Monday, November 29, 2010

Girl, you'll be a woman soon

It's crazy how quickly the chickens are growing and changing.  Here are two photos I was going to post on the 7th:



And here's what they look like today:



Pretty soon, they'll be ready to move outside.  We also downsized our flock a bit (it was surprisingly hard to let them go, even though 26 was WAY too many birds for us).  We sold 16, leaving 10 for us.  Just right.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Say, what's in this drink?

Well, it's apparently winter here now:





If you're wondering, yes, the ace does freeze
when it gets cold enough

Tres had the foresight to start winterizing the shop early last month and I'm feeling especially grateful for that today.  The insulation definitely goes a long way and he sealed up the garage doors, so we're pretty airtight.  We bought and installed (well, Tres installed) a pellet stove and it makes things quite comfortable in here (plus, it's super nice to snuggle up around after dinner).  The cat is a BIG fan.  


With the advent of cooler weather, we've also started to bust out our seasonal recipes.  We had early Thanksgiving with both of our immediate families a few weekends ago (I highly recommend this, by the way; not only was it fun, but we'll get two Thanksgiving dinners!) and contributed one of our favorite winter libations: gløgg.  I made the syrup  (simple syrup, stewed with your choice of whole, wintry spices - for this batch, I used cinnamon sticks, cloves, allspice, fennel, and cardamom and then added a little vanilla once it cooled a bit) here before we left and we added it to each person's cup of warm red wine individually (about 3 tsp. per mug).


I also tried my hand at making cranberry sauce for the first time.  As it turns out, it's super easy and it was surprisingly popular.  I'll definitely be making it again.  I adapted this recipe http://www.food.com/recipe/spiced-cranberry-sauce-108905.



There is forthcoming news on the house front as well, but I'm going to wait to share until the last few details have been confirmed.