Busy Times!

We have been pretty busy around here the last few weeks-but are hoping to slow down a little this afternoon-then by late tomorrow as well. We've had 2 deaths in our little community this week-one to be expected when God calls an elderly man home-but the other quite a shock when He calls home a man not much older than yourselves when he's just had stints added to his heart and should have been getting better. Funerals are today and tomorrow. Sad times here at Christmas!
We've had a good bit of cold weather/frost here as well over the last few weeks. Even after covering things in the garden-frost got the last of nearly everything-even the broccoli. We've never had the frost bother it before. Had to harvest it up fast! I'm sitting in the dark as I type-we are without power this morning-which is really strange considering that we had high winds this last week and it never even blinked off once!
 I posted the last 6 of the bunnies for sale as Christmas bunnies and sold them all in less than 24 hours-Whew! Off the fed bill! The little pigs we bought are doing well-had a little concern over them for a week or so. They kinda got sick with coughs-then scours. But we finally got them all cleared up-they never stopped eating though!
Jeff finally got a deer-thank you Lord! And a friend trapped 2 hogs on his place and gave them to us as well. Ed only wants a couple of links of sausage-which will most likely be delivered to him today!
School's out for the Christmas break-I go back on 1/7/13-so I have some time off. I hope to get some work done on my quilt and a little work on arranging some things in the house as well as getting started on the income taxes-yuck! But I have a whole drawer of receipts that have to be organized-and I do this every year-Heah-maybe that's a good job for the grandkids one day-I can put them to sorting and putting in order! I think I just solved that one!
Have a wonderful weekend!

Baby Calf-Finally!!!

 Sugar finally had her calf today-a little heifer!! So cute-looks almost exactly like her older sister-Oreo-but this one has a little more black on her face. CayCay gets to name this one-I believe she has chosen Sally-we'll see if it suits her or not. Jeff texted me a picture of her when he found her-I had to show my boss. I laughed and told her when you have 30 cows it's no big deal-but when you've only got 1 cow-it's front page family news!!

Kylie got to meet a rabbit tonight as well-she loved it! I couldn't get a pic fast enough-she was giving it kisses. Alana even put her in the hutch with them-she had a ball-her own little petting zoo!

Well, December is almost upon us and our calendars are beginning to fill up. It always is a busy time of the year-but much to be thankful for and happy about-I love it. I've tried to commit to not getting caught up in too much of the commercialism this year-to slow down and just enjoy the season this year. We've got most of our shopping done-only a few more gifts to buy-yeah-then we're finished and gonna sit back and enjoy it!

Fall Garden Pics

 Isn't this one of the cutest things ever? It's a baby eggplant-only about the size of a quarter. Hopefully it will have time to mature before we get any really bad freezing weather! It's supposed to be up near 80 by Sunday with our next front due early next week.

 One of the leftover tomatoes-with a smaller one in the background-still lots of blooms on them, too. We do have a few plants in the greenhouse. May have a few this winter!!

 The cabbage patch!

 One of the heads of broccoli-we finally got it to grow-after putting up a fence around them to keep out the rabbits!

And the potatoes-grown in old tree stumps and a 5 gallon bucket-we haven't tried this before-let you know how it turns out.

New Pigs!

We bought 2 new pigs today after church. Jordan went with us and we took a trip into Cleveland to the old auction barn where people set up to sell their animals. Jeff and I had gone on Wednesday- but saw nothing we wanted to spend any money on! We thought we'd give it another chance today-boy were we glad! The first people with pigs wanted $90-100 each-and we really thought about getting one-they were really nice looking. We decided to keep looking and just a few trucks down-we found these for $60 a piece! We got a Poland China boar and a Duroc gilt. They are between 3 and 4 months old and are just as fat and healthy as can be. We still want to get Lucy bred and I guess she'll have just one more shot at it when this guy gets big enough.

And we got 9 eggs today-what a blessing to have fresh eggs and meat in the house. So many people these days have no idea where their food comes from-much less what the animals were fed or what they died of! It makes me sick just thinking about it sometimes! YUCK!!

