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.

The sunset the other night was just awesome.  I looked up from checking on the pigs that we had moved that day to their new paddock area and this is what I saw.  It was really nice to see after having such a difficult time moving the pigs from their old paddock to their new one.  I've come to the conclusion that pigs are not up for change and that they are creatures of habit.  I should have video taped the whole process but I didn't.

We also harvested our garlic and so far growing garlic has been going good (LOL).  It seems like it's been so long since we planted the garlic bulbs, in reality it's only been just over 8 months.  I would like to double our garlic harvest for next year.  Our onions are not quite yet ready to harvest, we planted them later than we usually do.

Visiting with our Amish friends last week they gave me some eggplant.  I have never ever had eggplant before and thought I would try some when they offered it to me.  I have to say that I am not a fan of eggplant.  It could have been the way I cooked it, and I will say it won't be something I would be planting in the future, we both actually didn't care for it.

We have been dealing with hornets when we sit out on our back deck, to the point that I'm getting stung when I hang my clothes out on the line.  Well we found the source for all those hornets, I will tell you this was HUGE that we had to take it down for our safety.  Looking at it though it really is a beautiful piece of work done by the hornets.

Well our little Noki is down to 8 lives now.  We are not sure how it happened but she somehow got hurt to the point that we thought she wasn't going to make it.  Noki had crawled up into our ATV and Jim's not sure what happened, his first thought was that he had run over her with the ATV but I don't think so, she hurt her right back leg and could hardly walk for a few days.  I think that she had gotten thrown off of the vehicle and somehow her leg got twisted and sprained.  Here she is a few days ago and today she is starting to jump and play with Smoky our other barn kitten.  Poor little Smoky couldn't figure out why her barn mate wasn't up for playing anymore, but she's back and I am glad.

There is never a dull moment here on our homestead and I like it that way.

Sitting this morning enjoying a cup of coffee, I looked up and saw the reflection of the sunrise in the window.  Standing out on the front porch to take the photo I heard our rooster doing his early morning crowing, it was the most pleasant sound to hear while looking at the sunrise. Have you ever heard the saying, red sky in the morning, sailors warning? Well we got snow that started after the noon hour, and when it started the winds came as well. My trips to the chicken coop were pretty cold fighting the wind...brrr.

Sugaring season has been different this year.  The one thing Jim noticed was that the ground didn’t seem to be as frozen as it usually is at this time of year.  We did have quite a bit of snow on the ground in the sugar bush during our below zero cold streak which lasted about 12 days. We are thinking that the snow may have insulated the ground from freezing.  We have been making maple syrup for 11 seasons now and we can never predict how the season will go. Hopefully the snow we got is what we call sugar snow which should reset the sap run. I’m definitely crossing my fingers for that to happen. 

I absolutely love this time of year.  The sunsets and sunrises are just spectacular here in southwest Wisconsin, as I’m sure they are elsewhere.