I love it so much I must blog about it

I got this popcorn maker from Husband this past Christmas. I have never been so thrilled with making popcorn. I know, I'm a bit off, but this thing rocks. My air poppers break down or spit hot unpopped kernels at me, microwave doesn't always get everything popped and I never seem to have brown paper bags to do it in, and the cast iron it too heavy for Small to use it for more than a few moments.

Granted this thing squeaks, gears on gears tend to do that. And holding the handle as you crank is a bit awkward, however, you can pop 1/2 cup instead of 1/4 cup of kernels. And with a large boy ratio in the house that is a necessity! For those of you oil-phobic, sorry but you do have to use oil in it, only 2 tablespoons. And it pops all the kernels without burning! Not only that but it only takes 2 minutes to do so. It even fully popped 2 year old stale popcorn (art project). That impressed me.

Since we grow our own, this thing makes actually using up our corn so much easier. Sorry chickens, we seem to be eating more popcorn lately. ok, now this is starting to sound like a very cheap infomercial. If you act now. . .

Now that I got your attention, do me favor and hop over to Old Lightning, Coffee with the hermit or Frugal Queen. Just to say hi or spy on them, which ever you prefer. Those three send so many people my way it's obscene, so I thought I would repay them the favor. They each have different yet wonderful blogs. Be it you are into survival, politics, going on's or saving money one of these are for you.

This is a stick up

Still no water. But on the plus side, I woke to above 0F temperatures. I was surprised that the boys had school yesterday. When I woke it was -2F, when Large got on the bus it was -5F and when it was Small and Medium's turn, it was -7F. The city had shut down the schools because of the air and the wind chills, but our small town did not.

All I can say is I love our riding masks!

Husband and I bought them because of our Sparks America trip a few year ago. They are neoprene and so are water resistant. I soon discovered the benefits of wearing it to go milk in the cold. Cows didn't like it at first, I had to take it off once in the barn and coo to them. The next year we bought some for the boys. Large has an evil clown, Medium has blue lightening, and since Small is so, well. . . small, he got a half mask (covers nose and chin) with fire on it. The boys wear them like crazy. I could never get them to wear ski masks, but they readily wear these.

Looks like everyone made it through the several days of subzero temps. Something I am grateful for. I was worried that Uma (cow) would give birth during it as she is very close to dropping.

I have been drooling over the seed catalogs. We have everything planned out, have most the seeds needed (seed saved what I could last year) and will plant tomato seeds this weekend, along with onion , leeks and my black peppercorn. Our Seeding box has done wonderfully for us these past few years. However the light timer and the fan have seemed to shorted out. Husband would like to splurge and by a nicer timer. Like he needs my permission.

Today, I will be playing with feathers.

Snow Day in Pictures

Some window art by Jack Frost

Snow blots out the sun


Not sure why the turkeys hid in the dog run, so many other places the could have gone


5 foot snow drift


don't buy this de-icer


Bob Dole and his ladies


Edie in the snow

What you don't see in these pictures is the 45mph winds and the small grain like snow tearing at exposed flesh.

Peeing on a snowbank in the bathroom

brrr. . . you cold?

Well in case you haven't yet noticed we seem to be having a snowpocalypse covering most of the country. They are calling for 1-7 inches here at the homestead, but think 4 inches is about all we will get. However with the 45 mph winds we are having, we might never know how much has fallen.

I try to peek out to see the cattle, and all I see is white horizontal snow. Once in a while I can see a snow covered cow make a break for it, leaving the barn to get water. All I see is a black rear end disappearing into the brightness.

We have finally reached 4F, with a wind chill of -21F. Even with shoes and socks on, the tips of my toes still burn from the cold.

All the water has frozen in the pipes. We left it running all night, and it wasn't until this morning that we watched it slowly fizzle out. Husband says the initial freeze more than likely happened somewhere between where the pipe comes out of the ground and the house pump, freezing the inlet. Now we can not flush the toilet. That's one thing people don't think about when it comes to prepping, frozen toilets. Oh, you have drinking water aplenty, but you don't want to use that to flush the toilet. With 1 seat and 5 people, it gets yucky very quickly. Husband went and scooped out two 5 gallon buckets full of snow and is allowing it to melt. If you dump enough water into your bowl it will flush. He threw some of the snow into the bowl so I can feel like one of the boys. Still isn't easy to write my name in it though.

Stay warm all! Husband and I are going to make some Jack Daniel snow cones and call it a day.

Slainte!