I've caught up so much on outside projects here that I have been doing the quilts I started two years ago. I have been teaching classes on doing them. Its fun and really nice to give something handmade for Christmas.

The only problem I ran into...I gave the great grandkids TV quilts and now the daughters want quilts too. Yipes!! Oh well, what's another project. I think I'll do the next one in the bowtie pattern and make it various shades of red. That's Cheryl's favorite color.

We just found snow here in NY, and its sticking, so traffic in the State forest next door will pick up.

That's good for the economy here in our little town.

The restaurant does really great when the snowmobilers, skiers and snowshoers get going. We really only have about an inch, and its supposed to melt off again... that's why Jack and I have been getting so much accomplished. Its been great. We had a 50 degree Christmas. Yeah..

We have fired up the incubator and should have our first hatch in 27 more days. We have been getting a dozen eggs or more per day. Very unusual for this time of year. We bred our arcaunas with barred rock roosters and have large green, lavender and blue eggs as a result. We also have a few maran hens that lay a chocolate colored egg. Its fun to watch people open the cartons. They never know what color eggs they're going to get.

Still waiting for the kidding to start. We have three pregnant does. Only three pigs left and one of them is going soon.

We are cutting back drastically on the animals so we can concentrate on the house and the gardening. New trees planted last summer are doing well. Berry bushes are coming along nicely. Pruning in the apple orchard is almost done. Greenhouse #1 is producing some greens..#2 will be done shortly and hopefully more greens and early peppers will be growing in there by end of March, early April.

Just finished a venison stew. Cooked the venison roast on the wood stove with lots of garlic stuffed down into the meat. Salt and Pepper on top. Onions all around it. Let it cook on there until it was falling off the bone. Roasted potatoes in a dutch oven, Cut the potatoes into chunks and let them sit in a bowl of garlic flavored olive oil for about 10 minutes. Put the dutch oven or a cast iron skillet on the wood stove and let it get really hot. Pour off the olive oil from the potatoes and then put the potatoes into the hot pan. Keep moving them around with a large spoon. They will stick to the bottom.

This creates the tasty crunchy brown on the potatoes.

Yummy. Serve this with a vegetable or salad, and the venison roast. Food for the Gods, or us humans who like to eat.

Our desserts are simple. We mix our frozen berries with some flour, sugar and cinnamon. Put this in the bottom of a small cake pan. A 9 x 13 is to large unless you're using three or more quarts of berries.

Top with biscuit batter and bake. We eat this buried in milk or cream. Sometimes whipped cream, but mostly just milk or cream.

We eat a moderate breakfast in the morning, a large dinner about 1 or 2pm and have dessert for supper. We don't worry about calories. We work off whatever we eat.

Enjoy the cold weather, remember that some of our plants need to have a cold spell to rejuvenate for the next year.

Take care....Kathy