Road Trip: Part 1

A couple of weeks ago David and I took a road trip with a couple of friends of ours.  We were headed to Florida, to attend a wedding of some friends of ours.  We decided to stop in Savannah on our way down, and spend the night there.

It is about 10 hours from Maryland to Savannah, so we left at 4 AM Thursday morning to head down. We got to town around 2pm, and checked into our hotel for a bit of a rest before we went sight-seeing.  We had a 7:15 reservation at The Lady & Sons, Paula Deen's restaurant.

I didn't expect the restaurant to be a three story part of this building.  It's pretty big inside.

We spent some time looking around the gift shop before dinner.

After dinner we walked around a bit, and headed to the river walk.  There was a little square, called Johnson Square. Since my maiden name is Johnson, I had to take a picture with the sign.

There was a really neat plant that caught my attention, so I had to get a picture (this is a theme for the whole trip).

The river walk area was so neat. There were shops everywhere, musicians on the corners, artists set up to paint people, and a pretty view of the river.

This is Marc and Amanda, our traveling buddies.

WWII Memorial

A fancy honey shop...

And on the way back to our truck, we saw a horse and cart.  I managed to catch the horse relieving himself....oops.  :-)

We only had one night in Savannah, and there was so much we didn't get to see. I'd love to go back and spend an entire week there!

October-November Update

I haven't been posting much lately, so here's a quick overview of some of the things that have been going on.

The leaves were so pretty this year when they changed!  I caught this picture one day when there were some pretty altocumulus clouds (I learned that from the local weather guy's facebook page). 













 

It seems like they didn't last long though....before I knew it they were gone.

I love the scenery in the winter though....doing the chores at dusk is nice because the sky is always so pretty.

I caught a pretty sunset one evening a few weeks ago.

I call this "Sunset Over the Goat Pen".

Now that it's cold and getting below freezing, we had to winterize the camper.  We ran RV antifreeze all through the plumbing.

One weekend when David had plans with his uncle, the kids and I went to Fifer Orchards for their open house.  They had free hay rides, free cider, and free s'mores!

David and Elmer watched some tv...

And then Elmer got tired...

I planted some wheat in the pasture to extend the grazing season.  I'll graze it this coming week, then fence the sheep off for the winter.  Come spring, as soon as it warms up a bit the wheat will shoot up and I should get some more good early grazing. (the wheat is the bright green grass below)

A borrowed buck is here to breed Ida and June. His name is Lucky, and he's a yearling Oberhasli.  He's very sweet, and has a teeny little baby voice.  I tried to get a better picture, but this was the only angle I could get.  Of course I am pretty sure he bred the does, but I forgot to write down the date!  I think it's mid-late October, for late March kids. 

And there's a new bunny.  There should have been more, but for some reason both does kindled a day or two apart, and neither one pulled fur for a nest!  Most of the babies died of hypothermia before I found them.  I managed to save one of them, and he's doing just fine.  This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago, so he's twice the size now. 

I tried to re-breed the doe who lost all her kits, but I don't think she settled.  Sometimes rabbit breeding isn't as easy as it should be!



Ok, that update gets me caught up through mid-November.  Maybe I'll get over my blogging slump soon and be able to keep on top of things from now on.  :-)

Slow Sundays

I love lazy Sundays like this.  We had a great day...some productivity but lots of laying around.  Elmer and Buford got baths this morning so we had a little photoshoot. Elmer wasn't paying attention.  

I put a little flower hair clip in Buford's shaggy hair.  He left it there for about an hour.  I really need to give him a clip because his shaggy coat tends to collect things.

Even the boys like to relax on the couch on Sundays.

Elmer and David love to snuggle on the couch. It's rare that David lays on the couch without Elmer right next to him (or in most cases, right on him).

And while the boys relaxed on teh couch I finally canned up the batch of tomato sauce I've been working on.  I got 7 quarts canned, and froze 2 quarts (since I didn't want to have to put a load of only 2 cans in the canner). 

I think I'll spend the rest of the evening working on my Foxtail sweater.  The windows are open and the cool breeze is blowing in and it's a perfect time to sit on the couch and knit!

Happy Birthday Honey!

 Happy Birthday to my husband, David!  I hope your birthday is as wonderful as you are!

Hope you have a wonderful day, babe.  XOXO

Deer Processing

*****Warning: The following post shows pictures of a deer carcass. Please do not read this post if that will bother you.*******











Every year a friend gets a deer for us. This year we waited until the last minute so I asked around to some of the farmers I know, and luckily one was able to get a deer for us with just a few days left of the hunting season. We prefer deer meat to beef simply because beef is so expensive. Deer is also a great source of local meat, although David calls deer "speed beef" since there's so much corn grown around here some of the deer are practically corn-fed. :-) We usually pay to have the deer processed, which costs around $60-$70 depending on how you want it cut. This year we decided to process the deer ourselves since it would save money. We had to buy a grinder, but that was a one-time fee and that meant all the deer meat would be free after purchasing the grinder.

I brought the deer home in my car (wagons are great) and we hung it in the garage. It was a nice sized doe. I have helped a few former coworkers process deer, and David grew up helping his uncle process them, so we were fairly sure we could do a decent job, even though it had been a while since either of us had done it.


We skinned it, pulled the fat off, and then started removing the meat. We were very careful with the tenderloins (or "backstraps") since they're the best part of the whole deer. The rest we weren't too picky with, we were just trying to get the meat off since it was a school night and we didn't have a ton of time. The kids helped out, Devin by holding bags and Kylee by jumping in and pulling off meat with us.

We really got a lot of meat off, and it's surprising how small the carcass looks afterwards.


We bought the $30 grinder from Tractor Supply, which surprise, wasn't the greatest quality. We ground for an hour or two and then the grinder broke.


We did manage to get about 10 lbs ground before that. We also had several pounds of tenderloin (we like it in medallions), and I sliced a few packages into "minute steaks" (think Steak-Ums) for sandwiches. After the grinder broke we just stuck the rest of the cut up meat into bags and froze them. They'll be saved for stew meat, ground later if we get a better grinder, or canned.


The picture above is just a sampling of what we got. All in all it was pretty easy, though we'll definitely get a better grinder before we do another one! It's satisfying to know we've got meat in our freezer and it didn't cost us anything besides a grinder. Next year's venison will be free!

Wordless Wednesday

Someone feels left out.