Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Kaytlynn's Day of Cooking!

 We spent a good part of the day today-COOKING! She had a blast and so did I! We started out with a new bread recipe and moved on to a new pot pie one.

 Kaytlynn learning to knead bread dough
 The bread rising in the loaf pan
 Ready to go into the oven!
 Loaf is done!
 Next-cooking the filling for the pot pie-rabbit-carrots-onions, celery, etc.-She really was enjoying the stirring-despite the look of what seems disgust on her face.
The finished pie-we were so anxious to eat it-I forgot to take a picture of it before we dug in! And boy-was it good-so was the bread! The only thing that would have made it better would have been if we'd have had fresh, homemade butter to go on it instead of store bought.
We still are having cold weather and a little damp-I'm having a hard time getting outside to get anything done. Kaytlynn and I went out for a few minutes this morning-while the  bread was rising-and filled up 2 of the bird feeders and got so cold-we had to come back inside. Jordan worked for a little while taking some of the outside Christmas lights down for me-he came back in after a bit as well. Now if they have a plan of outside play-they'll stay out until noses are red and fingers are hurting. The weather still isn't warming up much-some warm sunshine would sure be nice!
The hens are really putting out the eggs of late-yea! We got 6 yesterday and 7 today-they are so beautiful! We have 2 litters of bunnies due next week-looking forward to new babies.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

New Year's Eve

We spent last night at our friends-Alfred & Sheila-cabin on the Trinity River. They offered it to us for the night-and we took them up on the offer! It was so peaceful and such a wonderful evening and it rained most of the night-yeah we need the rain.

 Jeff and Alfred looking out over the river this morning-we still are getting a few rain showers now and then and it is a little cool and windy-note the fire they are keeping warm (an old joke!)
 And did I mention-this cabin has no electricity or running water-another plus for spending some quiet time here! Hence the "necessity" house-yes they have an outhouse.
 And this is our mode of transportation for the day-you can't drive your truck down here-so we have to use our cub cadet. And due to the rain-Jeff had to tie a tarp to it to keep our stuff from getting wet on the way down.
Last but not least-the heater that stands in the middle of the cabin. We cooked deer burgers and sausage on it last night for supper-then eggs and reheated the sausage for breakfast. Needless to say-coffee is always cooking when we are around!
We've had quite a bit of quiet time this morning and time to talk without being interrupted. We don't make new years resolutions-but we are determined to work very hard this year to get ourselves out of debt. This has become a very high priority to us and we feel God is wanting us to do this. There are a few things we want to do this month-getting our concealed handgun licenses is one of them-that we know are going to cost us more money than we currently feel comfortable spending-but we feel that it may be to our best advantage to do so. We'll just have to see where the money comes from to take the class and get an approved pistol. We got out and shot the ones we have yesterday for practice-but they aren't a high enough caliber to take the class with. Just another one of the things we get to do when we are at the cabin on the river.
I also found a website a few days ago with LOTS of recipes and ideas. I printed out lots of ideas from her-recipes for homemade laundry detergent-homemade deoderant-canning homemade chicken broth-and a few other things. I can't wait to get started on these as well-but I only have a few days left of my Christmas break and haven't got much of what I planned to do done. It's just been too cold and miserable outside to get much done out there-and I do have 2 sheds that need MAJOR clean outs-yes I do mean outs-there is too much stuff in them-mostly that doesn't even belong to Jeff & I and we can't use them for what we need to-so some of this stuff has to go! Ok maybe I'll get to it when it warms up a bit.
Have a Happy New Year!