A New Year's Eve Bash - Family Style

It was the first New Year's Eve that both girls would be staying up until midnight, and so I decided to make a celebration out of it - one that we will all remember for years to come. We're not cool or social enough to have anyone to get together with, but we made plenty of our own fun!

I started off early in the day hanging balloons - each one marked with the hour it was to be popped. Inside each balloon was a strip of paper with an activity written on it. Then I placed corresponding gift bags filled with "supplies" on the hearth. Doing it early meant they were forced to wonder All. Day. Long. what was to come. The suspense was wonderful.


At 6:00, the festivities began. The first activity was to decorate the living room. The bag was filled with streamers, balloons, ribbons, etc. plus leis and "Happy New Year" crowns. It is apparently tremendous fun to get to do the decorating for a party. We also turned on some good music, and had snacks and appetizers laid out on the table. Throughout the night, The Daddy played guitar for us.



7:00 started the "Craziest Party Hat Contest". The supply bag was filled with every craft supply I could find in the craft room - feathers, pompoms, pipe cleaners, stickers, buttons, glitter glue, sequins, ribbon. We spread it all out on the kitchen table and set to work creating the wildest hats imaginable.

Each hat was indeed pretty wild!

 It was promised that the winner would receive a "Big Surprise" after we were finished and had voted on the best. The Daddy won, and he did indeed get a Big Surprise.

The girls had as much fun giving him the surprise as he had receiving it... probably even more!

After that, we spent an hour looking through all of the pictures from the past year on the computer, talking about the things we did, re-telling stories and remembering some of the highlights of the year. Then we made our Top 10 list of our favorite events of the year. Topping the list was our first year of baby goats, and also much to do with our other animals: getting new horses, a milk cow, a puppy, gymkhanas and rodeos, and plenty of fun experiences. After our Top 10 list was made, the girls opened an envelope that held little cards I'd made for all of us to write a wish for the coming year on. Then we attached our cards to helium-filled balloons, and sent our wishes up into the sky.

Next was an hour of more snacks and some board games. We let the kids pick the games and sat amidst the balloons and streamers and enjoyed some friendly competition.

At 10:00 we sat down to watch a movie together after making some root beer floats.This was probably not my best idea. It was hard to stay awake while trying to watch Hercules, at a time when my body was sure it was bed time. So I had some coffee.

But at 11:30, the celebration took off again. I filled that last balloon with confetti, along with the slip of paper. The supply bag held noise makers, plastic champagne cups, and party poppers (the kind that shoot confetti and ribbon everywhere.) We filled the cups with sparkling grape juice for the kids, champagne for the adults, and tried to stay awake until midnight.



 The Oldest barely made it.

But then came the countdown to midnight - we blew our noisemakers, shot confetti all over the living room, and toasted to the new year. The Littlest One changed our 2013 banner to 2014, and we all hugged and kissed and promptly went to sleep.



It was a blast planning all of it, and seeing it play out. The girls - despite the fact that it was just our little family - were thrilled to have so much excitement. And The Daddy and I enjoyed sharing all the smiles and laughter with them. I think we can chalk this up to our best New Year's Eve to date!

Here's wishing all our friends and family a happy, prosperous 2014!
 


On a side note: All this stuff came either from the dollar store, or from my craft and party stash. This had to be the most inexpensive party I've ever thrown. Also, the dollar store is my new favorite store. I'd never been in one until this year. But seriously, who wouldn't love a place where you can buy cans of silly string for a dollar?

Introducing: Peaches

 It finally happened. He found himself a horse.

Meet 'Peaches'. Her registered name is Treasure Chiquita, and for a couple of days The Oldest tried calling her 'Chiquita', but it just didn't fit. And so, Peaches she is.

