Christmas week

 So what's with me writing and then stopping for almost a whole week? 

We were busy enjoying Christmas week and working on the wood project (as I have no dubbed it) 

That wood project ... it wears me out each and every time we do it. It's so sad. The pandemic and being home all the time has made me weak, I think. 

When we weren't working on the wood project, we were just home. Not doing anything special.  We had a day or two where it was cold out and not warm enough to do much outside.  We hunkered down and watched movies. 

My son and husband hefting and moving around one of the huge wood cuts. 

The pile when all that was left was the big chunks. 

Watching the boys work, from a different angle.

The pile is slowly going down. Two hours at a time, give or take. I was thinking about this project.  Even if we are working on it a few or three hours at a time, it will still take us a few months to work on it. Maybe.  It will be a weekend project since we can't work on it during the day. 

I spotted another face in the wood. 

The sunset on Christmas Eve. Beautiful

Christmas Day and dinner were quiet. The meal was more simple, as in not as many sides. I decided to focus on the turkey and the standard trimmings. My son pointed out that I forgot the corn. Oh well. 

It was a beautiful bird and browned perfectly. 

Afterwards my son asked me if we could have *real* snow cones since we got a tote full of clean snow. When the snow moved through our area it filled a huge tote I had left on the deck.  Lovely clean snow.  I made some simple syrups and used kool aid for flavoring. I haven't had a snow cone in years.  It was good!

A couple photos from when I thought I'd be *artsy.

Icicles on my roof line. The day before I took this photo I saw a gal on television who makes her bread and butter by doing icicle photography.  I never thought of it, but, yeah, icicles up close are really pretty!

I call this one "Snow shovel forgotten by the tree after serving its purpose." Ha! I'm hilarious! 

On the crafting front, I haven't done as much as I would have hoped. For various reasons. Mostly I was just too tired to think of doing anything. 

I recently started a sock with 1 x 1 ribbing. I haven't been doing much of the driving so I thought I'd take advantage and have a vanilla sock going.  I've mostly worked on it while watching television. Go fiure. 

I'm making very slow progress on my cross stitch project. This is a cross stitch pattern put out by the Fat Quarter Shop.  I'm actually further along than this photo, but I've got the project tucked away right now.  I keep telling myself "slow and steady." 

One thing I did start and I'm glad to have started was a pair of dishtowels on my loom. 

I haven't woven anything in ages. I wanted to get something going way back in March, but life got crazy with the pandemic and "safer-at-home" stuff. Not to mention baby chicks. 

Waking up to a winter wonderland

 Last night I stayed up late because I was working on a quilt top.  This morning I was lazy and slept in a little bit.  

I went out to the kitchen to make myself some coffee and looked out the window.  We got snow! 

Totally not expected.  I actually got a little bit excited about it. We will have a white Christmas.

After breakfast I searched and found my digital camera. I wanted to get "good" photos of the outside. 

It's been ages since I've used a camera that wasn't my phone. 

After admiring the snow, which was about three inches and just enough that snow moving had to happen, my husband and I got to working on splitting and hauling wood. 

With only two people working on this project, it took us longer than expected. 

We also started a third holz hausen. I took a shot of the holz hausen from above, rather than the side.  It's 10 feet across.

We found something interesting in one of the wood pieces. The split revealed a really interesting color inside the wood.  Then one of us spotted the nail that was embedded in the center of the wood. 

We found two or three screws in the wood. What is the history, I wondered. A deer stand?  Someone who wanted to protect the tree? Now I know what can happen when you put a screw into a tree and just leave it there. 

We are slowly whittling that pile down. 

I am a tired girl and I know I'll be sleeping well tonite! 

Weekend shenanigans

 It's that time of year where my hubby takes vacation time, and we do all the things!  Well, it's sort of like that. 

Friday was both our last day of work before vacation.  Him and I have all next week off.  My son still has to go to school Monday and Tuesday. Ha ha! 

Saturday I slept in a bit. I had no idea my body needed that much rest. I think I slept for 10 hours. 

After some coffee and a quick something to eat, we started working on the stack of fire wood.

This photo was taken when we were done yesterday.  This afternoon my husband and son went out and cut up more and got stuff ready for tomorrow. 

I'm going to share photos from when we were working.  Nothing much to really explain here.  My husband cut up all the pieces for the log splitter.  I was hauling the pieces over to him. My son was grabbing up the cut pieces and loading them into the trailer.  

My son coming back for another bundle. 

I have to be a bit sneaky about taking photos.  My son HATES having his photo taken, but I know he will appreciate this when he's older.  He better. 

This was part of the pile of cut wood that was waiting to be split. We saved the heaviest for last.  Uff da! It was all so heavy. 

Cutting up one of the bigger pieces. 

I found an interesting pattern in one of the cut pieces.  I think it looks like the fear mask, from the movie. 

We filled the trailer up three times and drove it over to where we are building the holz hausens. 

We opted to started a second one, rather than continuing on the first one. If/when we ever get snow, no one will have to clear out the area for the new one to be started. Hooray for forward thinking! 

Aren't they a cute pair?

Today the weather was decent, still. The temperature wasn't too low either. 

So we decided to do another overdue project. 

Can you guess? 

What do we use this pot for? 

Need another hint? 

Okay. What is this? 

Did you guess a chicken plucker? 

Yup ... It was time to butcher these guys. 

These are the last of the roosters we hatched out and raised up. 

Well, the whole process went incredibly fast.  No more than two hours, including set up and clean up. We butchered 10 birds.

They turned out beautifully. If freshly processed birds can be called that. This bird is fresh from the plucker and before my husband did the last bits that need doing. 

Since we wrapped that up so early in the morning, I took the time to do a quick clean around the house. Then worked on dinner.  We had Ka Bobs. It's been a while since we had them.

I forgot to take a photo of them, but I did take a photo (or three) of Furby.  She was in the kitchen with me, keeping me company.  She's so funny, sometimes, when I try taking a photo of her at her level.  Half the time she's so busy trying to see what is going on. 

"What's going on?"

"Hold on, let me see you with my good eye."

"I still have no idea what's going on."

This afternoon I gave the big girls and roos a bit of a treat. I had some bok choy from a food box I paid for.  I forgot about the bok choy and it froze.  I had it stored in a cooler out in the garage. 

The birds seems to like it.