the annual hike to the cabin in Merck Forest

We hiked in two days ago and hiked out yesterday. This year we went with two other families and it was so much fun!

Merry Christmas!

We're all hanging out at home-- it's beautiful and snowy. The dinner is going to be easy since each of us is taking a part -- it's a quirky, high cholesterol meal. We'll fast all day and take our lipitor!

Bernie -- Potatoes -- cheesy mashed potatoes with bacon -- his recipe
Rose -- Salad -- baby spinach with carrots, onions, roquefort, and bacon -- her recipe
Bob -- grilling beef tenderloin
Mary

I love this time of year. The cows aren't in the field as much, but are mainly in the barn and the barnyard. I can feed them more easily, by shoving hay out of the window from the second floor of the barn. Watering is a problem, but maybe this year carrying the heavy buckets of water will give me Michelle-Obama arms. I'm hoping anyway - she's got great arms.

Today I have back to back meetings

processing hogs

Our friends the Muenches have raised hogs and shared them with us the last few years. We've used a local processor, but with the crunch of the fall hunting processing, they've been unable to take us. Barb found another processor, but they can't smoke our hams and bacon. Soooo, I've been searching for a custom smokehouse.

It's funny that you never imagine how many steps there are between feeding

Cookies!

I'm making cookies today -- I love how easy the base recipe concept is -- how you can change a few ingredients and make a whole new cookie --


sugar cookies -- in the food processor -- I made two batches of these separately today.
1. 2 sticks of butter, 1 cup of sugar, 1/4 tsp salt -- process these ingredients together until smooth.
2. add 2 eggs through the chute and process again until

asian marinade for beef

For dinner tonight, I'm marinading a thin hanger steak from our cows in the following ingredients:
1/2 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup rice vinegar, 2T maple syrup, 2T grated ginger, 1T hot sesame oil

I'll pan fry it very rare and serve it with rice and kimchi that I made this fall. I think I'll cut up cherry tomatoes and cucumbers and serve that too!

our bull --

we share a bull with someday farm -- he's a little guy and just a year old, but dexters mature quickly so we're hopeful our cows are pregnant now. he's cute, but we never turn our back on him. he could accidentally gore you and boom - you'd be dead.

i've been getting up and making breakfast every day this week for the family. the kids go off to work and school with travel mugs of hot cocoa made

Wow -- snow! I love it. I moved things around and the cows are all set -- with water from heated buckets in the barn and hay bales to munch closeby. the chickens are happy with a warmer under their waterer and a heat lamp in the coop. It's happy here on the farm.

Cooking up a chicken with roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes, and sweet onions for tonight's dinner. The seed catalog came, so after