She's a registered Morgan mare, about 13 years old. She is, when compared to our other horses, a lot of horse. She's full of energy, she's fast and likes to show it. But she's also brilliant, well trained, (mostly) well behaved, and has a fantastic personality. She learns incredibly fast, and you can tell by the look in her eye that she wants to please you. She's a little nervous, though that's wearing off as she becomes used to her new surroundings. And she's positively splendid to watch as she's grazing on the mountain, her chestnut coat glistening in the sunset. No doubt, she's the prettiest animal on our little farmstead.

In the first 24 hours that he was off work last week, The Daddy had already had her out twice, working with her on loading in the trailer (which she mastered in no time at all,) and taking the girls on a long ride around the neighborhood. It makes me so happy that he has a horse to do that with now, to be out there enjoying all this space along with our girls (on their geriatric horses that Peaches could run circles around.)

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By the age of seven, The Oldest was Horse Crazy and I had read every Marguerite Henry book out loud to her. One of our favorites was Justin Morgan Had a Horse. It's the true story of the first Morgan horse. To be able to trace Peaches' bloodlines all the way back to Justin Morgan was quite a treat, both for The Oldest and for myself.

The Daddy's sentimentality for Morgan horses stems from the fact that his grandfather raised them. The idea of having a Morgan pleases him tremendously. What's even better, he inherited his grandfather's old saddle, and has been using it to ride. He's not the sentimental type, but I can tell it means a lot to him. 

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She's proving to be a good hobby for The Daddy, who has already practiced with her at the rodeo grounds, lunged her in a round pen, and taken her to a trail course to get her used to different obstacles. (I've never seen a horse that is more content to go over a bridge backward than forward, until this one! But she'll get there.)

 He's got that patience-mixed-with-confidence that is necessary to really get a horse to listen, and they seem to work well together. It pleases me so much to see him have a hobby besides hunting, one that doesn't only happen during certain months of the year. I can tell he's excited to have her and really enjoys the time he spends with her. He's always dreamed of owning a farm, and that part of the dream came true... but having a horse of his own to love and enjoy was a part of the dream, too, and I'm so glad it's finally happened for him.

 Welcome to the farm, Peaches. We're so glad to have you!

Interior Decorating

We keep working, a bit here and a bit there, toward making this house our own. Hanging decorations, organizing it so that it's right for our family, and adding those special finishing touches that just make it feel like home.



There. Now doesn't that just make it feel all cozy?



Yep, I thought so too.

Memories from the first night

My husband carried me over the threshold. This brought about many giggles from Two Little Girls. Actually, it brought about many giggles from me, too.

We walked through each room, taking in the fact that this is our new home, turning on lights and opening cupboards and closets. Two Little Girls danced and spun crazy circles in each room – the beauty of a big house with no furniture.

As we unloaded boxes from the trailer into the garage, the coyotes sang us a welcome. Or maybe they were letting us know they’d be happy to eat our chickens. Either way, coyotes being the only noise we could hear besides ourselves was much appreciated, a far cry from the sirens and car alarms and constant traffic noise of The Little Homestead in the City.

Seeing my husband in front of a fire, with the dog beside him, was like seeing him just a little bit more complete.

We camped out in the living room with our air mattress and sleeping bags by the fire, sipped glasses of good wine, and then promptly fell sound asleep. This much excitement is exhausting!

The whole night was a little bit like a dream… well, except for the whole getting-in-the-driveway debacle, but that’s a whole different post.

The Citrus is Flowering!

Each year on our anniversary, I give my husband a gift based on the traditional anniversary gift list. This year, the traditional gift was fruit. I got him a miniature citrus tree - it grows lemons, limes, and tangerines all on the same little tree that fits on the plant stand in our kitchen. Mind you, it's a tiny little thing. But there's one lime on it already, and it blossomed last week:

Isn't it pretty? There's no such thing as fresh citrus here in Colorado unless one finds a creative way to grow it. I figured this was a little more interesting than just a basket full of bananas and oranges, no?

