March 2016 Post

I do mean to post more because you know, our life is so exciting!  But I like to see pictures of my family so hopefully this will inspire others...

This is going to be February and March because the February post was just Christmas videos.
First, we tried out our new cream separator... This picture happened because I wanted to show Mom I was also wearing my new boots.

Aaron is watching the clock to makes sure he's rotating at the right speed... 

Aaron made the nice base so we could clamp it down.

I posted a video on Facebook without anyone's faces but on my blog I can do whatever I want! (That's Daisy in the background with her new Christmas dog toy...)

You could totally tell that the goats milk had been decreamed but of course it was still good stuff.

My work Christmas party was in January.  They've been trying different venues every year and this year decided to do it in a sky box at a Jazz game.  After I asked Ems if she wanted to go, she suggested asking my brothers instead since they would probably enjoy it more than her... plus then she could stay home :).

After mentioning at work that my brothers would have to flip a coin to decide which would go with me, my boss said I could have her +1 ticket!  

They met me at work, so as we were leaving Jared decided to be a mannequin for Jacobs.

Here we are at the game.  It was a fun time... really enjoyed the nachos but overall the food could of been better... Aaron said the food is not why you go.

Emily sold the baby goats in preparation for the new ones due in April...

The morning of I saw them playing with Spots and tried to film it but they were behind the new feeding station Jared made and then they were finished.

It was way sad to see them go... that's all I will say about that.

One Sunday I took a picture of the juice Emily made and now I am sharing on my blog.  You are welcome.

IFA was having a sale on their warm farm overalls so I got some black ones.  Em's are brown. They make me look rather large but keep me warm and clean... they go well with my new boots! I'm not much of a farmer (case in point, baby goats :( ) but at least I have the outfit.

Unfortunately our bees did not make it through the winter.  Here Aaron is cleaning out the hive after I found a hoard of bees stealing the honey...

Jared told us that a ward member in the area lost all but 1 of their hives... which made Emily feel better.  She's ordered new bees that will come earlier this year so hopefully they will have more time to prepare for next winter and start pollinating our fruit trees.  She also said we will try not to mess with them as much this summer/fall.

Emily harvested all the rest of the carrots from last year before they started growing again so we've been eating carrots almost every meal... so pretty!

We've gotten a few weird ones... always do. (I had already started cutting before I thought to take a picture..)

We've had a few sunny days so we bought a tiller off of KSL (we will sell it again once the tractors are fixed) and started on spring stuff... Amy and Gage are burning off the leftover branches from our neighbors trimmings (the goats love the leaves).

It was a beautiful day!

We've gotten poops (horse manure) from a couple different places but have decided the neighbor across the street is the best because its mostly old poop... no wood shavings. 

Gage is king of the poop!

Jared, Amy, Ems and I participated in the Utah Republican caucus.

Exciting stuff...

Real good at this selfie thing.

We had a lovely Easter... with lots of eggs (We are still eating eggs for breakfast and dinner :)

Everybody got something from the bunny (Jared Amy and Gage (JAG) were in Oakley)

Even the dogs... Meet our new dog Cooper!

Now Daisy has someone to play with... He's like an annoying little brother (3yr old.. Daisy is 4)

He is a destroyer though...


He also likes to jump fences, eat out of the compost when we aren't looking (jumps the fence into the orchard) and get sick, herd (chase) the chickens and ducks, eat the goats grain, growl at children (previous owner said he was good with kids), run after the cats (to me this is the worse cuz if he keeps running our cats off they won't stick around and kill the mice!), get into the kitchen garbage (Amy got us new garbage cans with lids), sleep on the couch in the parlor when we are not home, and bark at horses and people.

But he sure has a cute face, soft fur and little paws.  He has learned not to go upstairs, to stay out of the kitchen (although he has a hard time when things drop off the counter), and to catch the second Frisbee after Daisy goes after the first.

Daisy has major jealousy issues but we are working through them. Never a dull moment at our house.

So how was your February and March?

Christmas Videos

I know its way past Christmas but Emily had these videos of us singing and making music... so I thought I would share.

Plus, I want to post again and I don't have anything very exciting to share :)







We enjoy making our own brand of music.

Emily took short videos of caroling and singing during the nativity but since she was singing along she suggested I don't post them.

She also videoed the men of the family singing the soprano recitations movements 14-16 of Handel's Messiah but I will spare you.  The fact that last year when I posted I got the following comment from Tom: "expect to hear from our lawyers" might be related.

PS.  Anyone driving to Utah from anywhere back east this spring? and have room for a couple farm implements?  Jared's research on line found that "vintage" tractor parts are most easily found in the 13 original colonies and surrounding areas... or as Bethanie likes to call them, the Amish.  And Amish don't ship :(

Holidays 2015

I didn't take many pictures during the holidays this year.  I'm really sad I didn't get any of the ice skating :(

We left in a snowstorm... it was really bad.  The only good driving was through Moab, Farmington (we took the southern route), and then from Abiquiu home.

