I slept pretty good last night and woke up feeling somewhat refreshed.
I spent some time knitting on my Harvest Cardigan, while watching Woody Woodpecker on MeTv.
By the light of one low light, and watching the sky slowly brighten to a dull grey.
There wasn't too much on the to-do list today.
Late in the morning my hubby and I went tromping in to the cedar woods and looked around for some downed cedars.
The trees we took samples have been down for around 10 years, if not longer.
We took those samples and my husband knocked some chunks out of them and we got to see how good the wood is.
Like it had been cut down yesterday.
So pretty!
A couple years ago I had to go to one of the home improvement stores and pick out cedar planks for our sauna. It was really hard to find cedar that looked as nice as what we just pulled out of our woods.
Hubby and I are going around and around a potential homestead-y project, and use wood harvested from our land. We are still going around and around, pondering it.
Otherwise, it's been a fairly quiet Saturday. It snowed a bit. We did some hunting. Nothing to report there.
Tomorrow I'm sure I'll have more on my to-do list, and speaking of lists, I'll be working on my goals for 2024 list.
Christmas Eve I spent the morning doing a bit of food prep. The only two things I took pictures of were the two cheeseballs I made.
This one I started off with a recipe from Almanac. I was a bit disappointed with it. Don't get me wrong, it tasted just fine. However, one of the groups at our local Cathedral church makes cheeseballs every year for a fundraiser and they are SO good. I know some of the ingredients that are used for the cheeseball. I'm going to try and make one. Wish me luck.
The other cheeseball I made was a dessert cheeseball, that I made with my own inspiration, no recipe.
This one was a HUGE hit with my husband. I tried to replicate the flavor of the cranberry-covered goat cheese logs from Aldi. I done did good.
For the main meal we had a gorgeous prime rib roast.
We went hunting in the afternoon. The neighbors started shooting firearms again. Incredibly frustrating. This time around the shooting sounded further away.
Oh! Sunday I did watch some Christmas movies. My friend Becky was talking about Christmas movies on a recent blog post and I got to thinking that I should probably watch a few.
While I was doing food prep I watched Christmas at PeeWee's Play house.
Then later on I watched A Muppet Family Christmas.
What a throwback watching this movie was. It included the commercials from the year 1987.
Today was a quiet day. Woke up to more rain. Did I mention the rain we had yesterday? Yup. Rain.
Then more rain today.
Today our big meal was beef tenderloin steaks. Yum! And then the boys had crab legs (surf and turf)
This is one of the crab leg clusters.
What did we have on the television while we were prepping this meal and eating?
Why MXC of course. Nothing screams Christmas quite like this show.
I watched a bit of A Christmas Story while knitting a few rows on my Harvest Cardigan before we ate.
If you couldn't tell, I completely forgot about a Christmas Day cast on. As much as I try to remember these sorts of things, I more often than not forget about them. So, for now until maybe New Year's Eve, I'll just keep working on my cardigan and other current WIPs I have.
Or, maybe I'm in the minority of my knitting/stitching/crafting circle. Does anyone do Christmas or New Year's Eve cast ons?
A little bit later I was watching the Muppets Christmas Carol. My first time seeing it. They have a different spin on the story. I haven't finished the movie yet. Don't tell me how it ends. *wink*
I told my husband the rats in this movie reminds me of the creatures that hang on Jabba the Hut in the Star Wars movies. He agreed. Even the noises the rats make are similar to what the other creatures make.
This afternoon we went out hunting again. No random shooting from the neighbors this time.
ANNNNNDD I had a bit of action.
A small doe showed up. She was super skittish and left within a few seconds after this girl showed up. Then this gal left after a moment.
It was the first deer I've seen in almost two months.
So that was exciting.
Then close to shooting hours ending I got a text from my hubby, saying he was packing up. I wrote back, saying "okay" and started packing up myself.
Then I looked out the window and went "Sh*t!" and quickly sent a text saying "Deer!"
