Hobby and what I made for Christmas for Terri

On the long winter nights when its too cold to do much outside, I like to play around with my scroll saw. And this is a door topperI made for Terri for Christmas. The bear was cut out of recycled wood and is a segmentation cut. After cutting, each section out, its sanded and the edges are rounded and spacers are placed behind certain ares to raise them above the surface. Then its painted and finished.

And here it is after the first couple of coats of polyurethane. I have to admit that I did not do the painting! Terri is so much better at it then I am!!!. Is it a bad thing to ask her to paint her own gift? She enjoys painting and like I said, She is soooooooooo much better at it then I am!
There are are also a set of claws that I made to go with it. The Bear will go above her bedroom door looking out over the living room and the claws will go on ether side of the door. Its suppose to look like the bear is in the bedroom looking over the door. I really like doing stuff like this and her living room is decorated in the North Woods thyme. Moose and Bear's as far as the eye can see!
Just though I would give you a look see.
Tom.

December 25, 26 and 27

Sunrise Christmas morning. Temperatures in the low 30's, No white Christmas. Went to Terri's house and helped to fix the Christmas meal. Opened Christmas gifts. I got "Pioneer Woman's" Cook Book. And I have already tried two of her recipes (Apple Dumplings and Almond Roca!). The cook book is written just like her Blog. And the recipes look pretty straight forward and easy.
Lots of fun and good times with family and friends. Good food and Good people, how can you go wrong?
I had to work that night and as I left the house it was starting to snow. This was about 2000 and as I drove the 60 miles to work it got heaver and started to stick. I watched the snow come down all night and about 0430 the temperatures started to drop and the parking lot turned white in just a few minutes. I got off work at 0715 and what is usually a hour and fifteen minute drive, turned into over 3 Hours.

And this is what it looked like when I got home! It snowed for over 24 hours and we got about 18 inches. I have lived in this area for 30 years and never had a white Christmas or this much snow at one time. And never this early in the season!.

And it just keeped coming down!

This is looking across the front yard to the house across the road. At this point no snow plows have come Thu to clear the road and the snow blanket is undistubed my man or beast.

This is sunrise on the 27th. The snow had stopped during the early morning hours  and the sun was able to break Thu the clouds. What a beautiful morning! Cold and quite.

The sun just hitting the tops of the trees and not a mark in the snow.

But that was about to change! The two knucklehead's had to get out in it and leave their mark!! At this point it was 27 degrees and after they did their thing and ran around chasing phantom rabbits, They were ready to get back in the house and have breakfast. Me too for that matter! Its pretty, but ho so cold!!

Daisy can attest to that. Once back in the house she spent 20 minutes getting the snow and ice out from between her toes. Silly Dog!! But she had fun! and that's all that matters to her.

I hope you all had a great Christmas and Are looking forward to the new year with anticipation. I know the worms and I are!
Talk to you later.
Tom

I shoud have kept my big mouth shut!

This is what happened a week ago last monday. And as I said "This does not happen here". Not this time of year.

I know this isn't much and it did not last long. It was mostly gone by late afternoon. But it stayed cold and it got down into the teens at night. Alot of people's car locks were frozen.

And even the worm bed was frozen with ice and frost across the top.

But then it happened again yesterday! This is what I arrived home to at 0800. It was coming down pretty good and it covered the ground  in very short order. When I went to bed around 0930 (I work nights) it was still coming down. The kids got a day out of school and alot of places were closed.

And this is what it looked like when I got up around 1430. The tempreture was around 34 degrees and there was some melting. But last nights low was 30 and everything froze over again.
Like I said "I should have kept my mouth shut"! Talk about it and it will happen! Now the 10 day forcast calls for snow showers on Christmas eve. I have not had a white Chrismas sense I lived in Iowa in 1996 - 98. I have to addmit that I hope it happens! Nothing like Chistmas with Family and friends, in a nice warm house with a fire going in the fire place and muld-cider on the stove!
Merry Christmas YA'ALL! From North Carolina!.

New Desert

Hey,
I have several Farm Blogs that I follow and I try some of the recipes I find. Well I tried one last night and BOY was it great! I love food and have the worlds biggest sweet tooth, But I have to watch the sugar intake. So when I try a new recipe and it calls for sugar, I substitute  with SPLINDA. I find that it holds up to the cooking and there is no after taste. Also this recipe calls for a strange ingredient that I would never have though to use (diet MONT Dew!). I got the recipe from "Pioneer Woman" at her Blog site, If you have never been to her Blog, Hers was voted the "The Best Written Blog" for 2009 and she has been Blogging sense 2006. Lots of great photos and stories. She is a wife and mother of 4 living and working on a cattle ranch in OK. To say that this is my favorite Blog is an understatement! I had seen her Blog refereed to at other sites, but didn't visit her site until after I saw her on the "Food Channel" in an episode of "Throw down with Bobby Flay". He got his butt kicked again and I went to Ree's site that night! I have gone back to the first post and read everything from there. I've made it up to January 2009 and when I finish the "Confessions" section, I will really get into her "Cooking" section.
Anyway here is the recipe as is from her site.

