We woke up to snow covering our world.  I had started a post from photos I had taken oh so long ago that I have yet to post, I had planned to post them just never did.  So, I will be digging into the archives of my photos and post them all eventually.  It's going to take a while to do that, because the first post I plan to do, the photos are from 2014.  Wowzer, all on hard drive thank goodness, as I have replaced my computer/laptop a few times.

Sugaring is still going on, and we are still making syrup.  Each year our system changes as to how we collect, boil, draw off the syrup, bottle and the clean up.  Who would have thought that after 13 years of cooking syrup there would be room for change, but yet there is always room for improvement.

I'll leave you with some snowy photos from this morning and get to working on the next post from our travels.

In November we got a bit of snow, then by thanksgiving it was pretty much gone.  That is until we got a couple of snowstorms.

This year we cut down a tree from our farm small though it is, we ended up putting only a few ornaments on it.

Christmas has come and gone, and the New Year is upon us in a few days.  We had a wonderful Christmas and I hope you all did as well.  The animals are all doing well and survived the below zero temperatures we had just before Christmas.  I'm quite happy to see those cold temps gone at least for the time being.  I'm sure we'll be getting some cold temps again come January.  Believe it or not I'm actually starting to think about spring planting already...LOL...It's going to be a long winter for me I guess :)

We decided that today we will make a morning of it and leave the homestead.  We had left early enough that the sun was making the sky a pretty color as we were leaving our place

We have been having some negative temps here in Southwest Wisconsin, and it will continue for the next few days.  I believe our lowest one morning was -14°.  I know it's probably colder in other parts of the country, but it's a bit too cold to be working outside on the cow barn.  So we went for a drive to a cute café we have not tried before and had breakfast, we will definitely go back again.  . 

I know that the café looks like it might not have the best food, but I'm here to tell you the breakfast was awesome.

It felt good to get out for a bit, cabin fever was starting to set in.  We ended up at our Amish friends for a cup of coffee and great conversation and good laughs.

It was a perfect way to spend a Saturday morning.

One thing about the winter months we will get some amazing sunsets and sunrises.  These two happen to be a morning sky in December.  One looking out over towards our neighbor's place and the other is 2 days later taken while doing chores.  I have slacked in the blogging department the past couple of years.  This year I plan to start blogging again but definitely not every day, I'm sure.  I still take tons of photos and had every intention to blog about the photo, but I just didn't quite seem to do it.  This year I do, and that's where my word for the year comes in, balance.

I can't believe that this year I have had a blog for 15 years.  I never imagined that I would still be keeping this blog up and running for that long.  I've changed it up here somewhat as I have done over the years. 

So, here's hoping I can balance blogging and life here on our homestead.

Oh my goodness, I love this time of year.  The sunsets are just gorgeous.  I took this photo on my way back from the mailbox one early evening as the sun was going down.

Harvest time is here as well and my New England Sugar pie pumpkins did great.  I traded some pie pumpkins for some carrots, we didn't grow any carrots as time just got away from us.   Our lilac bush we noticed this summer seemed very stressed, well it had died and so Jim cut it down but we noticed that it had blooms on it, other than the few blooms the bush was dead

The kittens are doing well, they are starting to do what barn kittens/cats are supposed to do, catch mice.

Finally the days are getting a bit cooler as well as the nights, wonderful sleeping temps.  Such a busy beautiful time of year

This morning the temperature was -21 here on the ridge. We are definitely in a winter freeze right now and it’s probably going to last until the end of the week going into the weekend.

We are doing good embracing these cold temps. The animals are doing great and the coop we made is working out wonderfully.  

So far I’m not totally over winter, I embraced winter this year and so far that has worked.  Sugaring will be starting up in no time and life will again get busy.  Seems like we have a lull right now and I’m enjoying it. Our seeds are all bought and soon I’ll be planning out which to start first in the house and which ones can wait to be put in the ground. I’m anxious to see how the garlic is doing, since this was our first year ever planting it. Fingers are crossed. 