I quick looked through my scope and through my binoculars. Another doe. Possibly one of the "babies" we said we were going to pass on. I confirmed it was not a buck. Also, you see that ribbon? I have that. ribbon to help me know if the deer is big enough to harvest.
I got to sit for a few moments and watch her guard the pile from another deer. Then she ate for a few moments and then disappeared. A moment or two later my husband was there, waiting for me to leave the blind so we could go back to the house.
This evening we opened gifts and my husband was happily surprised by the gift from our son, and my son was really surprised by the gifts we gave him. I already received my gifts from my husband (the yarn) and my son ordered my gift but it won't be here for a few weeks. My guess is that it's something garden-related.
Speaking of gardening ... now I can officially start thinking about all things gardening-related, if I haven't mentioned it already. Yay! I need to pull out my binder that I started this year, and I'm taking notes from some of the things shared from Kristin at Shifting Roots.
This morning I got up, wiped the bleariness from my eyes and had a cup of coffee.
Then I started knitting.
Don't remember how long I knit. The day had to be started. And I was hungry.
Then we ran to town.
I didn't have to drive, so I brought the mitten.
I knit on the way to town, and on the way home.
When I got home, I did house-y things, like cleaning up the kitchen and ... I don't remember what else.
Then I took a nap.
Then I got up and got ready for hunting.
Another time of it being so quiet out there that my ears were ringing.
The temperature this afternoon ... unreal. I saw bugs flying around. BUGS! on Dec. 23.
I had immediate regrets that I didn't bring the mitten with me. I could have knit and not have worried about my hands getting cold.
And ... unfortunately my hunting time was cut short.
Someone decided to empty a magazine of something that was not .22 ammo a little too close for comfort.
I was reading a book on my kindle app when I heard "bang, bang, bang, bang ... etc.," and it felt stupidly close to where I was sitting. My hubby said it sounded like it was right by him.
So ... if anything might have been coming our way, it obviously took off and left the area.
We came back to the house and had supper.
Then ... I started knitting. I knit and I knit. And I knit.
The first day of winter. It kind of did not disappoint in terms of darkness in the morning and how quickly it got dark in the evening.
I've been seeing some pretty images on Facebook today, noting the day.
The daytime part, however, was decidedly *not* winter-like. At one point the temperatures were in the upper 30s Fahrenheit. And it's so brown out there. I think I may be missing the snow. It's been decades since we last had a winter with no snow.
It was kind of a meh day, with a bit of craziness thrown in. Tomorrow is an early publishing day and we were scrambling to get stuff done today so there's an easy day tomorrow.
I did work on my mitten tonite, while watching Alone: UK. Those guys swear A LOT. Like, way more than necessary.
I'm working on the convertible part of the mitten now.
Oh, remember yesterday my mentioning "Speaker for the Dead?" I got the idea to request the audiobook from the library. There's a 16-week wait on it. I couldn't believe it! When did it suddenly get so popular?
Yesterday I was walking in the back 20. You guessed it - I was getting the SD cards from the game cams.
It was a gorgeous time out there. I was walking along the path and I heard a few sounds coming from one of the trees.
There were noises coming from all over the woods. Leaves blowing in the wind or rubbing up against branches.
This one was like a knocking, but not. I didn't see any critters up in the tree. Then I heard a rapid noise so I looked around the tree.
Nothing. Not even a sound of scurrying. Then the noise stopped.
Have you ever heard of tree songs? That may not be what they are called, but it's the trees talking, or singing.
I took this video about four years ago.
The more recent moment got me thinking about an audio book I listened to several years ago. Actually, I never finished it. The time ran out on it.
Have you ever heard of "Speaker for the Dead?" Most likely you haven't, unless you are a scifi fan. I'm sure you've heard of "Ender's Game." "Speaker for the Dead" is sometimes considered the sequel to Ender's Game.
Anywho, the long and short of it is the species in the book has a relationship with the trees. Or, a religion if you want.
When I'm out in the back 20 and I hear the trees making noises I often talk back.
After a full day of work and house stuff I started the first mitten.
