Busy, Busy Christmas! (glad it's over)

Finally I had everything done and was ready for Christmas. Unfortunately for me but fortunately for everybody else I had planned too many things to do and and too mant gifts to make. It was all worth it in the end cause everyone loved the calendars and movies that I made, plus we had jerky to take to all the parties.

I made both venison and turkey jerky. It was a first for the turkey jerky. We made the venison jerky fresh from Kevin's button buck that we butchered ourselves and then I thawed a big broad-breasted bronze turkey, de-boned it and had about six or seven pounds of meat for the turkey jerky. It's even kind of fun saying "turkey jerky", most people smiled when they heard it was turkey jerky, it was funny.

Here is a picture from the box of the meat grinder that we used, it was around the $100 price and it works great. Really easy to use and clean-up. Really fast and efficient too.

We bought this Nesco brand dehydrator at Walmart and it was great too. It came with some seasonings but we bought some other flavers too. Most deer hunters I talk to really like the Nesco brand seasonings the best. I tasted the Cracked Pepper and Garlic flavor that somebody at work made and it was awesome.

Like I said above, the calendars were a big hit. I used pictures that I took around the farm. I had to use one indoor picture though, I had no winter pictures so I took one of my Christmas tree, cropped it around an ornament and it looked kinda cool. I obviously used that one for December. We finally got some snow before Christmas so I decided to go out and take some snowy shots but it was freezing so I just took a couple. I used one for January of the pond but I was not happy with it. Kevin liked it though so I just let it go. Here it is below. It just looks blah to me.

Like he kept telling me, "Let it go, it's fine", as I was freaking out the weekend before Christmas. That Sunday night I was crying my eyes out because I had ordered a really cool present for my Dad and of course I found out at the last minute (Saturday) that it was back ordered (even though the email that I got said it had shipped) so I got him a nice digital picture frame, hoping he would love it (Ha! that's another whole crap story!) so...I had to run to Radio Shack the day before Christmas for more photo paper and a flash drive for the digital photo frame.

You see, there was no way to get all the cool photos, that I had spent HOURS scanning, downloaded to the frame from my computer. There was no USB cord with the frame, only a spot for a memory card. You see, I was trying to make him a DVD of all our old pictures to the present time with music attached. But, and it is a HUGE "but", I could not get the awesome (or so I thought) movie to burn on a DVD. I had made one previously on Windows Movie Maker but it would run only on a computer or we could watch it through our X-Box 360 on our TV. I made a new one with NERO that was supposed to be able to be burned onto a DVD and be played in a regular DVD player but NO SUCH LUCK!!!!

So I sat sobbing at my computer with a very frustrated Kevin trying to help me. He made me promise not to wait til the last minute next year. I did promise but the only problem is that I don't get excited til the middle of December and think of all the things that I want to do then.

Here's the one of my tree that I had to settle for although my sister Diane loves the picture and wants one framed so she can get it out every year for a Christmas decoration, kinda cool.

Here is my funny turkey picture and I added "Happy Thanksgiving" in my beginner (read free) Photoshop program. Kind of crude and I really thought Kevin was going to get me the good Photoshop for Christmas but nada. I better shut up cause I got a awesome diamond necklace from him, three stones, he said it's for our past, present and future. He had the necklace hanging around the doll ornament's neck that is pictured in the December calendar photo and gave me the picture as a hint and made me search for it. He said it had been hanging around the dolls neck for a week and I had not noticed it. He pulled a fast one, a surprise for me and no one has ever been able to surprise me in the past, it seems like I can always figure it out, I don't want to, but people just seem to say things that give it away. Someone once told me that I was very perceptive, not good for trying to surprise me. Below is the original picture with the doll. He gave me this picture, written on the back was "seek and ye shall find". It was awesome. I had no idea.

Here is the comb machine that I used to put the calendars together, worked GREAT and will be very handy for the kids homework reports.

