Surprise Surprise Surprise

Sure didn't expect to find a guest for dinner at the feed pan for the cats.  Opened the door to the horse barn to check on the cats during this stormy time, and there sat a possum in the middle of the feed pan with the cats back aways but surrounding the pan of food, watching.

The possum was as surprised as we were and ran right into the biggest cat in the bunch when it jumped out of the pan to get away.  No wonder the cat food was going down fast, and the cats always seemed to be hungry.

Since our experience a few years ago with rabies, we prefer wild animals to NOT live in our our buildings. We make sure all our outside cats have rabies shots, but because cats are nomads, there will be a feral show up now and then at the dish.  If it stays it gets caught and hauled in for a vaccination.   We've had some interesting adventures trying to catch wild cats and feel very fortunate the vet is willing to work with them to get the shots.

Snow!! Lots of it!!!

Cold!! Snow!! Wind!!  I am ready to be done with winter.  Another blizzard is on the way this afternoon. We get plenty of warning with all the weather channels, and it started in Western Iowa last night.. and here comes the wind... full of snow... with a promise of 16 below 0 for tonight with winds up to 50 mph. Only thing to be thankful for, all that furniture on the patio that we neglected to get put away will not get blown away. It is buried in snow and can not move. Boy! are we going to have a clean-up job in the spring.

Report from the sickroom

 

 Don is doing well after the new hip installation in December. Donya and I thought he was not walking as much as doctor ordered, so slipped the FitBit in his jeans pocket one night. It is so tiny he did not notice it. About noon the next day we told him about it cause we wanted to check how he was doing. First he was mad, a guy has no privacy at all!!  Then he started to like it and checks it himself. If there are not enough steps logged on for the day, he actually gets up and walks to bring it up. That little piece of equipment sends the data to Donya's computer, then resets it's self for the next day. Great little tool.

Chocolate cake with Red Beets

My family is not eating vegetables as much as I would like to see them eat. They'll eat plenty of dessert, though. So.. I feel they need to eat more red beets. I froze lots and need to move them into the 'eat now' category.  I found this recipe for cake. heh heh heh   Let them eat cake!!!

Ingredients

• 4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
• 1 cup butter, softened, divided
• 1-1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups pureed cooked beets
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Confectioners' sugar

Directions

• In a microwave, melt chocolate and 1/4 cup butter; stir until smooth.
• Cool slightly. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, cream the remaining
• butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs.
• 
  
• In a small bowl, combine the chocolate mixture, beets and vanilla.
• 
  
• Beat into creamed mixture (mixture will appear separated). Combine
• flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture.
• 
  
• Pour into a greased and floured 10-in. fluted tube pan. Bake at
• 375° for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the
• center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10 minutes before removing to a
• wire rack to cool completely. Before serving, dust with
• confectioners' sugar. Yield: 16-20 servings.
• 
  

© Taste of Home 2014

Frozen@ Ionia

Holy cow it's cold

If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all!!!  5 days with the temperature (real) 20-25 below 0. Add the wind with gusts to 30 mph and the wind chill temperature is 50-60 below 0.

That cold wind found a tiny opening in the siding between the kitchen and silo room. Did I tell you that DH hasn't gotten around to finishing off the silo room to make it into a mud/laundry room? The silo is like a huge open chimney from that room. If there was any heat in that room it would soon be pulled out through that huge hole.  Anyway, over the door to that room the old barn siding let a tiny sliver of cold air find the hot water pipe going across the door. The wind let up just long enough one night to let it warm up enough for the water pressure to shatter that pipe... at 3 AM. We have 60 pounds constant pressure from our well, so all 10 showers can be used at one time without dropping the pressure.  It didn't take long to move LOTS of water through the ceiling. Lucky for us that Don and I had taken up residence in the 2 handicap rooms on the first floor, and I was sleeping lightly while listening for him to need some help since he was just a few days out of the hospital. The water sounded like Niagara Falls coming through the ceiling and out every opening it could find. Light fixtures, furnace duct, and down each side of the old barn beams that look so good holding up the second floor.

 Ladies, make sure you know where the switch is to turn off the water for your whole house. I did not. I opened the door to the mechanical room and was confronted with lots of switches and knobs. I had to wake DH to ask, and he was still so out of it from his recent surgery that time was wasted repeating my request several times.  I will be getting a new kitchen ceiling as soon weather permits a trip to the lumber yard and Fred is available. Dear Hubby will be NO help.

  

This bench near the front door will not be very welcoming to come and sit a spell for a while. One of my favorite spots to take a break from working in the flowers in the spring.

 

Alfie had very little interest to go outside in the cold. Today the cold spell finally broke and we got up to 28 degrees. It is a heat wave!! Donya took Alfie with her to see how the pine trees and arborvitae are doing. We are all getting cabin fever. Way too cold to even think about doing anything in the green house... but we can dream.

Long Hard winter

Winter came early this fall. Frost in early October and then got cold.. and colder.. and coldest. No Indian summer.  Garden was not worked to be ready for spring. Plants on the patio not attended to. Chairs and tables left where we used them last.   Not a happy state of affairs.

DH was suffering terribly with his hip and unable to help. BUT!! he gave in and we set the date and ordered his new hip.  The replacement was scheduled for January 17.  On Dec 19 the surgeon called and asked if he could come in early Dec 20 instead. Wow!! No time to fret and worry. He had it done with the Mayo team in Rochester MN.  He is one tough farmer. The nurses and Doctors at the hospital said he was their star patient. I had a cot put in his room and stayed the 3 days he was there. Nurses liked it because I took care of little things, like fetching something he may drop on the floor. Help him get a drink. Nothing technical, but enough to let the nurses attend to more important things.  He is doing very well since coming home 2 weeks ago. I stay nearby in case he needs anything, but as soon as he can climb the 2 sets of stairs to get to his room on the 3rd floor, I will go back to work at the upholstery shop.