Of course, neither of us have the slightest idea how to actually care for the poor tree. I didn't bother looking up the growing requirements for an indoor citrus plant before I bought it - what fun would that be? So now we get to learn how to hand-pollinate (which will be tricky, since we don't know which blossoms produce which fruits. Hmm...) We're supposed to mist it every day because (ha!) citrus trees require a lot of humidity. Have you ever been to Western Colorado? Our humidity is usually right there at a stable 0%.

I've done a fair job of growing plants outdoors, but indoors it's another story. Our house plants often go two weeks (or longer. Much longer.) before I remember that they need water. This tree came to the wrong house if it needs water on a regular basis. Which of course, it does. Darn tree is more demanding than the dog or the cat.

Anyway. Our citrus tree has a blossom! It's exciting, anyway. :o)

The Knight in Denim Armor -or- Cats Are Really Stupid

See: Stupid Cat



Can you spot the Stupid Cat?



Stupid cat tried to get chickens. Smart dog stopped it. Stopped it real good, as a matter of fact.

Note that the utility pole is in the corner of four yards. Three of those yards are home to large dogs. Stupid cat was too scared to even try to get down... and I'm pretty sure it couldn't have, anyway.

I sat in the kitchen and watched it for awhile. And then Two Little Girls woke up and saw the sweet kitty stuck up on that pole, dogs barking at it from all angles. They went in and woke up the best Knight in Shining Armor they know.



What a good Daddy.



And what a stupid cat.

Homeschool Notes: Reloading

Homeschooling is great in that it affords kids plenty of time to focus on learning the more important lessons in life.

Like how to reload shotgun shells.



Because every girl ought to know how to load her own shotgun shells for when she's hunting game birds. Right?

I asked if she understood what she was doing. She looked at me as though I might be retarded. (Which admittedly, when it comes to anything regarding guns, I kind of am.)

"First the old primer pops out. See right there? You can see that the firing pin has hit it already. So the old one comes out, and we put in a new one."



"What's the primer do?"

"When you pull the trigger, the firing pin hits the primer and it makes the powder explode, and then the wad comes flying out."

"Mmm. Um, what's a wad?"

"That's what holds the bb's. See, you put the wad on like this... and then you drop the bb's into it like this. And then the whole thing comes out when the powder explodes, and they go into the bird you're shooting at."


Ah yes. I see. My eight year old daughter has learned more in one night of reloading with her dad than I learned in my week-long Hunter's Safety course.

*reloading: putting the gun powder, primer, and bb's into a used shotgun shell. It's like making something from scratch and recycling at the same time!

A Sunday Drive

I think over the winter, I'd forgotten just how much I love going for drives with my husband. When he got home today - he'd been gone for a week - we took off in his truck and drove up to look for turkeys and check out our family's favorite campground, to see if it will be ready for us in a couple of weeks. Happily, it's not still buried in snow, so as long as we're willing to brave the below-freezing nighttime temperatures, we'll be able to camp there.

The drive though - there's just something about it. It encompasses our entire happy little relationship. Driving in mostly quiet (until I think of something else I wanted to say) while we listen to music... and the kids laughing and squealing and occasionally fighting and bickering in the back seat. The dog drooling on our shoulders and breathing down our necks. (It's not as picturesque as it sounds, I promise.) But the smell of fresh mountain air, never affected by city smells like asphalt and pollution and too many people brings a peace I can't describe with words. Tree after tree after tree, sheer cliffs carved by centuries of wind erosion, extending to heights we can't even fathom. We slow when we spot a Bighorn Sheep grazing on the side of the road. We stop to chat with other hunters along the way, slow so that my husband can peer out the window at the ground looking for tracks. And I have the freedom to knit for a few hours uninterrupted as I gaze out the window, something that is really valuable these days.

We get out at the campground - our campground. The dog takes off immediately to explore the area and run to her heart's content. The children plop down and promptly begin digging in the soft clay dirt, their digging interspersed with short bits of racing around the meadow in circles. My husband lazily tosses a stick for the dog to fetch while I just take some deep breaths and enjoy the familiar beauty of my surroundings.