I may have talked about the comb machine in a previous post, I forget, if I did, sorry to be repetitive.

WOW, look at the yummy corn dogs below!

I had to include this cause this was the kind of dinners we had during the Christmas rush. The thought practically gags me but the kids loved it, at the table it was YAYYYYY!!! corn dogs!!!!

(Speaking of dinner, I have a brisket in the fridge, marinading that I have to get in the oven soon. We are having sweet potatoes too, the kids will hate it but I'll make some brown rice and some salad.)

I just had to include this picture, (sorry it's blurry). This is what you can find me and Kevin doing in our spare time. He is playing an online video game. It's called HALO 3 and we are addicted. We play with my brother-in-law from Parma Heights near Cleveland. They live an hour from us so we get to play and talk to them everyday via Halo 3 and the x-box. My sister Amy watches, she doesn't like to play but she is her husbands helper. I can hear her talking in the background, giving him game advice. (Ha ha, she'll love that.) My husband and I each have our own 360 and we play on separate TVs in separate rooms. We play regularly with someone from Florida (Hi Brian!) and a couple others from ...uh, I forget... Tennessee or somewhere, South Carolina maybe, (Hi Shap!), Colorado too. We played people from England and all over. It's really fun!

And here is my brother-in-law Tom...He says I do not have him in my blog enough so every blog will include a Tom shot. Here he is with his rescued Jack Russell Terrier, Sebastian. My sister has been training him (Sebastian, not Tom) using the Dog Whisperer training technique. Tom helps too but he is the softy with the dogs. My sister used to get really upset cause her female Jack Russell named Sobie, could care less if she is home, instead, ignoring her, watching from the back of the couch, staring out the window, waiting for her daddy to get home. Here is both of them with Sobie, their first Jack Russell. (By the way, they are nuts to have such crazy little dogs that want to chase squirrels all day, mine just lay around sleeping all the time or eating or pooping! Now that the snow has melted I think they did more pooping than anything else! Yuck, I have to clean that up today too.)

Here is Tom's pride and joy, his dirt bike. He loves it. .

Here he is flying through the air!

I like 4 wheelers better and they finally got one. He used to absolutely refuse saying they were motorized wheelchairs. But after we got one and he and my sister rode it a little they got a really awesome one, a Polaris. Here is me, Kevin and Amy with their new Polaris and the picture below is me and Kevin on ours. We are planning a 4 wheeler trip down in southern Ohio in the late spring sometime. Can't wait!



PS..thank you very much whom ever invented spellcheck!

Who was more scared, him or me?

I took this picture of this little guy last summer and we have only seen him a couple of times since. Well, early this morning I went for a walk in the woods all by myself. It was a little wet and chilly but I was bundled up and really enjoying the quiet, peacefulness of the woods. I was walking down a narrow path behind this barn at the back of the property when I just about ran smack dab into him.

As I was turning onto another path, right in front of me is that same little guy only not so little anymore. He was just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. He looked huge and his antlers looked really big! My husband was not too happy that I may have spooked one of the few bucks that we have on the property. Well, he bounded a few yards away and stopped dead in his tracks, stood wagging his tail, very annoyed and looked at me as if to say "what in the world are you doing here!" I believe this is what he expected to see.

This beautiful girl has been visiting our farm all summer helping herself to the apples and sampling the clover we have planted along our pond. The other day we had 6 more just like her, 2 does, each with a set of twins.
This photo was taken out of my front door last summer. The mama would eat the larger apples and the twins would munch nearby on the crabapples that had fallen from a tree .

Yes, I believe this is exactly what he had on his mind this cold chilly morning. He was definitely not thinking about feeding chickens and turkeys, gathering eggs, piles of laundry and wondering how to get it all done with a broken washer and the fix-it guy not coming until Monday and worse yet,we are almost out of clean socks! We are down to the ones we never wear because they don't have matches or are holey.

No wonder we almost ran into each other. We both were deep in thought...

And I am positive that I was more scared than him!