting (wolmanized, bought new).   For a day or two it looked like we had a dance floor in the garden, LOL. 

Then the first wall went up, and our dance floor looked like a stage.  DD1, DD2 and I joked that we would host Shakespeare in the Garden performances.  Not being a huge fan of Shakespeare, or plays, DH got the other three walls made pretty quickly.  No Shakespeare in the Garden here.

 

Is it a stage with backdrop?

Using rough sawn pine from trees that he, our boys, his brother, and a couple friends cut down about 15 years prior at the family cabin property up north, DH framed the four walls, sheeting each wall (sheeting bought new) before he and I stood them one by one.  The north facing wall sports a large, non-opening, window that we'd picked up free somewhere over a decade ago and have been storing for 'just the right project'.  On the west side, he put in double sliding doors, as I requested when designing the shed.  When fully open, there is enough room to get a 5' wide whatever-you-want in and out of the shed.  Handy for the large and not extremely steerable dump cart I have, as well as the longer stakes and bean poles.

On another weekend, DH made roof trusses out of more of the rough sawn pine from up north, and we sheeted the roof with some OSB that we'd been given at least five years prior by someone just trying to clean up their overgrown and underused stash of building materials.  The shingles, which providentially (because they were another free 'here, take it, it's been sitting around forever') match the color of the shingles of our house, were put on in two afternoons, DH laying the starter course and me adding on from one side while he worked on the other.  It felt really good to be working on roofing together, as odd as that may sound.

As winter hit, he built my 'workbench', basically a counter at the exact height of my bent elbows when I'm standing up.  Perfect for working at, it's surface is at a height where I don't have to bend down even slightly and get a sore back (as I do in the kitchen and bathrooms if I want to work on something on those counters.  The curse of a being tallish woman, LOL).  He ripped some of those rough sawn 2x4s into 1-by and screwed them onto a frame he built.  The following spring I sealed it with a clear poly sealant, so that the wood will never turn gray (gray might be trendy, but I just prefer the new wood look over the aged wood look).

I found some free upper cabinets someone was getting rid of from a kitchen remodel and brought them home for use in the shed.

DH also built me two hose hangers for storing my hundreds of feet of garden hoses in the off season.  In the Fall of 2021, he finally added a shelf above the hose hangers for me to store the sprinklers and other hose attachments on when not in use.

At the same time as building that shelf, he built three shelves on the opposite wall.  Until we can get the greenhouse side of the shed built (plan is to add it to the south side of the shed, incorporating glass panels formerly from some sliding doorwalls that we were given literally decades ago and have been saving for that purpose), I plan to store my seed trays and supplies on a couple of those shelves.  I will probably also use one of the shelves to hold the extra plastic pots I saved for when I need to dig up and relocate (or give away) some perennials.

Stocked and ready for use.

This Fall (2022), we ran a water line out to the shed, and installed an outdoor frost free hydrant near the northwest corner of the shed.  I can't wait until next growing season when I won't need 125' of hose just to get water to the garden!  I'll actually be able to put a splitter on the hydrant and run two hoses, each with their own sprinkler, simultaneously when I want to water the garden!  I might not even need 400' of hose anymore in order to reach each and every corner of the garden.

At the same time as we had a trench dug for running the waterline from the well at the house out to the new hydrant in the garden, DH also installed an underground electric line.  That line is stubbed into the garden shed, but has yet to be poked through the basement wall and carried across the basement to the electric panel.  A winter project that he'll hopefully get to in the next couple of months (after deer hunting season is over), and by Spring I'll have lights and an outlet or two in my shed!

Why is this post titled The NOT She Shed?

Because when we first started building the shed, and DH told his friends, his mother, his sisters, that we'd been busy building my garden shed, they all said "Oh, so you got Kris a She Shed".  To which I vehemently replied "it's NOT a She Shed.  It's a proper, functional, farm outbuilding."  Not a trendy foo-foo backyard girlie hideaway.  Did you see any couches in the photos? Any gauzy anything artfully draped?  Any cutesy decor?

NO! You saw function, function, function.  This is not a place for lounging, and entertaining and drinking wine with girlfriends.

UGH.  I don't do girlie. And I don't do trendy. (And I don't lounge and drink wine with girlfriends.) 

I do functional.