We have a rhubarb plant that hasn’t done very well. It was here when we moved here 10 years ago (wow did I just say 10 years) and I keep thinking I should move it to a different spot.  Anyway, I did order rhubarb seeds this year to plant, so we’ll see how those do as well.

There is so much we want to do here on our homestead, I get excited thinking about it. 

Then we got more snow.  I started this post 5 days ago...huh!  I'm finally getting back to it now and a few things have changed a bit. We haven't had much snow up to the end of January, it snowed a little and it did drift some so Jim had to plow the drive so that we could get out of the garage and driveway.  Now the temps are falling and we probably have about 4 inches added to what we just got during our last snowfall.

Our wood pile is starting to go down some, we are heating our home solely with wood this year, our furnace has not kicked on at all and we are contributing it to our new stove.  We are actually burning less wood with the new stove so that is a huge bonus for us.

In December 2020 just before Christmas we didn't have any snow, what snow we did have was pretty scarce. We try to burn our huge burn pile that grows over the year on Winter Solstice, sometimes we are here and sometimes we are gone to Texas, this year we are here.  So burn we did.

Since the temps are dipping down to well below zero here and the birds are going to have to be a bit more confined to the coop.  They don't like going out in the cold, and they don't like the snow, just to name a few things they don't like about winter.  So to keep them warmer and to keep them busy and not going stir crazy pecking each other to death (not literally).  They get bored, just like we do.  So I've been making flock blocks to help with that.

I found a few homemade recipes and this is the one I used from Lisa Steele over at Fresh Eggs Daily.

Heading out to the chicken coop this morning to do our morning routine with the chickens, I was kicking myself for not having my camera with me.  It look like a frozen tundra, the way the frozen snow looked with the sun just coming up through the clouds.  It's a moment that I'll just have to savor in my mind.

Well  we  got a light dusting of snow the other day and it looked so pretty coming down.  The ground didn't turn white like I had hoped but a few areas did.  Heading out to feed the chickens that morning I saw Jim's Farmall tractor sticking out from around the shed.  I've been meaning to take a photo of this tractor and thought today would be a good day to.  The whole morning just looked and felt like a winter day.

Coming back in the house all I could think about was that pumpkin pie I had made.  It did taste good with a cup of coffee later.

Tomorrow is supposed to be 50° and I really need to get my garlic in the ground, so that is probably what I am going to do, get it in the ground before our first frost hits.

I'm off to maybe have another slice of that delicious pumpkin pie.

I really need new mittens like I need a hole in my head, but I do need a pair of fingerless gloves for when I head out to the chicken coop on these cold days.  My mums are in need of watering I can see by this photo, but it’s been raining pretty good all day today so I don’t think I’ll be needing to water the mums tomorrow. 

With the colder weather upon us I’ve been thinking of new dishes to make, casseroles actually. I have pinned so many food ideas on Pinterest I really need to start making them. I’m thinking if I add one or two new meals a week that would be good. I don’t know about you but I tend to get in a rut now that I’m cooking for only 2, it was so much easier for me when all the kids were home to make meals. My problem now is I make so much we either eat it for a week or I freeze some of it, which is ok for when we’re too busy to cook.  I can’t wait to get started. 

The other day it was raining leaves, it was very windy and there was a bit of a mist in the air.  The wind was blowing so hard it actually looked like it was snowing only it was leaves floating in the air.  Summer has truly come to a close.

I finished up canning the last of our peppers.  I'm so excited to try them come winter.

We took a drive and bought some honey and garlic up by Black River Falls.  It was a beautiful drive and a perfect way to enjoy the day by taking a drive.

A new stove entered our home.  We sold our old one, she served us well for 10 years, but we were wanting something more.

The chickens are doing great and we ended up getting a second batch of chicks this fall.

It's just been absolutely busy around here, trying to get all our gardens harvested and put up for the winter, but all the hard will be so worth it come winter.