Apple Dumplings

2 cooking apples
2 can crescent rolls
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups sugar (Again I used SPLINDA)
1 1/2 t cinnamon
1 t vanilla
1 12 oz can Mountain Dew (Not an ingredient I would normally bake with).

Pre-heat the oven to 350.

1. Butter a 9 X 11 baking pan.
2. Peel and core apples. Slice each apple into 8ths.
3. roll out crescent rolls and separate. Place one slice of the apple on dough and roll up as for rolls and place into prepared pan. You will end up with 16 rolls.
4. Melt butter and dump in the sugar and barely stir it in (leave it lumpy!) and the vanilla.
5. Pour this mixture around the rolls in the pan.
6. Pour the Mountain Dew around the edges and down the middle of the pan (not over the rolls) and sprinkle on the cinnamon.

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes, or until the tops of the rolls are golden brown, Let cool for about 10 minutes. Serve with Vanilla Ice Cream and a drizzle of the sauce from the pan! This is so good you will have to beat them off with a stick to get any for yourself!!!!
Mountain Dew, Who woulda thunk it? But it makes a great sauce.
Tom

This does not happen here!






 


This is the back 40 (only about 2,5 acres) and as you can see it needs a lot of work. But I kept telling myself that I would get to it later. Well later came and went and its still there. Now it will have to Wait till spring. The Bush-hog is down, needing repairs and the tractor is no fun ride in those cold tempertures.



This is looking across Marks place to the cotton field on the far side. That field was harvested just a few weeks ago and thay have stared to Bush-hog it for the winter. Some fields around here have not been done yet and if the weather does not warm up and get drier, the crops will be lost.

That's the back of my house. Can you tell the warmest part of the roof? Right over the stairs leading up to the second floor. Again by noon this was all gone. But still very cold.

The worm bed cover got its share of the snow.

But the inside is pretty full. I need to add some food stuff and new bedding tho. I hope to pull some of the worms out of here and transfer them to a tote I can move into the house for the winter. That way if the bed does freeze, I will not lose all the worms. I have a tote in the utility room now with about 3 lbs of worms in it. That one will get new food/bedding tomorrow. Torn newsprint and pizza boxes I think, along with paper towel rolls and egg cartons.

But like I said, This does not happen here!





A trip back in time

lets take a trip back in time to October of 2007. This is a picture of the 15 acres of the corn field where we now live. It was sub-divided into 5 lots, each approx 3 acres in size. My lot is the second from the top. And Marks is the top one.

Here is a vew from the back of the two lots looking back out to the road. Thats Terri in the picture and she is standing on thier lot with mine to the right of the picture. Nothing but weeds and a little grass

then.

And here is the front half of my  house being lifted into place on the foundation. It was pretty cool to watch this all take place. The whole house was built in a factory in two halves and loaded onto two flat-bed trailers and transported to the build site. It took a crane and a 6-man crew one full day to get it into place and close it up.

And here the crane starts to lift the first half into place.

Almost there. This is the back of the house consisting of the master bedroom, living room, second bath and the second bedroom.

And this is the front half consisting of the Master bath, utility room, kitchen/dinning room and the front porch (whitch is really on the side of the house). You can also see the trailler that this half came on and the front of the truck that towed it here

And here it is sitting on the foundation. This is the front porch end of the house. The roof still needs to be lifted into place and the sidding put on.

The roof was built at the fractory and laid flat across the top  to make transport eaiser. So once the house was on the foundation, the crane lifted one half of the roof into place and the work crew braced and crossed brased it and then fasened it into place.

And here is the back side in place. The crane is still holding it up as the work crew finishes nailing it into place

Roof inplace and the end-cap lifted up and placed. Notice anything missing? There is suppost to be a window in this end-cap. They forgot to construct a window opening at the factory for them (one each end). They had to order them from the factory and they were put in place the next day.

As can also  be seen in this picture, I had the roof built at a 7 - 12 pitch. This gives me a second floor room the full lenght of the house and almost as wide, Its unfinished and I can do what ever I want up there. Right now it is just a storage space and one end I use as my wood-working space.

Here is a shot from inside of that room as they are still working on closing it up.


I have been in the house for three years now and for the most part I'm pretty happy with it. There are some things that could have been put together better, But that's for another post