The fun of winter.

This winter God has blessed us with extremely cold weather and just enough snow for unsurpassed fun. We have managed to enjoy the weather more than we have in past years and in this post I will highlight a few of our activities.

Of course, one of the things that cannot be left undone is sledding at Mr. Reiche's famous sled run.


So far we have been there only twice but we hope to return many more times before the weather warms up.


The best time to go is at night when Mr. Reiche has the run all lit up, but it is still a blast any time of the day and Mr. Reiche will always have the fire lit and roaring.


Josiah and I were able to go with the Bryson family a couple weeks ago and had a wonderful time going down and up and sledding back down, and then climbing back up. One of the unrivaled aspects of Mr. Reiche's run is that you do not get tired climbing back up the slope because it is so gentle, and yet, it is just as thrilling a ride down as any steep hill.


Dad always makes amazing snow animals in the winter. So far this winter he has made an alligator, Squealer our guinea pig, and an unknown wolf like creature.


Josiah's second annual snow ball fight was held a couple weeks ago, and some of the boys younger siblings stayed for a little while and played with Faith and I. I don't know but if we had as much fun as the boys.


We had our own sort of snow ball fight. A very gentle sort of one.


Some of us went sledding, over and over and over again.

And most of us helped build a family of snowmen. Meet Papa, Mama, and baby Frigid.

Out front, the boys were participating in a much more serious snow ball fight with balls whizzing around at alarming speeds and numbers.

The rules for the game were loosely base on Capture the Flag. One side had an American flag while the other proudly flew a Mexican flag. The fighting was fierce and hot and many men were hit on both sides, but after a few rounds the two opposing sides made a mutual agreement to halt and fast became friends again around cookies and hot chocolate.
I hope you have enjoyed a brief peek at our activities of this winter and I am sure there will be many more to come, before the warm weather descends.

~Chs

Processing Turkeys.

This post is not for the faint of heart. It includes graphic details that young children should see only with parental supervision=) Please do not continue reading if you have trouble hearing about People Eating Tasty Animals.
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We were very blessed a couple weeks ago to be able to purchase two naturally raised turkeys..... Live.
Yes, we had to butcher them ourselves, but that would be no problem!! We had butchered chickens, turkeys shouldn't be too different, right?


Well, to begin with these two birds had gone quite a few weeks past their butchering date and therefore were huge!! They were very hard to pick up, not only because of their weight but they also both were proud possessors of two extremely powerful wings.


We finally were able to hook them up, but the bungee cords stretched and left the Turkeys nearly touching the ground. Which turned out to be a problem during their last death throws (I believe that the details are not necessary at this point, use your imagination:)


So once they were really dead, we cut off their heads, plucked off the feathers and then...


cleaned them out. Everything went just as planned, though Faith said that just as the turkey was five times larger than a chicken, it also smelled five times worse.

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Next came the extremely fun part.... Processing the Turkey!!!!!! The first Turkey we chopped up and froze.

One of the breasts weighed 3 1/2 pounds, and this was the smaller Turkey!!!
Then....

I brined the other Turkey, and the remaining parts of the first Turkey over night. One of the Breasts we chopped off to make into Turkey Sausage. The rest we stuffed and cooked in the oven for supper.


These two massive legs completely filled a 9 x 13 pan!


We ground up the turkey breast with a nice heavy duty meat grinder Faith had found at our thrift store!!! It worked wonderful!


After the turkey was ground Faith combined three different recipes and a dash of her own whimsy, to make turkey sausage.


Some of which we made into patties and froze.


Last of all for dinner we made one of the most delicious casseroles in the world! We call it leftover Thanksgiving Casserole. Layers of potatoes, Turkey, stuffing and gravy make up this wondrous dish, add a side of home made cranberry sauce and you have perfection!

~Chs

How to take a bath in the winter time.

The first things you must have (as a duck) to get warm bath water, is a adorable green head, a sweet quack and charming ways.
The second is a Human who is absolutely devoted to your happiness. For ultimate success, it helps to have a partner in crime. They don't even have to be highly intelligent, just cute. A large, loud Rouen Drake, for example, will do quite well.
Now when your human comes to let you out in the morning, make sure after quacking a greeting that you wiggle your adorable tail, and make pitiful attempts at taking a bath on the hard snow. It also helps if you get your pal to go and walk/sit on the empty or icy pool in your yard, all the time quacking as loud as he can. By this time you have done all you can to soften the hard heart of your human, the next step is to wait patiently.
As soon as can be expected you should see her come laboring back toward you with two buckets of steaming water. Now, quack as much as possible to encourage her, and to tell her to get over here as soon as possible! Side step and murmur suspiciously as she enters your yard and begins to pour the water into your pool. As soon as she turns around dive in and enjoy!!

Ahh the joys of warm water, and humans who serve you wholeheartedly is wondrous.

Make the most of your water, for despite your protests, you might not get water every day.

I do hope these tips have been more than helpful to all you ducks out there, I must now return to the full time job of making my girl think that I love her with my whole heart, and that I will die without warm bath water.
Sincerely Mr. Dick, esq.

Tarragon.

Let me introduce you to our newest member of our ever growing animal household -
Tarragon.

