Eggs!

This week brought our first eggs from our layers. We haven't eaten any yet, however. The first blue egg (from Aracana's) was weak and cracked. Ben spent the morning showing off the first brown egg to all the folks at the retirement home where Grandpa Mack lives. It lasted about 45 minutes before it met its fate on the floor. We placed the others in the nest boxes to try to train the chickens to lay in there.

Christmas Break 2007

Lots of fun this Christmas Break! Here are some highlights...

Another Ice Storm

Snow Day!This storm brought more ice than the last round. Fortunately, we did not lose power or any more trees. School was cancelled due to the road conditions and we enjoyed a nice, quiet day together. I took Ben to the machine shed with me to get the doors de-iced. After working a little while I turned around to see him wearing some safety goggles. He was ready for sledding. Kristin brought us a cookie sheet and he took a few trips down the ice covered driveway.

Winter Storm

The first day of December brought a pretty serious ice storm. Ice/snow/sleet began to fly around noon. A sheet of ice on everything and a strong wind took its toll on many of our trees.
We lost power around 4:00 pm and it wasn't restored until 6:30
Sunday morning. We set up camp in the living room for sleeping last night and stayed warm by the fire. No problem waking up to stoke the fire, Nora made sure we woke up once every hour.

November

Earlier this month we got our first visit from Papa and Sue Sue! They stopped to visit on their way to Florida. The kids enjoyed their time playing in the camper van and making stone soup. Ben got a #4 Green Bay Packers jersey from Papa which he calls his "Frett Barve" jersey.

We took a trip to Minneapolis for Thanksgiving. It was an excellent visit with Uncle Jeff, Aunt Leah, and cousin Ella. They are top-notch hosts and we had a nice relaxing day wathcing the snow fly and the kids play. The trip there was a trial. Bad weather plus one wrong turn added about three hours to the voyage. The wrong turn, however did lead us directly to a Starbucks, and we had our first Americanos since leaving Washington.

Nora is oficially walking. She took off this week and is giggling every step of the way. She even managed to walk up the entire flight of stairs. This adds a whole new element to her persuit of whatever Ben is doing. It is exciting to watch them have so much fun together! Lately, a main activity has been helping Kristin in the kitchen. Today it was baking batches of Christmas cookies. Ben unwrapped all the Hershey's kisses and put them in the bowl. Grandma supervised. The kids were told they could have a cookie when Dad came home from work. Boy were they excited to see me!

Round Two

We finished up the chickens! This time Kristin got in the mix. It was an amazing fall day here and we all enjoyed the weather and a time-old tradition of jumping in a giant leaf pile.

Chicken Butchering Day

We bought 24 day-old chicks at the end of August, 12 layers and 12 meat birds. Today was round 1 of butchering. Grandpa Mack and Anita came out to help. He was a good coach and it was a great time spent together on a beautiful fall day.

Ben and Nora had fun playing in the cattle yard and watching the festivities. They even got their hands on chicken parts!