I actually threatened to beat the ass of the next person who called it a She Shed. 

What can I say; call me a tomboy, and I'm cool with it.  Call me Amish, yeah, I can handle that (it's somewhat of a compliment).  Call me anything that sounds like you're lumping me in with the typical American woman, well, that's an insult.  If I've learned anything in my life, it's that I'm definitely not typical.

Knitting Update, December

I'm a little thrown off by the first Wednesday in December being the 7th.  My brain really wanted to post a knitting update last Wednesday, but then it realized that day wasn't December yet, and that I had a whole additional week to get some knitting (and reading) in before making a post.

So I knit and read some more, then made the final edit of this post.

Since November's update, I:

Finished blocking and adding buttons to Faline's birthday sweater.

 

Finished Buck's stocking (but forgot to take a final photo).

Knit 2 dish cloths for me, one of which I made the pattern up from my own little brain! 

my very first me-written dishcloth pattern

 All I did was, with size 7 needles, cast on 39stitches.  K rows 1-6, then do K5, stockinette 29, K5 for 6 rows, followed by K5, reverse stockinette 29, K5 for 6 rows, and alternate between rows of stockinette and reverse stockinette 4 times (so you have 4 sets stockinette and 4 sets reverse stockinette), finish with 6 rows of knit, and then bindoff knitwise.  Super simple.

Knit myself a Saint Anthony cable hat using a skein of bulky yarn from my stash.  I did make a few modifications, the main one being that I frogged it after the first inch and a half because it was going to be too big/loose for my head (I have a small head, like less than 22").  I recast on using a size 9 needle and that worked for the snugness I wanted, but did end up a little shorter than I prefer.  If I were to knit it again I'd either add another repeat of the cable chart, or I'd reduce the cast on stitches by 10 and work in the size of needles originally called for.

Knit a couple dish cloths for DD1 (because she commented on the new dishcloth I'd made myself, so I figured she might enjoy some nice new dish cloths too). 

I also read a little, but not a whole lot.

In Her Boots by KJ Dell'Antonia. This was a pretty quick and entertaining easy read.  

Nothing Bundt Trouble by Ellie Alexander.  My last Bakeshop mystery for the year, I'll wait until 2023 before I read the next in the series (another series I'm trying not to plow through, so that hopefully I never run out of titles to read by this author).  I always enjoy seeing what the latest murder mystery spin is for Jules Capshaw.

Hunting

 Regular firearm deer season has come to an end at this little place here (but there's still archery, muzzleloading, and late antlerless seasons between now and January, so lots of chances yet for harvesting venison).  It started rather cold and snowy.

When I left the house,  it was cold, and cloudy, but not snowing, and the ground was bare.  Practically the moment I climbed up into the tree stand and sat down, the sky opening and snow fell.  Blowing basically right into my face.

After the first hour, I looked like this:

Near the end of the third hour, I looked like this:

I didn't stay to see what the accumulation would be after more than three hours.  I went in the house, pulled the ice chunks out of my ponytail, and had a big mug of hot chocolate.

The afternoon wasn't quite as snowy, at least not falling from the sky.  There was a nice couple of inches on the ground which made it a whole lot easier to see the deer from a distance.  But, a distance was as close as they got for me.  Other than a silly little button buck that I saw nearly every time I sat during the next two weeks.  And he's off limits until he gets another year or two on him.

Which means that it was a bust for me.  I may or may not go out during the December seasons; really depends on my schedule and the weather.  I missed quite a few hunting opportunities due to working mornings, unexpectedly having DS1's kids 3 afternoons/evenings, a warm spell that brought pouring rain, a wind storm with 45mph gusts (not great for sitting in a tree. . .), and pulling a muscle in my back which made sitting still impossible.  *sigh* Maybe next year.

DH, however, got lucky on the very last evening of November.  He was able to harvest a nice 8-point buck.  

He also had the opportunity to go out to Colorado with a friend of his in late October/early November, where they stayed on the ranch of a friend of the friend's dad and did some elk and mule deer hunting.  The elk didn't show themselves, but the mule deer did, and DH was able to get this beautiful 10 point.

Can't wait to do a side-by-side taste test comparison of Michigan white tail and Colorado mule deer.

Thanksgiving. . .

 This Thanksgiving, I found myself unexpectedly being thankful that we have more than one toilet in our house. Because. . .

The one and only bathroom (technically, a half-bath) on the main floor of the house, the one company most definitely uses, became unusable around 9 p.m. on Wednesday night when DH decided that would be a good time to attempt to clear a suspected small clog in the plumbing by plungering the main floor toilet. And plungering. And plungering as hard and fast as he could.

Result: 

• toilet leaking around the seal at the floor.  
• Very wet bathroom.  
• Very wet basement directly under the drain for that bathroom.
• Lots and lots of wet towels

Secondary result: 

• unhappy wife (who had spent nearly an hour earlier that day deep cleaning said bathroom and readying it for having 12 additional potty trained people in our home for Thanksgiving Day).  
• Unusable bathroom for Thanksgiving festivities.

Tertiary result:

• wife had to squeeze company-standards-cleaning the upstairs bath (the one our kids used while living at home) AND the master bath (and tidying the master bedroom since that's how you access the master bath) into her Thanksgiving itinerary (with, you know, roasting a turkey, prepping veggie dishes, recleaning the kitchen after food prep, making sure there's enough seating for all the guests, etc).
• all guests had a good laugh when they heard why they had to climb a flight of stairs just to go pee because their Dad/Papa had plungered the toilet to death.

Multiple toilets are a good thing.  I'm thankful we own three.

Horse Update, November

 When school (and therefore babysitting Faline twice a week) started back up in August, I vowed to myself that I was NOT going to let that get in the way of riding/working Camaro at least three times a week.  It's been a struggle, but I've successfully kept that commitment to myself and him.  And, while our rate of progress has slowed from what it was over the summer, I do see that we are making advances.

The leg yield at walk is very nice off the right leg.  Not as smooth off the left leg, but at least now I can say he is, most of the time, actually crossing his legs and not just drifting sideways through his shoulder.

The canter!  Departs are so vastly improved from a year ago. Almost never rushed anymore, typically popped into with balance and calmness as soon as I ask him.  And downward transitions have improved too, more of a big balanced trot than a falling onto his face and catching himself by throwing his head up/dropping his back and scrambling at trot.

Trot is where I see the see-saw of moving from one stage to the next.  As he improves elsewhere, his trot falls apart: gets tense, gets unbalanced, he wants to drop his back, he wants to get distractable and spooky.  And then, a month later, the nice working trot returns.  And then I try to fine tune another area, and we again take a step back in trot.  As long as I remind myself the regression into shitty trot is a sign that we're improving overall--aiming for a newly raised bar as it were-- it's not too frustrating.  But sometimes I forget to remind myself that.

Something else he and I have been doing for the last couple of months is have a designated "walk day" each week where walk is the only gait we work in.  The main objective in that was to try to overcome some muscling imbalance he naturally has in his shoulders (because of a slight club foot) by doing lots of serpentines, spiral in-spiral out, and other suppling movements.  Also to strengthen his back by doing some pole work and lots of walk-halt-walk and walk-halt-back-walk transitions.

Boy, does Camaro like walk day!  He's not that great at poles (although the poles I have available are too easily moved out of position with the slightest nudge from a hoof so doing a series of just two poles more than about 5 times is impossible without dismounting and realigning the poles to their proper spacing) but he goes over them eagerly without trying to duck out on either side.  By the time we've warmed up, done 2-3 sets of poles, and a couple walk-halt transitions, he really starts to swing through the back and I can easily feel each hind foot every single stride as he rounds his back more and steps further under himself with his hind legs.  By the end of a half-hour walk day session, he's swinging along happily with a slobbery bit and just the most self-satisfied expression.

I'd like the see if I can get DH to help me build 2-3 cavaletti so that I can work Camaro over those instead of loose ground poles.  We would still use them with the attached poles touching the ground (rather than raising them so he has to step higher), but he won't be able to knock heavy cavaletti out of alignment like he does the lighter weight ground poles any time he drags a toe just a hair.

While I'm on 'family leave' from babysitting while DD2 uses her maternity leave time, I'm hoping to ride or otherwise work Camaro 4-5 times a week.  That goal will hopefully allow us to get another burst of progress in before the mid-winter cold hits and makes it difficult to ride regularly.  I'm toying with the idea of a dedicated trot day in addition to our walk day, but instead of poles at trot I think I would do some cardio/endurance building-type trot sessions interspersed with some spiral in-spiral out at trot.  See if that helps lessen the shitty trot occurrences while making gains in other gaits.

