Such a Quiet Day

Though I had hoped we'd be able to go get a Christmas tree today, that didn't happen.  Once Jeffrey and I discussed the logistics of getting a 12' tree from a lot to DPF, it was decided that the only way that was going to happen was to have my brother Colin join us with his pick-up truck.  Unfortunately, my brother has a life, and was unable to drop everything to chauffeur a Christmas tree around.  What a jerk, huh? So, the day was the essence of a lazy Sunday!

I've finished most of the other Christmas decorations, so the tree will be the final touch - though I'm not sure when that will happen.

the side board

The TV room mirror

We did head over to the horses since we had to figure out a way to get them water.  For the last 9 months or so, we've had hoses connected one after another to run the 600+ feet from the shop to the barn.  We had set them on a timer, so the horses always had water.  Now that the temperatures drop into the 20s overnight, the hoses froze.  If you read the post yesterday, you know we're one step closer to getting water run out there, but today was a challenge.

Jeffrey asked what we have been doing since the cold came, and I told him how Victor puts garbage bins in the trailer of the little John Deere, fills them up, drives them over to the stalls, and then dispenses them into the horses' containers.  He volunteered to do that while EG was taking a nap.  About 40 minutes later, I saw him walking across the dam, sans John Deere, and pretty much melting the frozen ground as he seethed.  "Uh-Oh." I thought, "Didn't go so well."  Sure enough, when he returned, he told me he had tried twice to get the water to the horses, but the first time, the entire trailer tipped over, spilling water all over the dirt road - which will freeze and turn into an ice rink.  The second trip, one of the bins turned over inside the trailer.  Needless to say, he was DONE dealing with water in 32 degree weather!  I realized that I had forgotten to tell him that we usually tie the bins down when we put them in the trailer. OOOOOOPS!  Poor guy.  Things are always so much harder than they look out on the farm!

After Jeffrey tried his hand at being a water boy, he let me know that he had only given Frank the water that had actually made the journey.  Needing to visit the horses anyway, we all bundled up and journeyed on over to the stalls. I love going on walks as a family - even in the freezing cold!  Once I balanced out the two containers of water, I was happy to see there was enough for them to last through tomorrow.

Ellie had fun petting the horses, and she and Jeffrey spent some time while I loaded up the hay bags, prepped grain, and basically hauled around pounds and pounds of hay, water, and crap. Aaah! The joys of horse ownership.

Yesterday I had made pulled pork in the slow cooker, but we ended up ordering pick up at our favorite Thai place inWilsonville (Thai Delight), so I had a head start on dinner for tonight.  I ended up doing what I usually do and improvising with what I needed to use up in the fridge.  It turned out delicious!  I have so many recipes to post on the recipe blog - this being one of them...I seriously need to get on that!

  

some asparagus and onions...

some garlic and mushrooms

add some pulled pork an brown rice, and voila!

That was about our day here at the farm.  I worked a bit on some Etsy orders, Jeffrey ran some errands, we finally sorted out Victor's birthday present and got that to him, and we just had some down time.  Gotta love that!

Christmas is less than 3 weeks away - but it still doesn't "feel like Christmas"...suggestions on how to make that happen?  Oh yeah, getting a tree will probably help! HMMM. One of these days!