That’s a wrap. We are in the final week of 2016.

In next week’s post I will recap the year of goods, bads, things learned & memories made.

• Every few years we make gingerbread houses. It was time to do them.

• My homemade soap is cured – perfect timing for gift giving

• I got a silhouette cameo and heat press this year. Pretty much everyone got a personalized goodie.

• Our 2 youngest kids were in the Christmas play at church.

• Christmas Eve menu included homemade cheddar broccoli soup and clam chowder in bread bowls.

• Just for fun, I made rustic smelling fire starters.

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• Willow and Georgia aren’t too sure about the snow. They come out, but they don’t want to.

• Song Sparrow

• Crash & Willow checking each other out

• Trading warm water for frozen is getting a bit old and winter hasn’t even started. However, I will take the cold, snowy days anytime over the windy, rainy crap we usually get.

• I am not a fan of junipers. But, I do love them covered in snow – especially with a towhee resting on them.

• Rhode Island Red rooster in the snow

• Coyote tracks heading down to the creek.

• Snow days = sled days

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• Still enjoying all the birds. These pictured are golden-crowned sparrow and spotted towhee

• Willow.

• One of my favorite things about the snow is seeing what critters have been lurking about. I expect both the deer & coyote tracks. Raccoon, though, is a first. We have never seen a raccoon at our house. The tracks went right up to our porch, as well as to my pond and chicken tractor.

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• December is here. Holiday season is upon us. And, we had our first snow fall.

• This year’s holiday photo included our 3 kids, 1 dog, 1 goat, 1 chicken & 1 tilapia.

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• I am loving all the birds that have decided to spend their winter here. Among them are a few Gray Jays & Stellar Jays.

• Introducing Crash, our new buck. He stinks, but I love him.

• Rainbows at our house are magical.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Circumstances changed things up a bit this year, so for the first time we hosted Thanksgiving at our house.

• My day before prep included making jello shots and shot glasses out of jolly ranchers.
FYI – I made Jack & coke jello shots for the first time. They were good! Instead of boiling water, I boiled coke. Instead of adding the cold water, I added Jack Daniels.

• Farmer John picked out a beautiful fall bouquet for the table.

• I ordered cloth napkins from Amazon. Each napkin is a different color. Love that! I added a sprig of rosemary to each place setting.

• Because our holiday included friends, as well as family, I printed fun photo props. I printed my own Friendsgiving set. I also ordered 2 sets themed from the sitcom Friends.

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• Red Tail Hawk & Northern Flicker

• The tilapia are doing well

• One of the Olive Eggers hatched over the summer layed her first egg right where I could see it easily – on the milk station. This photo, however, is not quite true to color. The egg is a fabulous olive color – darker than what the photo shows.

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• We often have deer in our yard. This week I chose to take their pics hangin’ with the chickens.
• For quite awhile I have been wanting to make goat milk soap. Now that we have a goat in milk I gave it a whirl. I plan to do a separate post on the process I used and what I thought about it.

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• Georgia
• Betsy
• Farmer John is working on a hay shed. The building also holds the milking stand.
• Pink dawn viburnum blooming
• I finally bottled the calendula salve I made from our calendula flowers.
• I also bottled our homemade mint extract.
• There are crazy mushrooms growing in the yard.
• The Delaware chicks from this spring are starting to lay.
• The youngest chicks on the farm, a Cream Legbar and Olive Egger

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• I was bummed that only one Cream Legbar hatched. But, I was happy to have the one. However, the reason I wanted Cream Legbars was to breed them. And, this one has a wonky comb. Dang it!
• Farm Kid1 is working on redoing the goat play structure•  Farm Girl likes worms. I don’t dislike worms, but I’m not going to pick one up for the fun of it. I’m glad they don’t bother her.
• Milking Willow in my workout clothes…
• The little girls got collars.
• We have barely seen any slugs in the last couple years. We also had ducks free ranging. We haven’t had ducks for a number of months and now here is this big ol’ slug. hmmm….
• I got the ADGA paperwork in the mail. Yippey!
• Tuesday was Ladies Night at Wilco. I bought a couple things and they gave me a free bucket. Score!
• I can’t get enough of their cuteness!

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