Merry Christmas all!
Years ago I used to write a Christmas letter and send copies out to everyone. I’m not sure when I stopped, but I haven’t done it for a few years now. This year we had photo cards made with the picture of our tree and we’re sending them out (hopefully) later this week. But there’s no letter inside, instead I thought I would post the letter here.
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Christmas 2007. This was the year of food – raising our own, meeting local farmers, honing cooking skills and feeding way more than we ever thought possible to a single puppy. We’ve made it through the year healthy and whole with a bit greater appreciation for the world around us. Here’s the highlights…
Our travels took us with my familty to Schweitzer mountain for skiing last Christmas, we had loads of fresh snow and a grand time exploring a new mountain. I took a trip to New York City with my mom in January, we were the ultimate tourists and saw all of the expected sights. Then Mike and I tried to take a trip to Eastern Washington but we got rained out and ended up spending our time here at the house. In July we drove to Ely, Minnesota and spent a week at Camp Van Vac with my family. Mike took a hunting trip to Montana with the guys and then I headed off to Italy with my mom (yeah, I know I still owe you the rest of the photos and recap, it’s coming I swear!).
We spent a lot of time this year exploring our local foodshed and learning more about where our meals are coming from. We participated in the One Local Summer challenge, made pickles, did some canning, made applesauce, froze some green beans and corn, and bought local beef, pork, chicken and turkey for the freezer. Then we launched the Dark Days of Winter Eat Local Challenge to keep up our motivation for the rest of the year. We topped it all off with a local Thanksgiving feast fit for a king.
It was almost the year of the chicken, but you can only write so much about them. The girls have been with us a bit over a year now. At the moment we’ve got 6 hens, and another hen plus 3 roosters have made their way into and out of our coop. We’re currently getting more eggs a day now in the dark days of winter than we did all summer – maybe our girls are fans of the cold? Right now they’re all in a snit because they’re cooped up in their coop until the house is sold. Lots of rain and pointy clawed chicken toes make for a muddy yard and grass that quickly disappears. They make their displeasure known every time we go in or out a back door. I’m trying to bribe them into submission with cracked corn and other goodies – but so far they’re not willing to agree to a truce.
Jake puppy is still technically a puppy for another 8 months. But since he weighs in at 115 pounds and stands as tall as I do, it’s hard to remember that he’s still a teenager. His eating has slowed down, he’s dropped from a high of 8 cups of puppy chow a day down to 6 cups of adult food, but he’s developed quite the taste for whole raw eggs. You have to keep your eye on him every second if the eggs aren’t in the fridge or the nesting box as he’ll crack and eat them before you even realize he found them. He’s also tall enough to reach food on the table or counter without even stretching so nothing is safe around here any more. In November he finally retrieved his first duck for Mike – so at least that small step to adult hood has happened. My words of wisdom learned from Jake? The biggest puppy in the litter might be cute, but he’ll also grow up to be a damn big dog. And never teach the largest puppy in the litter to sleep on your lap – he’ll still want to do it when he’s 115 pounds…
Sam is holding his own. Stairs are getting harder but fetch is still worth going all out for. He’s been retired from duck hunting and instead spends his weekend mornings snoozing at home with me. He’s still the same loving dog he always was, he’s just seemingly even more sweet and patient now. His latest sign of old age is his habit of standing in the middle of the backyard and barking full volume at nothing. I’m not sure what he thinks he sees but it sure is threatening to him.
Lest you think we no longer have a cat, let me assure you that Sterling is still around. He turned 10 this summer and has just begun to show his age. He’s holding a grudge when it comes to the dogs, so we mostly see him at night when they’re asleep or during the day when they’re outside. Otherwise he’s pretty scarce either out prowling the neighborhood or sleeping in his favorite spot on our bed.
The rain is here in full force and the gardens are asleep. The hens have pretty much cleaned out my corner garden – to the point that I’m not sure which of the perennials are still there. Oh well, we’ll put a layer of mulch on it later this week as part of project “beautify the backyard”. Hopefully that will protect and bring back everything that’s left. The front gardens could use a good weed and will get that this week as well. We don’t have Christmas roses this year as I neglected to prune the rose hips off after the last bloom. Ah well, the new strawberry plants are going strong and they’ll just have to keep us happy with the promise of spring.
I hope that the holiday (whichever you celebrate)Â finds you and yours happy, healthy and hale. And I wish you all the best in the coming year. Thank you for reading along here at this little blog. Hopefully I’ll continue to be interesting enough to keep you coming back. If you’re looking for me to write about anything in particular, just drop me a line. I can always use a good prod back to writing about the urban homestead, remodeling, cooking or whatever.
 Merry Christmas!