Sunday drives are at the heart of what our family is. We're the freedom to take off when we please, to explore all that nature has to offer us, to spend time comfortably in the truck together as we watch the trees and rocks and pastures pass by, chatting when we feel the need, and riding quietly and contentedly when we don't. It's family togetherness at it's finest, quality time that each of enjoys in our own way.

I'm so glad winter is over, that the dirt roads we love so much are accessible again, and that we'll have that freedom to roam. It's good for all of us.

Random Act of Spontaneity

Mr. Not-So-Spontaneous surprised me tonight. We were sitting at a restaurant eating dinner and watching the snow fall when he remembered a time as a kid that his dad took him and his siblings sledding at night. Then he asked if we wanted to go. Tonight.

I was so excited at his Random-Act-of-Spontaneity that I agreed immediately. Surely it's normal to drag one's children out to a park at a busy intersection in the middle of town at night, when it's snowing heavily, to go sledding.

Or maybe it's not. But we still had a great time.


Admittedly, it wasn't all for the kids... it was fun for Mommy and Daddy, too.

I roasted a goose!

Two goose posts in two days...

There have been two whole snow geese in my freezer since March. For eight months, I've feared preparing a Roast Goose. Have you ever read up on how to roast a goose? Virtually every article and recipe start out the same: "Roast goose has a bad reputation. It can be greasy, fatty, and livery, unless you know how to do it right."

That's not encouraging. I've never roasted a goose - I sure as heck don't know how to do it 'right'.

I checked in the Little House Cookbook. It involved seventeen hours of cooking on a wood stove with the draught open. I have a good supply of kitchen appliances, but a woodstove with a draught is one thing that's missing.

My Better Homes and Garden cookbook - the standby for everything I could ever want to cook - doesn't actually have even one goose recipe.

After scouring the internet, and finding several different articles and suggestions, I settled on this one from Hank Shaw of the blog Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook. Based on what I had on hand, and what I read in a few other blogs, I made a few changes: I stuffed the inside of the bird with apples and onions, and I let it roast til the breast was about 142 degrees.

One thing 'they' talk about with geese is the huge amount of fat in them. Apparently this isn't so much an issue with wild snow geese... at least, it wasn't with this one. Hardly a bit of fat on the silly bird, just barely enough to baste it with every 20 minutes or so. Because of this, I covered the whole roasting pan with foil, hoping to get some actual drippings. Not so much a success, but at least it wasn't dry.

So anyway, the verdict: roast goose is really good. It's tender, juicy, and has a mild but definitely distinct flavor. And it really wasn't that hard. Other than pricking the skin to allow the fat to drain (which was probably unnecessary with this particularly fat-less bird) it wasn't any different than roasting a chicken. I served it with basmati rice and home grown roasted beets. The carcass is in the crock pot now, hopefully turning into goose broth for soup this week.

I'm glad I finally sucked it up and tried it - it wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting. I'm pretty sure it won't take me another 8 months to roast the next one.

Back from the Bakken - Celebrating

Back in April, I shared with you the pros and cons of having a husband who would be working in North Dakota full time.

Now, six months later, I can tell you with certainty that the cons definitely outweigh the pros. Man, not having our Daddy home all summer has been hard. Yes, we get the weeks off to enjoy him, but there's something different about having him home each evening. Weeks off just aren't the same.

Our Daddy came home yesterday. And he's not going back.

Probably the most exciting news of the whole year. :-)

And that's all I have to say about that. Because I have better things to do right now than blog...

Making Stuff

I promise I have an excuse for neglecting my blog lately.

I've been making stuff. Lots of stuff. Cute stuff.

Stuff like this skirt for Chloe, who chose the fabric herself.



It tickles me to see how her fashion sense is developing, the fabrics and colors that catch her eye. She's insisted I sew nothing but skirts for her this winter. Since she's seven, and frequently forgets how to sit like a lady, they're going to be long skirts. Of course, long skirt patterns are hard to come by for little girls, so I made one up. The only long skirt/dress pattern I found looked positively homeschool.