She is a young Female Chinchilla. For those of you who don't know all of our animals, we are already proud owners of a very old, blind, and half deaf, male chinchilla, Sage. We also, at one time, possessed a younger male named Basil who succumbed to an injury (inflicted previous to our receiving him) at an early age. So this is our first girl that we have had, and let me tell you, they are HUGE! (compared to the boys that is). She was a little timid and feisty at first, but she has calmed down and is just a little (large) sweet heart now. We have had her for quite a while, but these are the first pictures I have taken of her, so I thought you all would enjoy seeing them.
~Chs

Our morning visitor.

This hungry Cooper hawk dropped by our back yard a couple days a go looking for breakfast. Unfortunately for him, all the birds around were too quick and he left with an empty belly.
( I know that the angle of this photo is somewhat strange, but I was trying to get a shot before he left.)

~Chs

Josiahs adventures

Every once and a while Josiah will commandeer the camera and go trotting off out back, to adventures. He always comes back with some very interesting pictures some of which I thought I would share with you!

First he said hello to the birds out front, this is a sweet female Red Bellied Woodpecker. She just loves suet.


There was also this cute Papa Dickie Bird,who has such a cheerful song.

After he was done observing the little feathered creatures, he began his trek out back taking the time to turn around and preserve the print of his foot with photographic memory.

Many furry animals, friendly and otherwise, (mainly otherwise) traverse our back property. Try to count how many animals have left there impressions in the snow.

Then he went and visited our little stream, which is at this point is completely and entirely frozen over!

One of Josiah and my favorite part of our "out back" are the stand of White Pine trees lining our property. They are so gorgeous after a heavy snow when they are draped with white.

I had a double take when I saw this picture that Josiah took. It seriously looks like it was taken in Florida and that the Pine trees are Palm trees:) I hope you enjoy this glimpse into Josiah's hikes! Please tune in at a unknown date for the next, not yet recorded, adventure of Josiah T. Sauve.

~Chs

Frost

"He gives snow like wool;
He scatters the frost like ashes;"
Psalms 147:16

"Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said:.....
From whose womb comes the ice?
And the frost of heaven, who gives it birth?"
Job 38:1, 29

What happens when...

we go to a Library sale? We peruse through the piles very frequently asking; whether we want this book?, or if we have this, and do we want it in hard back? Unfortunately for our groaning bookshelves, most of these questions are answered affirmatively. At the end of our search through the most recent Library sale, we came home with the total of....


21 books. The variety of our finds were astonishing.

We found a wonderful selection of children's books. Including, "Little Lord Fauntleroy" by Frances Hodgson Burnett, which was printed in 1894! It is a little bit beat up, (not surprisingly so for being 117 years old) but still readable.

Then, we were very pleased to find some Bill Pete books, which we have loved since we were very little, but for some reason have never owned.

Of course, the classic section was well gone over and we came through as the triumphant owners of three Charles Dickens novels and one Nathaniel Hawthorne. We were so very pleased with our success that we returned on Saturday, and came home with almost the same amount! Yes, we are avid readers and we all know that you can never have enough books!!

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers." ~Charles W. Eliot

The first Sunset of 2011

Was absolutely breathtaking! Despite the cold wind that blew I rushed outside with my new camera to capture it for your and my future enjoyment.

"Praise the LORD!
Praise, O servants of the LORD, Praise the name of the LORD!
Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and forevermore!
From the rising of the sun to its going down the LORD's name is to be praised."
Psalm 113:1-3
Amen, Hallelujah!

~Chs

How 2010 ended and 2011 began.

As a family we have quite a few New Years traditions. One of them being a large fancy dinner on New Years eve. This year our menu consisted of:

Venison Roast
Roasted Carrots, Onions, and Garlic
Au Gratin Potatoes
Green Lettuce Salad, with toppings
Canned Peaches.


I spread the table with a Pink tinged Lace cloth (also known as a lace curtain over a pink top sheet;) then used our Grandmother's eggshell china plates for the main dinner, and the eggshell china bowls for the peaches. Christiana Crystal wine goblets served for the Ice water, and either eggshell china or crystal was used for all the serving dishes (excepting the potatoes).


The Roast turned out lovely (thank you Josh for being the provider of it) and the gravy very flavorful.

In all the Dinner was a great success and the cook was not to worn out after all!

The rest of the evening we spent together watching movies, reading scripture, and praying.

Oh, and eating. Faith's delectable Eclairs being just one of the many treats we enjoyed!

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New years day dawned warm and beautiful, so we all headed outside, to do what everyone (in their right mind) would want to do on the first day of a new year.

Move our Goat shed! You see we had found out that its placement was all but ideal, for it let in drafts. So we were just waiting for a warm day, with thawed ground to move it to a better location! January 1st was perfect.


The side of the shed that had been against the chicken coop had to be painted, and the Sun came out just in time to help dry it off.

Our whole family (here at home) got out and helped, and we even had assistance from Mr. Reiche, who stopped by during his 11 mile bike ride on 1/1/11 ;)

Baby dog sat up in the sunshine and looked on. All was right with the world.

After we were all finished and the goats returned to their newly arranged pen, they (Fiona and Java the goats) were so happy that they even let me take some portraits of them! Don't you just love Java's Roman nose profile:)
God blessed us with Sunshine for the rest of the day, and some of us went for a walk in the afternoon, reveling in His marvelous creation.
~Chs