Ha ha...my doggie is covered in snow

She thinks I am a terrible blogger and promises to force me to write real posts soon.

Winter Prep

It has been getting colder at night and we've all be preparing for the long winter. Wool socks have been washed:

Corrie and Sugar Pie are practicing snuggling for body warmth:

And squirrels are stashing walnuts in our woodshed:

In trees:

And on fence posts:

Totally secure. This must be a very trusting squirrel.

Look at this picture of my dog

Have you ever seen anything cuter?

No. No you have not.

But how does Sugar feel about the kittens?

She seems to be doing just fine...
   
   

Sunday is for Homebrew

Here's what it looks like around here today.

We're brewing our first all grain beer.

And, you can't make home brew unless you are also drinking home brew. We're tasting our latest batches....the dark is a spruce ale, which I think is DELICIOUS (Bill says "meh") and the light is a Tripple which Bill quite likes and I think could use a few more weeks of bottle conditioning. There is also popcorn and cards.

Sugar Pie is here too. Moving too quickly to be caught on digital film, but still adorable.

Auto Photo!

Alert! Alert! There have been four posts in a row now with no pictures. This triggers an auto photo post. Please now to prepare for the photo bomb.

This is an adorable bulb garden Bill's mom sent us for Easter. Well, this is what it looked like two weeks ago. There were also crocuses and big red tulips. 

This is Sugar Pie. She always demands to be in on the photo bombs. 

Socks. 

Baby chickens, hatched this afternoon.  

Poofy and her two chicks: Poofy Jr. and Baby Barred Rock. They hatched about a month ago. 

An Araucana and Dorking pullet. They came in the mail in March. They were only just released to play outside earlier this month (they don't have a mom like Poofy to keep them warm and safe). At first, they didn't go far from their coop and they kept running away from us whenever we approached. But over the past few days they learned "human + pitcher of food = awesome." So now they follow us around a lot.

Finally - today's project: a porter in the making. 

Sugar Pie says hello

 

Spark plugs

Bill changed the spark plugs in our car today. Naturally, Bernie supervised the process.

Sugar approved the finished work.

Golden.

We have the most wonderful old pair of honey locusts on either side of our driveway that make a lovely, amazing canopy near our house. The people who planted them are my most favorite Previous Owners.

They are currently raining yellow confetti and making a layer of gold all around the house. I tried to take a photo of the leaves as they were falling to share with you, but there are some things that are too magical to be captured on film.

Instead, please enjoy the leaves that have already landed.

All the mundane updates

In news that shocked the world (or 5 people), I recently deleted my Facebook account. I realize that this leaves a giant void for all the people in the world (5) who have a keen interest on the mundanity of my days.

As such, I bring you an update of all the things that have happened since I left Facebook one full day ago.

This morning was garbage day.
This evening for dinner we ate garden potatoes for the first time this year.

Whilst we were eating, an autumn leaf fell from a honey locust on to Sugar Pie's fuzzy ear.

Bernie slept through it all as cats are wont to do.

Bill has gotten to this point in his oven building.

I have gotten to this point in my hat and glove building.

(Also, since leaving FB, I have turned into a hard core rocker chick. Hard. Core.)

We received another delivery of wood.

I know, it looks like the last delivery, but I assure you it is not. See the wood in the shed? We stacked that. Also, please note our propane tank has been downgraded from 1000 gallons to 300 something. We use significantly less propane than the previous owners and the huge tank was unnecessary. Wood is the heating source of champions!

Finally, the turkeys want you to know that their tails are growing in for the season and they don't look nearly as silly as they did over the summer.

They want you to know they are handsome again. Image is very important to turkeys.

Very handsome turkeys.

Today on "Staycation..."

Bernie is helping Bill build the form for the hearth slab:

Sugar is fixin to eat her some chicken

And my first adult sized sweater is blocking:

Daffodils and daft chickens

We have tons of daffodils that pop up in the center of our driveway loop. We don't take any care of them at all - they just grow in the spring and look lovely.


We think they might be pretty old. Have you ever seen ones with funny centers like this?


We also have some trouble-making chickens who have learned they can hop through the gate in our fence to access new parts of our yard...the grass always being greener and such. It wasn't so bad when they were just scratching around our compost pile, which is right near the fence, but now they are venturing over to the house.


Well within reach of the dog.


Fortunately, they know what a Ball jar full of chicken scratch looks like and we can lure them back to where they belong.

October 30 - First Fire, 2010

Indiana finally decided to be seasonally appropriate with the weather. On Tuesday (I think) a big ole storm blew through and left behind autumn. Today is our first we-need-to-heat-the-house fire (opposed to an aesthetic fire). It's actually pretty warm outside - mid 50s - but our dang brick house is holding on to the recent cold. So the wood stove is lit! Last year our first fire was 3 weeks earlier - we went away to California, drank some wine and came back to winter.

Fortunately, I got some knitting done, just in time, including Bill's Six Animal hat. It's made of undyed alpaca from at least 4 animals (a gift from my mom from her first Rhinebeck) and the white stripes are a handspun merino and possum blend from New Zealand that Chris and Kelly were so kind to spin and gift to us. New Zealand possums are an invasive species and there is a big effort to encourage folks to kill them. Often when an economy is built around an animal there is an incentive to maintain the animal at profitable levels - which is contrary to wanting to eradicate it. In NZ (at least when we were there) it is illegal to keep (farm, breed) any possums. They all need to be wild-caught.

Also, in case you are wondering why anyone would want a possum hat, NZ possums don't look anything like ours. They are more like badgers. But, that's enough ecology. On to the knitting!

Bill's hat:

And a cowl for me:

Sugar, helping with the photos:

Bill, being artistic. Apparently cowls make great egg cozies: