The Quarantine Continues

As the quarantine and volatile weather continues, we keep ourselves busy,

 just without any lookers-on. 

The boys are coping with a nice little school room. I think they spend some of their study time and most of their other time in a huge blanket fort in the basement. 

We started the month with snow.  The nice thing about snow in this season, is that it doesn't last very long. 

 Jim has been busy working outside on the nice days building rafters for a new chicken house/garden shed that has turned from a dream into reality due to a windfall of free wood.   

He also had a order a load of small rock for a job and with the leftover, extended our front sidewalk to a nice looking rock way instead of weedy grass.

It looks so nice, finished! 

Our chickens don't care anything about milk and egg shortages, so we are getting between 12 and 16 eggs a day.  One of our favorite ways to eat them is deviled.  I've learned a few tricks on how to boil new eggs so the shells come off easily. 

The eggs should be at least three days old and at room temperature. Put water in a sauce pan that will cover the eggs, put A LOT of salt in and let it come to a boil.  Using a slotted spoon put the eggs in the boiling water and boil for 15 minutes.  Cool in ice water and peel when cool.  The salt is important, because sometimes the eggs will crack and the salt contains the egg white so it doesn't all leak out and keeps in it one place.

I was hungry for fried polenta, so I made some.  It wasn't quite as good as I remember.  I think making a smaller batch next time would be good.  

We had a hard freeze the second week in April so I picked most of my daffodils so I could enjoy them. All the ones I didn't pick were done for, but I see ones that weren't blooming are struggling onward. 

My daughter was featured for her work on their facebook page.

I think.

And..

Happy Birthday to Jim this month.  We had better birthdays alone because we got these lovely homemade cards!

This is the only time he gets Lucky Charms!

It would be nice to see them, though. 

Curtains For You

I've had the boys a lot these last two weeks and will have them more because their school takes off almost every Friday and in some cases Thursday and Friday because of state basketball.  They have a good team and every year go to state.  I also had a sick boy a couple of extra days.  

This is not a post of boys because I am switching to a new computer and as I dislike change with a passion, it has been slow going.  The charger cord on the old computer is worn out, the spare cord only works if it is wiggled just right, and the computer itself being almost 8 years old and windows 7 is slow.  For those reasons, I have just transferred photos here, just downloaded Picasa here and it is now past my getting ready for bedtime (9:20), so this is what you get.

My daughter wanted new curtains for her kitchen so she found what she liked on pinterest, measured her windows, ordered 9 yards of material from Hobby Lobby after I figured the amount needed, and gave materials and information to me.  It took me two weeks to finish because of the aforesaid boy days.  I had a picture, I thought, of the pile of fabric on my table, but I don't.  They look very nice, if I do say so myself. 

 I finished them today.

It was a good day to sew, it rained half the morning and then snowed until noon, great fat flakes coming down that are a pleasure to all people that work indoors and don't have to be outside driving or working. 

The boys were saying March came in like a lamb.  And it did.  The first week we had 50 to 70 degree temperatures.  In fact, yesterday we saw 75 on the thermometer.  Today, we have snow. The lion is showing it's face.

It all melted before evening. 

The End of One Year and The Beginning of the Next

There are a few activities that will be standard for the next few years and one of them is the school concert.  We try to get a photo of the boys all nicely dressed up, but since I am also a believer in taking a photo of anyone with the least amount of pain and the best look we can get on their face; we here have one nice shirt showing and two nice jackets.  

We had a big snow storm at the end of the month.  I couldn't remember the actual amount we got so I went on a google search and found, with some effort, a website that told me.  

The total was 11"

Lorene added a puppy to their family.  Here he is brand new to them.

December is also a good time for the gathering together.  

Jim and I spend a lot of time doing puzzles more or less together.  

Even when we have company. 

I think one of my daughters gave me these flowers.

They're beautiful.

Thank you.

Miss Paislee

Zane turned 11 at the end of the year and he asked for a special cake.  

"One of those with the hole in the middle, and make it a monster."

So, I did.  

He wanted red frosting, white hair and something to make eyes, I used sixlet type things and  life saver gummies.

Birthday party at their house. 

The ones  who stayed to see the new year in.

Ten inches is enough snow to make a snow man. 

Happy New Year!!

Snowy February

February is nearly over and I am sitting in my favorite place, the couch in front of our huge picture window with the fire burning on this cold day.  

Outside our world is white.

These pictures taken a couple weeks ago are before our two days of 6" snows, plus another 4" earlier this week and another 2" last night.  

It isn't as cold as it has been.  Earlier this week we had lows and highs in the single digits.

We've had more snow this month that we've had for the last couple of years I think.  

We were expecting another snow dump today but it isn't happening so I see Jim driving around the neighborhood in his skid steer cleaning off the neighbor's driveways.  

A very little color in the landscape.

Hoar Frost. 

It's a Blizzard Out There!

We are having a regular blizzard today.  

When it's windy like this we can hardly keep the place warm, so much cold air comes in around the windows, so Jim and I are sitting in front the the fireplace.  

I was knitting and Jim was napping, but now I'm blogging and he's video watching.  

He can find all sorts of things to watch, from building houses to cooking food to restoring

"B" John Deeres.

We may be in but the birds are enjoying the feeder. 

This is just the right kind of day to make doughnuts.  

But, I won't.

There aren't enough people in this house to eat them anymore and I don't want to risk anyone's life to take them anywhere or have people come to get some.  