I Have a Beef With DH

 Actually, a half a beef.   Together, we decided that this year would be the year we took the plunge and purchased a half a beef.  We knew, first hand, of someone who could hook us up with a farmer who raised grass fed beef.  Someone who vouched for the high quality of the meat and the integrity of the farmer.

In the past, it was the large one-time outlay of money that prevented us from buying our beef on the hoof, as it were.  Things conspired just so this summer that we were finally able to have that hunk of cash available.

All said and done, that hunk of cash was about $1400.  For what turned out to be over 200 pounds of meat, custom cut and wrapped to our specifications.  Which, roughly, is $7 per pound.  A tad pricy for hamburger, but way cheap for roasts and steaks any more.  And honestly, the packages of burger that we've used so far have been more equivalent to ground sirloin than the bargain hamburger at the store.  It's very flavorful, and doesn't cook up to have hardly any grease. Like, so little that I haven't needed to drain the meat after cooking it, and I'm one who can't stand greasy meat.

I have the feeling we just stumbled onto one of those "now you've experienced it, you can never go back to store bought" things.  Like having our own laying hens for eggs, and raising our own broilers for meat.  And tapping maple trees and making our own maple syrup.  We are definitely going to have to budget that chunk of change for a half a beef every year going forward.

a whole lotta beef

New and New and New

 In the last couple of years, DH and I have found ourselves in a cycle of replacing major things.  Not totally unexpected, I guess, as we finished building the house at this little place here in the summer of 2003 and all our appliances, etc, were brand new at that time.  19 years later, things just wear out.

We're on our second--or maybe third, I can't remember for sure--dishwasher, but July 2019 was the first major appliance tragedy: our fridge died while we were gone for a weekend.  Came home to rather a sticky gross puddle on the floor where everything in the freezer had melted and most of it had oozed out.  A major purchase like a new refrigerator was not in our plans (or budget), and luckily we were able to buy some time by cramming things into the beer fridge in the basement and bringing the mini-fridge that DD2 had used in college into the mudroom so I didn't have to traipse up and down the stairs for things used in daily meal making.  That enabled us to talk to DH's friend up north with the appliance store, wait for the fridge we'd picked out to go on sale, and last until mid-September before having a fridge in the kitchen again.

I'm not sold on the bottom freezer thing. . .

It doesn't organize well when you don't buy things frozen in boxes

(home processed and frozen is too lumpy to store much neatly)

September 2020, the dryer died.  I dealt with that by drying everything on the clothesline outside (in good weather), or on my three drying racks in the basement (in bad weather) for several months. The washing machine had been randomly throwing a code and shutting itself down in the middle of a load since early in the summer, so we decided to just replace them both rather than try to fix the dryer.  Another call to DH's buddy who gives us great discounts on appliances. . . and I had a brand new washer and dryer installed at the end of November.

Meanwhile, my double oven was faltering.  The bottom oven actually hasn't worked at all for at least five years.  We'd looked, back in 2019 when replacing our fridge, at ordering a new double oven to match.  Apparently ovens typically go on sale in November for Black Friday??  At least, that's what DH's friend told us, and rather than getting the ovens at the same time we bought the new fridge, we were going to wait until November to order the oven.  But then DD2's new job in Alaska unexpectedly let her go 60 days into a 90 day probation (and let another coworker go a few weeks later, also in their probation period--budget cuts) and we had to cancel the oven plan in order to have funds to bring DD2 and her belongings back to Michigan on a 7-day notice.

The upper oven had limped along for a good year after that, but it heated unevenly and at least once a week screamed at you and threw a code during the heating process (the code and screaming alarm were 'fixed' by shutting the oven off and trying again, the uneven heating was unpredictable).  When that issue started happening multiple times a week, we knew it had to go. So last fall we decided to bite the bullet and order a new double oven.  Waiting, of course, for the November price cuts to put in the order.  And with all the shortages of computer chips and other manufacturing necessities, we were told that our oven was on the 'to be built' list, but no idea of when it would actually arrive.  It finally showed up at his store at the beginning of February 2022. It's so great to have two fully working ovens again! Holiday meals for a dozen-plus people (if Brad comes, we will be 15 for Thanksgiving this year,) are so much easier to cook now!  And the interior of the ovens is a really cool blue, not the black or gray that I've always known ovens to be. I love it!

