5:19 p.m.
I started this blog post 8ish hours ago. And all that I came up with was a title.
Proof. Pudding.
Prediction: This is going to take me many more hours to write. 'Cause you know, I have to bake 6 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange at work tomorrow, roast the rooster (we'll get that) for dinner, finish laundry, vacuum the living room and decide how best to get the OhHolyGoodness sized tote of summer clothes downstairs, finally.
HI! How y'all been? It's been typically craaaazzzy around here. My Beloved and I have been going at breakneck speed since August.
A few days after my last blog post (forever ago in September) I went to San Francisco to scope out and do some training for a new scheduling software. Let me tell you something, those hills ain't no joke! For serious. You can see them on TV or in pictures but until your Uber driver drops you off six blocks DOWN HILL from your hotel in Union Square and you are wearing dress and super cute wedges and you have to hike up those blasted hills, it's not real.
Then at the beginning of October my Beloved and I took a road trip! We drove to Montreal to visit my dad's side of the family - Instagram pictures for the winny-win!
- 9:26 p.m.
Update: Dinner has been eaten, cookies have been baked and packaged, dishes done and laundry complete. Side note: Jam Thumbprints - a Christmastime favorite 'round here, impossible to package- let alone cutely.
Tuesday, December 8
- 6:18 p.m.
What in the what is going on around here? Oh yeah, life. Folks, I can only promise to keep trying; to write this post, to be a better blogger, to carve time out.
Where was I? Oh, yes. Vacation! My beloved had only been to Montreal once before and that was for my cousins wedding. He's never done the touristy stuff. So we went to Notre Dame Basilica, took a horse drawn carriage tour of Old Montreal and would you believe if I told you that our carriage driver is from SE Michigan, only roughly 30 miles away? It is a small, small world! We also went to Mont Royal to the look out and saw all of Montreal sprawling out before us. Beautiful, beautiful. The rest of the time was spent with family eating food, making food, eating food, catching up and eating.
Then we wended our way down to Connecticut via New York and Massachusetts. We had meant to go through Vermont but we took the wrong exit after crossing the bridge. We were doing it the old fashioned way, using our eyeballs and hastily scribbled directions from the internet because we didn't have internet in Canada so we used the free WiFi at a Tim Horton's.
Guess who lives in Connecticut? My friends from waaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day, Cari & Ken Donaldson of Ghost Fawn Homestead & Clan Donaldson fame! We got to hang out with them and their six lovely children for a few days. They were such great hosts! Ken ground coffee each morning and used his fancy french press to make us coffee, Cari cooked for us- yaay more food!, she took us to Boston to go to the Museum of Science, I went on my very first subway ride, and I'm still alive to talk about it. Although there was a moment when it pulled up with people jammed in there like sardines, faces smashed against the glass and eyeballs bulging, that I had a wee bit of a "WTF did I let her talk me into?" moment. But it was fine 'cause all those folks got off the train and made plenty of room for the nine of us. On our last day there, Cari took us to a fancy New England apple orchard!
I think we all got caught up in the heat of it and even though my Beloved and I had at least two bushels at home from our own orchard, we picked a bushel of Macoun's. Which is nothing in comparison to Cari's 140 pounds of apples!
Friday, December 11
- 10:37 a.m.
By some miracle I talked my Beloved into taking me to Sleepy Hollow, New York! He was really, really keen on getting home because we had so much to do around the house/outbuildings and really, he wanted to cancel our trip all together. But seeing as it was was only a few hours from Cari & Ken's house, it was October and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is my best most favoritest spooky story and my Beloved is awesome like that, we went! We had some (more) awesome Greek Food at Lefteris and stayed at a fancy hotel, Tarrytown House Estate that was hosting a Maserati convention that night, soooo fancy schmoopsy!
** I am going to interrupt this blog post**
Dear Y'all -
It is now January 17th. It's time to kill this blog post, there is no hope of resurrecting this bad boy. I've got other posts to write! So here I will leave it with a photo dump.
