New Goat Pippi

 

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week!

:)Vicki

Trying to Get a Christmas Picture

 

Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It was 62º here yesterday. The windows were open and the heat turned off.  We spent a nice, peaceful day at home eating, watching the parade and dog show, decorating our Christmas tree, and even playing outdoors!

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Chicken Butchering, Dollywood, & School

It is cold here this morning! I went out at 6:30 to let the chickens out, and the ground was nice and crunchy with frost. I was considering trying to catch a few more minutes of sleep when I got back inside, but the cold had me wide awake!

Friday morning we loaded our chickens up and headed over to the Dawson’s for butchering. It was funny to hear crowing coming from the trunk.  I didn’t do the killing or dunking part but learned to pluck, clean, and singe the hair off. Then they were put into ice water to chill. It really was not that bad over all.

The chickens were placed in these cones until they were all bled out.

Then they were dunked in the water a few times before we plucked them. The feathers came off easily.

We cleaned them out on this table outside.

Donna’s pastor’s wife showed us how to singe the little hairs off using brown paper bags.

Saturday morning the power went out at 4:30 and finally came back on around 6:45. We got up and got ready then headed to Dollywood. The park was all decorated up and the lights were beautiful!It was their opening day for their Christmas season. Boy, was it packed!  It was sunny and in the 70s so that was nice. We rode some rides then stood in line for The Polar Express in 4D for an hour and a half. It was definitely worth the wait. Quentin rode the Wild Eagle while we waited for him at the church and listened to Christmas music. It was another long wait for the Wild Eagle. Then we watched their Christmas on Ice show and fought the crowds out of the park. Thankfully we had eaten Subway on the way in and stopped at Shoney’s on the way home so we didn’t have to fight the crowd for food.

Quentin waiting in line for the Polar Express with Yukon Cornelius from Rudolph that he won.

Monday morning we jumped right back into our school week. We were starting to get burned out and really needed the break from last week!

 

 

 

 

 

Around the Homestead

Hi! I can’t even remember where I left off at on my last post. I know one week we were enjoying warmth and sunshine, and the next week, WHAM, we had snow and it was cold!

A week before the snow we were picking these.

October Strawberries

And enjoying these.

Strawberry Smoothies

Quentin works an hour and a half away from home and had 18 inches of snow. He closed up at 1:00 on Oct. 30 and got to come home early! We always love when that happens. Since there wasn’t that much snow here we went thrift shopping. We found all kinds of goodies-Christmas glasses, baby bottles for our baby goat, a glass milk container for when we have goats milk, Christmas fabric, and more!

Thrift store goodies

The kids dressed up and went trunk-or-treating on Halloween. It was Madison’s last year. She is tired of begging for candy anyways. 🙂

Madison wore her poodle skirt from a couple of years ago.

McKenzie went as a prairie girl.

Quentin Jr. dressed up as Quentin!

Quentin is on vacation this week so we are taking a break from school. I feel like our school year is moving along wonderfully! We are really enjoying spending the week together. Yesterday, we put down laminate flooring in our bedroom, Friday we will learn to butcher chickens(I am really excited for this), and this weekend we are going to Dollywood to watch their Christmas shows and see the lights.

Laminate flooring in my bedroom.

We are excited for the upcoming holidays. Madison has been working on our Thanksgiving menu, and we have been watching a Christmas movie every night in anticipation for Christmas. Things are starting to slow down, and we are enjoying the peace and quiet.