Sunday, January 04, 2009

Home Life!

This blog post finds me playing 'catch-up' once again. I seem to have fallen into a pattern of a huge post every 2-3 weeks. I guess a fitting New Year's Resolution for me would be to blog regularly!!!
These have been very busy weeks for us, and I'll attempt to give you a brief overview of early December before I dive into sharing Christmas pictures!! :)
We got to spend quite a bit of time with the Anson here as they spent several days here during hunting season.
Mommy and Marcus!

Pauly and Uncle Moses (who really needs a haircut!!)!!

After the deer-hunting was finished, Lydia and the girls made Christmas goodies!!

Sugar Cookies!

First pan ready for the oven!!

They made these for the boys!

Uncle Silas and Marcus.

We had some straw delivered to use for bedding the animals in the shed. What better fun for two little boys then a big pile of straw??
Silas ready to throw straw on me!!

Paul playing with Cappy.

Cappy wants to get in on all the fun!!

Whoa-- what a cutie!!

We all lined up for a picture-- but Paul wanted to bury himself instead!! :) So he's there, but you can't see him!!

Elizabeth LOVES fruit, so her birthday treat was no-brainer!

Special friends surprised Elizabeth for her birthday!!

Best Friends!

Our first significant snow of the year was beautiful!!
The Little ones had a blast sledding in the snow. It was very, very, very cold!! So cold that I didn't even venture out to take pictures!!

The final count for deer season was 5 deer after Lydia harvested her doe during the second week of the season. Lydia's doe is hanging on the far right.

All three trophies!
(I don't think we'll be hanging them all on the same wall!

The boys did the skinning and quartering out in the shed.
Because all three of our deer this year are bucks, we decided to put all of it into jerky and summer sausage, since the bucks have a gamey-flavor to their meat that is sometimes really strong. After we cut all the meat off the bones, chunked it, mixed in the seasonings and ground it. We wrapped the ground deer and then put the tubes of meat in our smoker to cook them!
Mixing in the seasonings....

Waiting to be ground....

Esther did the grinding!

Esther and Silas make a good team!!

Cheerful Little Helper!!

The packaging team.

Out of the smoker......mmmmmm!!


The finished product-- it's really, really good!!


Moses worked with the left-over meat, making some really tasty jerky!!

The Yearly "Hanging of the Greens".

Decorating the tree.

We were blessed with a friend who volunteered to lend a hand with the wiring in the shed-- Thanks Jeremiah!!

Evenings at home give time for friendly competition!! :)

We had some more ice this year, though thankfully we never lost power!!

The roads were a sheet of ice!! The temperature was below freezing for several days, so the ice took nearly a week to melt off. Although they were able to clear the highways, the dirt roads wear nearly in-passable-- giving Dad two extra days of Christmas break!!



Stay tuned-- Christmas pictures coming soon!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another FABULOUS post, Elizabeth! And, as usual, I loved all the pictures! Especially the ones of you :) Thank you for all the hard work you put into each post!!

Missin' you like CRAZY!
Love you,
Ali

Beth said...

Aw, I love the pictures!!! You know, you have such pretty hair!! :-)
Thanks for posting!!!

The Ansons said...

Ummm, I hope we can beg a taste of that sausage! SO fun to see you posted- I did not really expect one because I know you guys have been busy.

Josiah and Abi Wissmann said...

Oh! Not posting is normal at this time of year...don't feel bad! :) I think it is universally busy?!? Miss you guys! Hope to see you soon!?!

Anonymous said...

Such fun pictures as always...well, maybe except for the raw meat!! I'm such a city girl. :-P

I LOVE that last shot of the ice-encased mailbox. ;)

Anonymous said...

Moses and Paul look so much alike in that picture! Don't you think so?
Esther's face is so funny in the arm-wrestling picture! Classic!
Great post again, Lizzie, and I hope to see another post soon!
Lord bless,
Kourtney

Dad (Eddie) said...

Hello Ulmers. This our first visit to your blog. Wow! Lots of pictures. If you look at ours it just the opposite. Mostly words. Looking forward to keeping in touch in various ways in the future.

The Creers