It's back to work and school tomorrow-and I know that I'm blessed to have a job that I really do love! So many people are out of work or just working seasonal jobs at the moment-it is so sad. We are so fortunate and sometimes just way to forgetful of everything God has given to us. As we enter into this season of celebrating His birth-let's try to remember most of all what we are here for and what the real reason for Christmas is. Let's keep Christ in Christmas!!

Have a great week!

Happy Thanksgiving (a day late!) & Wonderful News!

Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was as great as ours was-lots of family-although not as many as normal-but way too much food! We ate at Jeff's mom's and had family in and out all day. Randy & Casey came from home and even stayed the night before leaving for the Dallas area this morning to meet up with her family. And they surprised us with the most wonderful news-they are expecting! She hasn't been to the doc yet-but looks like baby is due in July. Two of Jeff's nieces are also pregnant and due right about the same time-so we'll have 3 new babies next summer!

Alana, Kylee and me did a little Black Friday shopping-if you want to call it that! We didn't get to the store until nearly 10 and hit just a few places-then came on back home. It still was much more crowded than last year-I felt like nearly the only person shopping last year.

Jeff is out hunting again right now-we are going to meet with Sheila & Alfred shortly to go out and eat. Jeff's gonna hunt again in the morning-he still hasn't even seen a deer-but a cool front is moving in-so he's hoping it will stir them up. Jason is coming out next weekend and they are gonna hunt together.

Here is a picture of the smoked ham when Jeff took it out of the smokehouse-oh my gosh it is SO good! He took the bacon down at the same time. I cooked a pot of great white northern beans with some of the ham in them-oh they were good! We are still getting eggs from the pullets-you can see a few in the background-no green ones that day though. And we had 2 litters of bunnies born-only 3 in each-so 6 Christmas bunnies will be available for sale!!

Summer Sausage & Jerky!!

 We tried our hand at making Summer Sausage for the first time this week. We were using up some ground deer meat we had. This is what it looked like before curing over night in the frig-then cooking it. This was a total of 6 lbs of meat.

 And we also made up 14 lbs of deer jerky sticks. We haven't made the sticks in quite awhile-the casings themselves have gotten expensive-it took $9.99 worth for the 14 pounds! We had both dehydrators full!

And the final product-it turned out GOOD!!! We'll have a hard time saving some for Randy-him and Casey will be here for Thanksgiving and we're under strict orders to save him some!
Been busy-taking Mom back and forth to the Doctor-and my Dad's in the hospital now-a real mystery-but they think all the problems are being caused by a new med they put him on last week. He's had to have his gall bladder taken out-his liver and kidney functions still aren't real good and may have to have dialysis tomorrow.
The weather has turned a little cooler-Jeff and Darren butchered the smaller white sow yesterday-so we have sausage hanging in the smokehouse as we type!! We'll package up the pork chops, etc when we get home from Church-WOW-weatherman just said we are under our first frost warning of the season-better go get more firewood in-we'll need it in the morning!

Fall Flowers on the Farm-Apple Trees & Cheerleaders!

 My Angel Trumpet in full boom-again! The smell is SO sweet-but I haven't seen any bees buzzing around them.

 The 2 apple trees we bought at Lowe's today-they had them 50% off-so 2 for the price of one! We got 1 Dorset and 1 Anna-both green ones.

 Jeff's coral vine-we bought this one nearly 10 years ago in Brenham while staying there on our anniversary. It starts out growing really slow every year-doesn't do much of anything all summer-but after the first little cool snap we get-it just takes off growing like crazy-then blooms with the prettiest little blossoms!

Our little cheerleader-Hailey is really enjoying her time cheering! They are wearing the pink bandanas for Breast Cancer awareness month.
We've had to treat 1 of the hives for beetles-the weaker one had a pretty heavy infestation of them. We'll check tomorrow to see how many we've caught!
Jeff's had no luck hunting so far-and we've just been staying so busy-he's hardly had much time to hunt. We kinda took a personal day today-and spent a great deal of it in Conroe-just trying to get caught up on errands and get a little Christmas shopping done. We really had a good day and enjoyed each others company!
The weather can't seem to decide if it wants to be cool or down right warm! Today-it was in the mid 40's-Jeff had a fire going when I got up this morning-and now-we nearly turned the ac back on! Now the weather man is saying the high next Saturday will be in the low 70's-bring it on!!