Back to real life....

The wedding is over and now I am a married woman.  Although it was amazing and fun and exciting (and exhausting and expensive) to get married.  It is nice to be back in the normal swing of life, and just in time for the holidays.  I am the kind of person that likes to have something to do so timing was perfect on the wedding being the first weekend of November, because now it is time to think about Christmas and going back to school (I am taking a semester off because of Myles' accident).  Here is what my November days are looking like:

Up early for chores
Off to work
Home by 4:00
Change into barn clothes
Feed/Water/Clean-rabbits, chickens, horse, donkey, cow, barn cats (in that order)
Back inside to start supper
While supper is on or right before a quick shower (or on a good day a long bath).
Myles gets home from tending his assortment of cows and horses
Supper together (no TV, just quality time) usually by 6:00 or 6:30 which I love
The last hour or two of the evening is spent knitting, reading, and catching up on each other's day

...it seems when the days get short people (myself included) seem to feel like they don't have enough time to do all they need to, but the reality is, at our house, it really gives us more time because we stop working when it is dark.  Early dark means more time for some of the indoor things we enjoy and more time to relax a bit.

A Very Exciting Day

Today was a very exciting day.  Myles was given the thumbs up to start walking again (in a boot) and took his first steps in 3 months.

On another note, Myles also offered to make supper.  This was what you get when the guy in the kitchen watches too much Man vs. Food.

This dish contains onions, eggs, cheese, french fries (what?!?) and sausage (the last of sausage from last year, making room for more from this years pigs).

It was delicious, but probably (definitely) not good for me!

Pork

I don't have any pictures, but today we said goodbye to Pat and Lenny (I'm not sure how I never took any pictures of them).  We have decided not to give the next pigs names (it did not really bother me...which is weird because I am such an animal lover) but others got attached to the pigs a little bit more.  To be 100% honest I do not like pigs, so sending them to be slaughtered today felt like success to me.  It means food on the table, food we grew right here at home.  I am a huge animal lover, but you learn to realize that some animals are pets and some are food.  Pat and Lenny are food animals and I appreciate them for that.  What I have to try to remember as I eat our pork is not to think about when Pat and Lenny ate....because it was absolutely disgusting and would ruin anyone's appetite very quickly.  You know the kid on A Christmas Story, when his mom tells him to eat like the pig....thats how they eat, but they are wrinkly and hairy and are usually eating a nasty mix of old break, milk and whatever we scraped off our plates that week.

and on that note, I am no longer hungry for lunch....maybe I should use thoughts of pigs eating as a diet plan

Pizza and cake

Last night was sort of a date night for us in that we cook supper together and then ate cake and watched a movie together.  We had a blast.  We made pizza. 

I used Pioneer Womans's pizza dough then we just went through the pantry and the garden to top it off.  I made a roasted tomato sauce a few days ago and most of it went in the freezer, but there was some in the fridge still so that was our sauce.  Myles wanted pepperoni but we did not have any, what we did have was some beef summer sausage that someone gave us for Christmas. That was sliced up, along with tomato, bell pepper, banana pepper, jalapeno peppers and onions from the garden.  Topped with some fresh homemade mozarella and ricotta and baked for about 15-18 minutes.  It was delicious.

After Pizza we sat done to watch the movie 300 and eat cupcakes.  The cupcakes are from the little local bakery we are using for our wedding.  We had to decide on some flavors so she made us up cupcakes in the flavors we were most interested in.

(yellow, queen anne's lace, italian cream cheese, devil's food, red velvet, and key lime)

Decisions, decisions...

Who says there is an age requirement for yard work?

When your regular yard-man is laid up with a broken leg you have to get creative...I don't mind yardwork, well actually I don't like things like weed-eating (very loud)...I like yardwork when it means in working in my garden.  Anyways my 8 year old nephew has taken up the task of weed-eating around our house (for a small price).  He got a lot done today and says he will work on it more tomorrow.

THE BEST CAGE EVER

So we have taken a lot of paths with animals and our most recent endeavor is meat rabbits.  We are not afraid to eat anything, especially if we can grow it ourselves.  I got a doe (female rabbit) last spring to use in my classroom (update, 17 days until my summer break is over), my sister got a little buck early in the summer and then I happened upon another more grown buck a few weeks later.  We always wait to make sure we are going to stick with an adventure before we invest to much into it so the rabbits are living in "THE BEST CAGE EVER" until we process (read slaughter) our first litter.  This cage was built as step 2 for my first batch of chicks I got.  I ordered my chicks to come spring that year and would not be moving to our current house until July where my chickarium would reside (please note that "chickarium" is the very cool term dubbed by Myles that we use for the hen house).  Anyhow, the chicks grew at an alarming rate (I had never had or worked with chickens---poultry science was a separate department from animal science when I was in collgege).  So the chicks started in big sterilite containers and when they got too big we had to come up with something temparary until I and they moved.  My lovely father built this cage for me.  It cost $40 for all the materials.  This cage has since housed more chicks, a baby turkey, puppies, my nephews for short hilarious moments and now rabbits.  The bottom comes out of it so it too, which is great if I want to set it on the garden for chickens to hang out in.  The cage has three doors on top so you do not have to open one big heavy one.  The rabbits have been living in "THE BEST CAGE EVER" in an empty stall since we got the male a little less than a month ago and they love it, but alas it was time to separate the rabbits with the hope that the female is bred and will be kindling (term used when a rabbit gives birth---I wonder if amazon knows of this meaning of the word kindle) soon. 

The buck is hanging out in a borrowed Guinea Pig cage for the time being. Hopefully all goes well and Myles can build us a few rabbit hutches to house them in in a few months.

My ring

My engagement ring...I love it!