We were stopped for an accident ahead of us for quite a while and Emily got out with Daisy to throw the ball... she came back in rather wet :)

It was a long scary/snowy drive . The story has been told enough times so so here are the highlights.

• Daisy ripped her foot pads running for the ball on asphalt.  Didn't think about how bad it might be on her pads since the parking lot was full of snow!  Poor thing limped around after that.
• We drove on snowfilled backroads to get around the accident mentioned above and passed a jeep which had gone off into the ditch.  The hood was level with the road.  Talk about stressful driving!
• Aaron drove the last hours from Farmington (I couldn't handle it anymore) and once we started over the mountains through Cuba NM, Emily started calling out the curves from the backseat (R3!, L2!, R1!... I helped with L-3!,R-2!, etc.).  She also kept us appraised of the current elevation.
• I kept saying during that drive over the mountains "Everything will be fine once we get to Abiquiu!" Its the begining of a quote from Willow that I apparently quote incorrectly (just looked it up) but it was still funny.  Yes, quite funny.

These are my pictures of the Nativity Amy put together with singing and fun times.

Not sure what Daisy was supposed to be... a sheep?

Mary riding on the donkey.

Andrew would jump up and come down posed like this saying "I'm a star!" while waggling his head.  It was quite entertaining.

There was lots of singing...

I love the music that happens while we are there. This is the only video I took.

Emily has another good one of us singing Joy in the Morning.

We went to the nature center one afternoon and the microscope was a big hit.

Amy got a picture of Andrew sticking his eye in there.  It was pretty funny!

They have a really nice place for bird watching over the canyon.  Apparently they get a bunch of night visitors such as foxes and I can't remember which type of wild cat...

The poop drawer was very popular!

This was our spread for New Years Eve... Without Emily there (she and Aaron went back early so Aaron could work and Ems could get back to milking) it was fairly toned down :)

Typically we do the big spread on New Years Day but since Bethanie and family had to leave we decided to do it a day earlier.

We tried out Angela's Christmas present puzzle table a couple of times... I do like doing puzzles!  And so does Amy... I think :)

And for some reason I took a picture of Gage playing on Amy's new tablet she got for Christmas.

It was a good holiday season with family especially since I mostly relaxed. Sorry I didn't help with the cinnamon rolls Bethanie and Jenny but they shore tasted great!

Christmas December 2015

It seems a couple members of our family are trying to post more often, me included.  I decided I should get a January one out... mostly cuz I have some ramping up to Christmas pictures I thought I might share.

First our tree.  Amy and Sarah got us all tree permits so we all went out to cut them down.

Daisy is ready to go...

I didn't get any pictures of us out there, but here is our tree...

there is a bit of an optical illusion going on.. how big is the tree?

It was pretty big, Emily and I decided we wanted to go wide this year just because we could... The sheets were to catch the pitch dripping.

One Sunday Amy wanted family pictures (Shown in her Christmas letter and blog) so Emily and Aaron tried to get in on the action...

They are not very good at it.. :)

Different groups of us went down at different times to see the sights on Temple Square...

 Millie is Clark and Joanna's cute little girl.  Amy babysits her a few times a week..

 This was the candy display at Macy's... it was fun to look at but really we just wanted to eat it!

 Joseph Smith Memorial Building...

 Trying out the big chairs!

They have a pretty cool display of Creches around the world but I only got a couple pictures...

Told Gage to sing with them.

I think this picture is from Thanksgiving when we went down with Nathan and family... this is the only picture I took then.

This year Emily wanted to celebrate Hanukkah (fire!) so Aaron made us a nice Menorah.  I had been looking to buy a menorah but couldn't find a nice one quick enough and then it was Sunday... now we have our very own unique candle holder :)

Yes, Aaron and Ems were playing "Away in a Manger" in front of the Christmas tree standing over our Menorah.  We pride ourselves on our diversity.

Funny story, Hanukkah only lasted about 3 days in our house,.. then we skipped to the end.

Since Amy is the choir director, Emily said we needed to have a choir party and eat posole so I made posole out of our field corn which was way fun!

Next time though I won't pick off the tip of each individual corn seed.  It is supposed to help them "bloom" in the soup while they cook (pop open and spread out) but less than 50% did so. They taste the same bloomed or not so next time I won't bother.

It tasted awesome if I do say so myself :) Most choir people who tried it that night enjoyed it as well, along with the sour cream and cheese. Amy's rolls got et up too.

I didn't appreciate posole/hominy that much growing up. I know, New Mexican blasphemy! but I did grow to love it as an adult and now it tastes like home. Let me tell you, nothing tastes like posole from your own corn.

We also got quite a bit of snow leading up to the holidays which required breaking out the tractor to do tractory things.

 Two different days, same big tractor...

Now Jared has a log he attaches to the back and heads out to the field to push snow around.  It must be fun because he keeps doing it!  He also got the cub (the medium tractor) up and running so he could move it to the front yard and put lights on it.  It's still proudly sitting out where all can see!

I have a few Christmas pictures but I will change the title to this post and put those in the next post.