Love me a full sized double oven

It's bright blue!!

Backing up to Spring 2021, I told DH that I thought our water softener was no longer working.  It was full of salt, and went through the motions of recharging, yet the water seemed 'hard' to me--not the normal amount of suds when washing dishes, or my hair, and iron stains were showing up in the sinks, shower, and toilets.  He checked for a salt bridge--emptying out most of the salt and finding no salt bridge-- and manually recharged the softener several times.  Which gave us soft water a few times, but then stopped doing the trick.  In November 2021 he finally agreed that the softener was dead, and bought a new one.  It's so lovely to take a shower again without feeling like you are building up a crust on your skin.  Not to mention that I no longer have to scrub hard water stains out of the sinks, etc, on a weekly basis.

And then. . . he noticed that the outer edge of my kitchen sink was rusting out from underneath and curling outward.  I'd actually told him about it for years (honestly, his mind has been so much on his overwhelming job demands the last handful of years it's in one ear and out the other with him), but suddenly when he realized the extent of the damage, he felt the need to replace the sink immediately, stating he didn't want me to accidentally cut myself on the rough edge.

I'll tell you, finding a new sink the same size and style of my existing kitchen sink (two bowls equal size, extra deep, with room to fit a 9"x13" pan flat in the bottom, drop in not under-mount, NOT stainless steel) was not easy.  Understatement of the year. 

There were several heated discussions in several home improvement stores before I found the sink. What can I say; I don't give a fig for trends, and I do a lot of cooking and baking and canning and know what works for big cookware and what doesn't when it comes to sink design.  I also personally hate stainless steel for a home kitchen. . . Like white walls, it's just too industrial.

my perfect sink

(with the original fixtures, as I couldn't find acceptably styled new ones)

Oh, and along the way from Spring to Fall 2021, we also had to replace the garbage disposal under the kitchen sink (now on our 3rd disposal since 2003), and the light fixture in the half-bath off the mudroom.  

To sum it up, in the past three years we've updated my laundry room (DH also built a pedestal-like shelf for the new washer and dryer to sit on so they are easier to reach into, being front loaders)--using scrap lumber we had on hand, that was cheaper than $150-$300 each to purchase pedestals with the appliances-- and refreshed my kitchen.  Well, refreshed in terms of appliances and sink that is--we didn't change the layout at all.  Because I love my kitchen just the way it is-- designed by me nearly 20 years ago for way I cook and bake and preserve food and host large family meals.

Hopefully we are done hemorrhaging money on appliances for a good long while.

A Wedding!

 This past June, DS2 and Surprise finally tied the knot.  They had been engaged to be married in the summer of 2019, but there were some last minute cold feet (greatly created by some family issues and pressure on Surprise's side).  

Then Covid came.  

And somewhere after the first six months of that, they decided to separate for a year in order to assess the future of their relationship.  After that year was up, they were pretty dang sure they really did want to get married.  

So, in September 2021, they got engaged again, with the intent to not get lost in wedding planning craziness and stick to their guns about what they wanted their wedding and reception to be like.

In fact, from our point of view, it seemed there wasn't much wedding planning going on.  At Thanksgiving, when asked, they said they had not yet chosen a date.  Or, really, anything wedding related. 

At Christmas, the same story.  

But suddenly, at Easter, they had a date: June 11th!  And a church! And maybe (fingers crossed) a venue for the reception.

They wanted a smaller, simpler wedding than the original one had been turning into. They wanted to do it 100% on their own, no financial assistance from either side. All they wanted family to do was to please show up.

Show up we did!  Unfortunately there wasn't a full family photo taken of us on their special day, but (with the exception of K2, who didn't feel well) we all turned out to support them and witness the ceremony and attend the reception.  Faline danced her little legs off; boy, the photographers loved her. I can't imagine how much video footage there was of her, probably almost as much as there was of the bride.  

The camera on my phone absolutely hated the indoor lighting, so all I have at this point are some really crappy pictures to mark the occasion.  I'm hoping that DS2 and Surprise will either share digital copies of the pictures the photographers took, or will have a few printed for me.

Bride and Groom with groom's grandparents.