Tidings of Joy

Merry (belated) Christmas! While it always seems the Christmas season gets busy and a bit overwhelming, our goal was to keep the true meaning of Jesus' birth at the center and enjoy some fun traditions. Here's a little snapshot of some things that happened this season.

Christmas Cookie Decorating:

I tried something a little different this year. While trying to have our family eat a little "cleaner" and eliminate food dyes, we used natural coloring for the frosting (still had red & green sprinkles).

I sprinkled in spirulina for the green, cinnamon for a reddish-brown, tumeric for a yellow/orange, and kept white, white... I added in a little nutmeg to each.

And guess what? They actually tasted really good! The boys would agree.

 

Cracking Black Walnuts:

Instead of chestnuts roasting over an open fire, we were cracking our walnuts by a closed fire. Ryan collected some walnuts last year, dried them out and we got a little morsel of delight. Those tough little buggers put up a fight, but we won in the end.

 

Tuck helped too.

Gift Giving:

This was the year I told myself I wasn't going to do homemade gifts, then I went to a class at our health food store on natural gift making, got inspired and this is the result.

4 batches of soap

3 flavors of lip balm and hand balm

2 varieties of bath teas

and pure beeswax candles. 

(tidbit of info: I just found out that beeswax candles purifies the air of toxins in your home the same way some plants clean the air, neat - huh?)

Ski Vacation:

My parents (generous) gift to our boys (birthday & Christmas are 1 day apart) was skiing... in Vail! Watch out they can stop, turn and look for any little jump they can go over. It was a great break and beautiful spending time in the mountains around Christmas.

 

Tidings of Joy:

This wreath popped up on our doorstep. Thank you Uncle Bill for the decoration!

Our chickens are in full production (even with sub-zero temps)! S-man got creative with his sled to collect them all.

 This is how we roll...to celebrate Christmas with Ryan's family (they're only a mile away).

We arrived a little cold and wet :)

Christmas night broomball game on our backyard ice rink. (sidenote: dollar store brooms make the game called broken-broom broomball ;)

Have a blessed New Year!

Corn Harvest

 

The vision of this project started about 5 years ago when Ryan stumbled upon an old beat-up 1940's 2-row corn planter. He's been working here and there getting it fixed and use-able. This last spring, in preparation for future livestock, it was used to plant corn. This is the story:

My forestry loving husband has a sweet spot in his heart for farming. Before we moved here, he had plans of somehow, somewhere, someway being able to farm. The Lord really blessed us with being here now and able to easily use the land Ryan's grandfather had farmed years ago. There is something really special watching two little boys helping their daddy, by covering a little seed with dirt that will eventually become corn they will feed their pigs. Something you rarely see nowadays.

As the corn was growing, Ryan had a vision for a corn crib. With no official plans, he put together a pretty awesome one. It reminds me of Charlotte's Web, and it fits perfectly in the back of our property. It also works well as a hide-out for the boys when there's no corn.

Tuck helps daddy

hiding

So, from what "they" say - the corn harvest was late this year and there was still a lot of moisture in the corn, I'll take "their" word for it. We started harvesting at around 8:30 am and were done around noon on Thanksgiving weekend. And thankfully, we had some extra help from family that was in town.

Thank You Theresa and Whit!

The little boys who helped plant the little kernels were awesome pickers... for about an hour. I don't blame them, it was pretty cold.

cousins overseeing the operation

actually kinda fun to pick

 

 Yes, boys and girls... this is what the real deal, non-GMO organic corn looks like, beautiful isn't it?

With a matter of hours, the field is picked, the Bear aka: our truck is loaded, and we figured we have enough corn to feed 1.5 pigs. I wonder where we can find half a pig ;) ?

Thank you to our corn pickers - Whit, Brian, Sam, Theresa, Tammy, John, Bob... we owe you a pork chop dinner :)