I knit while watching "House" I know the show is from a whole other time. I'm running out of shows and this one is enough to entertain me but I don't have to have my full attention on it.
Those pretty colors, through the trees, this morning.
When I went out to do chicken chores this morning it was balmy out. I think that's the correct word. Very temperate. It felt like a spring day.
In fact, towards the end of the day snow was melting off the roof and it was close to 50 degrees out.
About mid-day I took a walk out to the back 20, to get the cards from the game cams.
The sun was so nice to feel on my face when I was out there.
Today was an early deadline day for work. Naturally a few things had to go wrong. My email server has decided to hold on to my emails for a bit before doing an email dump.
Then there was something going on with the website. Thankfully that was taken care of fairly quickly.
Have you ever heard of a grilled PB and J? My cousin told me about them a long time ago. I forgot about them until my son asked that one be ready for him when he came home from work tonite.
I made one for myself, too.
Yum!
This morning before work I knit a bit on my harvest cardigan. This evening I stitched another ornament.
I think it is supposed to be evergreens and bobbles. So far it's not my favorite. For as sparse as it may look, it sure took me long enough to stitch.
I have a Pandora music station that is all pretty choral Christmas music.
Music like this:
This morning I was in the kitchen, puttering around, getting lunch ready, and listening to this music.
I realized the music just doesn't hit quite as good when there's no snow on the ground, or snow coming down.
And then ... it snowed for a bit.
Thankfully my husband and I got one of his projects knocked out before the snow started.
We were in the back 20 taking down trees and clearing brush.
I didn't take pictures of everything. Oops.
This past spring we planted a few apple trees back there. Today he cut down a few popple trees that were blocking the sun for these apple trees this past summer.
Continuing on the preparation for garden 2024, my husband made a soil sifter for me.
Last year the hardest part of making soil blocks was the twigs in the soil mix. No more!
Also, both the seed orders from MIGardener and Sandia seeds arrived.
Woo hoo!
Is it crazy that I'm already thinking about starting seeds in January?
Today was one of those days where I had a full to-do list, and was steadily busy from 7 a.m. til after supper.
We are still having warm temps in my area. I took a long lunch and cleaned out the chicken coop for my girls.
One barred rock kept popping her head into the coop, trying to figure out what I was doing, and if it was safe to go in. I could tell she was thinking she could be really clever and run past me and out the open door, but she was terrified of the shovel.
I also replaced the cover on my greenhouse.
Way earlier in the year I was singing the praises of this greenhouse I got off Amazon a few years ago.
Then we got a metric ton of snow and she couldn't take it anymore. The zippers gave out on me. The frame is still solid.
I have a lot of stuff stored in there.
Off went the cover.
It looks so different without the cover.
She looks pretty with a "fresh coat of paint."
I'd say "I wonder if my husband will notice the new cover," but he reads my blog. This will be a pleasant surprise for him.
Speaking of surprises (ha, see what I did there?) I was surprised yesterday when I got an email notification that my seed order from MIGardener shipped. I had totally forgotten I placed a small order when MIGardener had a 20 percent off seed sale for Cyber Monday, or whatever.
*facepalm*
Seeds ordered were:
Broccoli Rabe - Spring Rapini
Self blanching cauliflower
Mushroom red pepper
Big Jim pepper
Shishito peppers (I'm so set for these seeds now.)
Ghost peppers
Rutgers tomato
Tiny Tim tomato
Geranium Kiss tomato
Muncher cucumber
San Marzano tomato
Yeah ... I guess I'm totally set for seeds. Ooops. What can I blame for forgetting the order?
I also took a quick walk out to the back 20. The SD cards in the game cams needed to be swapped out.
See? Still so much brown.
Some neat things were seen.
This evening, after dinner, clean up and doing some work-for-pay, I stitched a few threads on the ornament. Slow and steady. I kind of wish I could just knock these out so I can FFO them and get them on the tree before Christmas.
Yesterday I realized I "lost" my monkey sock project. This morning I remembered where I put it. I forgot I put it in a project bag.
