Catching Up Once Again

It's time to catch up again.

Winter is our "down time," but this winter certainly hasn't felt that way. I still have mountains of mending to do, jam to finish from last summer's harvest, and various other things that need to be done before we start seeds again.

On Friday we had friends arrive for a short visit. They were in the area to check some farm equipment that was for sale near here. Andrew B is a friend to all of our boys, so they were thrilled to have him visit. David was especially excited, because Andrew B has a knack for fixing things, and helped him work on his snowmobile. That old 1970's vintage thing keeps getting resurrected.

And off they go! At least, until something breaks once again.

This winter we again have snowmobilers running through our land. They seem to have figured out a trail that goes from our mailbox through our smaller field and then onto the lake and away. It never ceases to amaze me, how people are so indifferent to being on someone else's property.

This was what it looked like during the last storm that came through last week. We had over a foot of snow, and then the next day the winds were clocked at around 50 miles per hour. Definitely blizzard conditions.

The power was out for a couple of hours. That meant no well water or ability to cook food. Our wood stove is right here, but the top does not become hot enough to heat even water. We need to think through a few things about what we could do for cooking before we lose power again.

Samson loves it when anyone tosses him snowballs. On this occasion, someone let him in and he decided to bring in his snowball -- in case someone would throw it for him!

A couple of days after the storm the county plow came through to allow us to get out of our driveway. Peter had to go to his vacuuming job and there was only one pass through with the plow, so Jim had to back down our quarter mile driveway to get out to the gravel road, since there was no room to turn around. The next day the grader came in and cleaned out the rest of the driveway and yard.

Peter turned 16 on Wednesday. Jonathan created a series of creative clues for Peter to follow in order to find his birthday present from the boys. It was a lot of fun!

The clues Jonathan gave were quite interesting!

One clue was even found in the barrel stove my Dad had recently given us for our wood shop. The next clue brought Peter to the location of his present.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

Time to skim off the cream. Our cow gives almost a pint of cream from every gallon of milk. Thankfully we now have an old electric butter churn that someone found for us. Sure saves a lot of time, since previously we had to shake the cream in quart jars to make butter.

Just look at how thick that cream is! It's wonderful in coffee!

Our family has a new website to advertise all of our products.