Fred put together a hay bale shelter for the geese we bought last fall. It is open to the South, guess which way the wind is coming from today!!  I want to put another bale in front to give them a place to hunker down when the wind blows from the South. Maybe tomorrow we will get that done.

We added a goose and a gander, a runner duck, a mallard duck, a polish rooster, and red silky rooster and hen to our flock this past Fall.  We had a guest at the barn that gave us lots of advice on poultry. He advised us to get a gander to protect our chickens from predators. Hawks were one of our worries. It works. I watched a couple hawks fly right on by when they were searching for dinner. That gander stretched his wings out and started flapping when he saw those hawks. He runs at the fence and hisses if he thinks our dog, Alfie, is too close.  A bonus is the goose has started laying eggs. They are huge.. one goose egg equals 3 large hen eggs.

I must write on this blog more often, so I will remember how to get in to write on it. Lots of fun things going on, but I forget how to work the blog. So this is it for this time, and will try to do it more often just to keep the memory of how to do it.

Things in the Fall

 

Breakfast after our visit to the orchards. Yum!!

Such a rainy spring and summer. It was hard to get anything planted in the garden, then harder yet to wade in the mud to get the weeds out.  Oh well, there is next spring... it is bound to be better we hope.

Just as the trees were starting to turn their brilliant colors for Fall, I took a photo from the 3rd floor. Today the wind is blowing and those colors are ending on the ground. I love the crunch of dried leaves under foot.

My memories of tree ripened peaches from the orchards on the Western slopes of the Rocky Mountains were haunting me. We decided to make the trip to Palisade Colorado at peach ripening time to 'get me some' of those juicy tree ripened fruit. I contacted a couple family operated orchards and chose Peach Fork Orchard as my main stopping place. The peaches were excellent. Higher priced due to the shorter peach crop, but worth every cent they cost. Darn that late spring frost the region had suffered this year.

I bought 5 boxes that I knew would need to be canned within a few days. I had taken clean jars, my canner, and the business part of my turkey cooker as I knew tree ripened ment they would not travel well for very long. The remaining boxes I purchased were packed with dividers for the peaches and they would travel just fine as long as I did not leave them in the heat for very long.

Fortunately we had family visiting from Ohio and New Mexico the same weekend we planned to stay at the old family homestead. They all pitched in and we had those peaches canned before the day was done.

Bless Charlie's heart, he scalded all those boxes of peaches so Virginia could peal and pit them.

 My job was putting them in the jars and loading the canner racks. We had the rest of the crew sitting around the turkey burner with the canner full of jars... timing it and unloading the jars so the next batch could be loaded.  Thanks to all you guys for helping me.

 

We harvested our grapes this week, so grape juice and jelly is the next thing on our agenda.  Fall is such a glorious time of year.

 

Beautiful snow

Memories from 2011... We do not have this much snow this year. Plenty of wind though.

We left during the start of this blizzard in December, to meet some friends in Branson Mo. A good thing we had 3 people left behind in charge of any chaos this storm might cause.
The aftermath was absolutely beautiful. Our 3 caretakers did call us with a bit of whining about how cold it was. Hey! It was not all that warm in Branson, either.
I can't think of anything more beautiful then the sun shining on snow covered branches.
I am thankful Michelle, Fred and Donya kept the home fires burning while we were gone.

This was just the start of the snow season in December. We have had many more snow storms, wind blowing and drifting the snow, and way more below 0 days this winter then I care to remember. I'm very anxious to see a January thaw... just 1 week left for it to appear. The garden catalogs have arrived !!! yea !!! Spring must be on it's way.

Dog Days of February

Dog days of February?!!!

 We usually try to visit our grandchildren during February... but not this year. Repairs and improvements to the barn have been keeping us busy. It feels like we hardly get one thing repaired and something else decides to break down. Today the heating element to the oven had to be replaced. Horrors!! no cookies or home made bread when you have no oven. 

I found the funniest very short video on the internet and will put a link for your entertainment.

Christmas 2012, already!!!!

                                                                   Christmas 2012 
                                                                       Horse barn


Another Christmas!!!  Already!!!  What makes them come so fast?  We are scurrying around at the barn trying to get it all decorated nice and pretty.  I just love those new LED lights. They are so bright and use so little power.... we can leave then on all night. It is a little tricky to get photos, though. I'll try to get a photo of the 'new' chicken coop we built this year (yea!!)... and decorated for the season.

I've finally perfected a tomato soup made from scratch. I love it so much, if there is any left from supper I warm it up and have it for breakfast. yum!!! 

Creamy Tomato Soup
4 Tblspoon Olive Oil
2 Lrg Onions
8 Cloves Garlic
2 Teasp Thyme, dried
2 Qrt Tomatos (home canned)
4 Tblspoon Balsamic Vinegar
1 Teasp Soda
2 cups Milk
Pepper
Salt
Chop onions and saute in olive oil until tender. About 4 minutes. Add minced garlic and thyme and saute about 2 more minutes. Add crushed tomatoes and balsamic vinegar and heat on simmer. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup in the saucepan. Or put through blender in small amounts and return to the saucepan. Add soda and stir throughly. Add milk and bring to simmer but do not let boil.