The days are gone now when all the kids were home on a snow day and we would eat fresh homemade doughnuts until we were sick.  

Or, at least I would.  

My dad was a teacher so a snow day meant all of us were home together.  

That's where I learned to make, and eat, doughnuts. 

Making doughnuts now means planning a time when we are all together or a day when I can deliver them.  

I think Jim and I will make candy instead. 

It's Snowing Today

It's snowing today.  

It's been snowing since we got up in the dark.  

We are expecting a a big storm resulting in lots of snow.  

I was out early.  I couldn't resist.  There wasn't much wind and the it was snowing heavily.  

I went out and scooped a path to get the paper.  I scooped the very wet half inch of the stuff off the sidewalk and a shovel width to Jim's shop, just for fun, since he had joked about it.  '

There isn't much to do outside at my age.  The snow is too heavy and wet to even think of attacking the driveway, unless I want to be laid up with back problems.  

So, I walked "around", which is what we call the half mile circle running through our little neighborhood.  

I have always enjoyed being out in the snow, especially when it's "perfect," which is was this morning.  Heavy snow, little wind, 33 degrees, perfect. 

If that temperature dips a little more, there will be a mess out there.  

Ice, covered with who knows how much snow.  We are getting predictions above 8".  

The storm seems to have settled in above us to snow itself out. 

The wind is picking up a bit and snow is falling off the trees which is a good thing, as the evergreens have been sagging under the heavy, wet stuff. 

I came in soaking wet to hang my coat by the fireplace.

Jim likes this way to spend a snowy morning.  

He has since gone out to out shop to paint tractor parts. 

Snowy Eggs

Did you know that Nebraskan's are the nosiest people in this country?

Our newspaper said so.  

The gist of the article was that there is so little domestic terrorism in our state because we are snoops.  We pay attention to our neighbors.  

And out of state license plates.  

Whether my mom and I spent part of an afternoon watching and trying to figure out what was in the big box our neighbors got off the Fed Ex truck, has nothing to do with the matter. 

I have said before and I will say it again, and many, many times that Christian is a very creative youngster.  This again is his own unique take on a portrait of Gramma.

He also likes flat cheese. You know, as opposed to cheese sticks or rounds.  

Little Miss Paislee almost 20 months.

The best time to get cool Easter supplies is ...

after Easter, of course.

Lorene got this really cool egg decorator with a motor.

The egg spins and you do the coloring with paint pens.  

We boiled far too many to color, and I did a few raw ones.  

It was so much fun.

Winter isn't over yet.  

April 14th, we had a regular blizzard with around

 6" of very wet blowing snow. 

I love a good blizzard. I like to hole up in the house in front of the fire and knit.

It was the perfect weather for doughnuts, but I needed to get too many

other things done, so I made cinnamon rolls instead. 

I used up the rest of my potatoes just in time to plant more.

This is all that Jim left for me after he cut potato sets. 

He didn't want to use the big ones. 

I just love this little note Barry got from his teacher. 

Doughnuts and Darlings

I am at Lorene's this morning.  I just picked Christian up from Pre-K and fired up the computer to finish the blog post I started yesterday.  It's gone.  All the writing, all the pictures, I will have to start over.  

We had two weekend snow storms that made a sandwich out of this week.  The first one resulted in a late start for the school kids as well as Lorene so I was able to go to Pleasanton in the daylight for a change.  The second one for which we were wound up to fever-pitch with expectation was rather a bust for us.  After hearing the blizzard would start in the early Sunday morning, then 10:00, then 3:00, then 6:00, then midnight, we went to bed with no snow on the ground but everything shut down on Monday in readiness.  I was looking forward to a day off, but also mentally preparing myself for a if-this-snow-doesn't-come-I better-be-ready-to-go attitude.  

We woke at 6 o'clock a.m. to a raging blizzard.  We couldn't see the lights of town.  We could hardly see the neighbors.  The blizzard was over by noon, resulting in 3 or 4 inches of snow.  

Lorene got double that and my folks got 12".  I worked my tail off that day with laundry and office work and catch-up housekeeping.  I planned meals and made doughnuts.   We had some special visitors for the week so I needed to be on top of the food around here.  

After the first snow we went to the eagle viewing station near Lexington.  With Jim's binoculars we saw 10 bald eagles and some ducks.  

This is as good as I can do with out a telephoto lens.

Bufflehead Duck

In the evening we had Nathan, Lily and Paislee over for supper.  Paislee is nearly 18 months and she's not a baby anymore.  She runs and climbs and investigates everything!  

Cheese!

We had hamburgers, with store bought buns.  I tried to make buns the day before but the yeast must have been bad because the dough didn't rise, or at least not enough to make decent buns.  I was in a hurry and tried to bake them.  I shouldn't have bothered. I put some of the unbaked dough back in the bread machine with more yeast.  It rose, and I forgot about it and left it out all night, so that was a wasted effort.  Too much rising is about as bad as not enough. 

It was nice to see some days this week about freezing.  It did make for a bunch of sloppiness underfoot, but also encouraged the boys to play outside in the snow.  They wanted to build forts and tunnels, but there wasn't quite that much, but there was plenty to dig and throw and sled on.  

Zane is working on a tunnel.

He wanted to be pulled out of his tunnel.  I don't know if it was harder after he turned onto his back, or if he just wanted a pull out.

So Barry had a try, but I had to help him. 

I love to see these boys working with and for each other. 

There is a slope on the property next to them so they spend considerable time out there with there sleds and the neighbors as well.