Stuff like this capelet, also for Chloe, who chose the yarn for herself (nothing I ever would have picked, but she loves it.)



Pattern: Kiddie Capelet by Christine Buhagiar
Yarn: Loops & Threads Charisma
Needles: every size of circulars imaginable.
Alterations: None really - using the bulky yarn instead of worsted made this bigger than the original pattern, so it fits her nicely. Probably could've made it longer, but I was running out of yarn.

Stuff like this hat for myself, which was definitely not easier than it looks.



Yes, Chloe's modeling it. I tried fifteen times to take a picture of myself in the hat, but I'm not that smooth with the camera. I don't know how teenagers do all those self-shots they post on Facebook.

With 104 stitches, every single stitch cabled, it took a little longer than a hat normally takes. And why I chose the color purple, which sort of makes me want to gag, I really can't explain, except to say that I had the yarn in my stash and it needed to be used up.

Pattern: Koolhaas by Jared Flood
Yarn: Patons Merino in an obnoxious shade of purple
Needles: 6 and 8
No alterations, followed the pattern exactly, and it turned out great!

I also made another winter hat for my husband, who risks freezing to death in North Dakota this winter (where it has already snowed!) I didn't get a picture of it before he left again, but that's alright. It looks like every other hat I've ever made for him: simple, plain, utterly boring, and completely functional. I used the Hat Fit For a Boyfriend pattern by Stephanie Nicole, the same pattern I've used for the last three hats I've made for him. He seemed happy with it. I was tempted to add some stripes, but I fear that would've been far too exciting for his taste in wardrobe accessories, so it's just a plain not-quite-black. Love you, honey. Your sense of fashion suits me just fine. Except when I'm in the mood to be creative.

So that's what I've been up to. I spent an hour tonight cutting out the seventeen pattern pieces for Cora's Halloween costume. Yeah, that's gonna be a project that could keep me entertained for weeks.

Adventures in Hunting Camp

A week at hunting camp is like a week of vacation. Especially in this:



the Army tent we borrowed from my dad. It doesn't look like much (it's particularly droopy, we put it up in the dark) but look inside.



See that, there, in the middle? The Holy Grail of fall camping - the wood stove. No matter how cold it got - and it was cold - we stayed cozy and warm.


And the amount of space it provided, compared to our usual tent, was fantastic. It was big enough that we could comfortably eat inside, or do school work without the wind blowing the papers away. If it rained we just lit a lantern and the girls colored or played on the ground happily.

On the nice days, we did lots of exploring and playing. What do Two Little Girls do at hunting camp in the mountains for a week?

They catch tiny frogs after a heavy rain.





They play with puppets that Mommy fashions out of sticks and leaves and grasses.

If you really work to stretch your imagination,
you'll realize this is supposed to be a rooster.

They collect rose hips to dry for tea.



They create "Critter Buffets" to set out and see if any critters would like to have a snack at night.


There was also a fair amount of school time, though not enough to take away from the fun and freedom of living in the outdoors for a week.



Our silly dog discovered how much fun it is to pretend to be a cow dog, chasing grazing cattle from our camp if ever they ventured too close, her whole body waggling with the excitement of it.



There was lots of Follow-the-Leader, singing songs, playing with toys around the big rocks of the fire pit. They didn't have any trouble staying entertained. None of us were ready to come home. I spent a good portion of my time just sitting around knitting and watching them play, baking in the sunshine and enjoying the time to relax.

There's a good chance this was our last camping trip for the year. It's getting chilly now, the days are getting shorter, and fall comes faster in the mountains than it does down here in the valley.

And no, we didn't come home with any meat this time. We were all a little bummed - he sure got close there toward the end, but we were really out of time. There's still a couple more seasons to try later in the fall though, so we're still hopeful.

And now? Back to our regularly scheduled programming... and I'll try to keep up with my blog a little better now that I've got internet access again!