Tuesday, December 8
- 6:18 p.m.
What in the what is going on around here? Oh yeah, life. Folks, I can only promise to keep trying; to write this post, to be a better blogger, to carve time out.
 |
| Looking out over Montreal |
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| Notre Dame Basilica |
Guess who lives in Connecticut? My friends from waaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the day, Cari & Ken Donaldson of Ghost Fawn Homestead & Clan Donaldson fame! We got to hang out with them and their six lovely children for a few days. They were such great hosts! Ken ground coffee each morning and used his fancy french press to make us coffee, Cari cooked for us- yaay more food!, she took us to Boston to go to the Museum of Science, I went on my very first subway ride, and I'm still alive to talk about it. Although there was a moment when it pulled up with people jammed in there like sardines, faces smashed against the glass and eyeballs bulging, that I had a wee bit of a "WTF did I let her talk me into?" moment. But it was fine 'cause all those folks got off the train and made plenty of room for the nine of us. On our last day there, Cari took us to a fancy New England apple orchard!
I think we all got caught up in the heat of it and even though my Beloved and I had at least two bushels at home from our own orchard, we picked a bushel of Macoun's. Which is nothing in comparison to Cari's 140 pounds of apples!
 |
| Belltown Hill Orchards - South Glastonbury, CT |
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| Apples from our orchard (and Greek cookies from my aunts!) |
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| Macouns from Connecticut |
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| Apple pie filling ready for the freezer! |
Friday, December 11
- 10:37 a.m.
By some miracle I talked my Beloved into taking me to Sleepy Hollow, New York! He was really, really keen on getting home because we had so much to do around the house/outbuildings and really, he wanted to cancel our trip all together. But seeing as it was was only a few hours from Cari & Ken's house, it was October and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is my best most favoritest spooky story and my Beloved is awesome like that, we went! We had some (more) awesome Greek Food at Lefteris and stayed at a fancy hotel, Tarrytown House Estate that was hosting a Maserati convention that night, soooo fancy schmoopsy!
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| Awesome, right? Do you think they're to keep out the Headless Horseman or Zombies? |
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| We took a lantern-lit walking tour of the cemetery! YaaaAyyY! |
Dear Y'all -
It is now January 17th. It's time to kill this blog post, there is no hope of resurrecting this bad boy. I've got other posts to write! So here I will leave it with a photo dump.
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| Walnuts! So. So. Many. Black. Walnuts. After de-hulling them, this is our makeshift drying station, an old screen door on saw horses in the pole barn |
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| The weather was still in the 50's this November So we delayed full winterization. We checked on everyone before putting a quilt-box on It looks like Matilda is doing her job! |
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| November 21st - The weatherman said we'd get a "few" inches of snow- My Beloved dragged the snow blower out of the big barn when the snow reached 6" |
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| I stayed inside and made chili & cornbread for dinner I stopped measuring at 13" - We ended up with 16.8 inches!!! |
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| The next morning I huffed it out to the hive to check on the girls The hive faces ESE We used straw bales as wind-blocks |
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| After clearing the front of the hive this little lady flew out and fell in the deep, deep snow. I scooped her up, breathed on her until she started moving again, became oriented and then I put her at the entrance where she toddled inside. |
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| This guy, Darth Vader, was SUCH a jerk. Like his namesake. And, like his father, Mercy he was downright cruel to the hens - then he started to come after me. Sayonara, dude. |
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| Padfoot and Darth Vader I actually cried when I caught Darth Vader and carried him upside down to the crate. It didn't matter that he was a jerk. |
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| But I did it. I cannot and will not put up with horrible roosters. And I just have to remember: they had an awesome life and just one bad day. |
Okay, now that that's over I feel like maybe I can move on to other posts! I have, no lie, eight drafts!
Viva 2016!
Viva 2016!
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