Angels making cake - Part I

When you have a few of these....

You are sure to have too many of these....

So you need one of these to do this.....

And one of these to do this.... 

And a few people to do A LOT of this.... 

 To come up with this....

Which turns into this...

And that is how you use your angels to make angel cake!

Angel Cake - Part II

The kids and I made this amazing Angel Food Cake on our snowday Friday. Actually, this isn't my cake.... I found this on the internet. But mine looked just like it. I just didn't get any pictures of the final product because some small female child in my house (who shall remain nameless) ate ALL the strawberries before I could take any pictures. This post is named Part II because PART I is still coming. We had lots of fun making it so you'll have to come back to see the before and after shots... Thanks to my chickens, it looks like we'll be making a lot of these in the future!

Farm Fashion...

Nate is all about fashion these days.  Actually he is more about being "just like dad".  This means he HAD to have a pair of coveralls.  He also HAS to wear his "John Jury" hat...  EVERYWHERE!  He talks about it like it's Calvin Klein or Ralph Lauren.... like everybody should know about and/or own a piece of John Jury clothing.  So if you need some John Jury fashion in your life, visit his daughter's blog here and maybe she can hook you up!!  In the meantime, we should all take such joy in our farm aparell!

The calm before the storm...

Things aren't looking good for southwest Nebraska in the next 48 hrs... I keep hoping they are wrong but in return, they just keep adding inches to the forecast.  On top of the sheer volume of snow, they are calling for 25-35 mph winds with gusts up to 45.  Blizzard is the term they are calling it.  I can think of a few other names.

I've been lacking in blog material lately but I'm guessing after this weekend, I might have a thing or two to mention.  I'll let ya know how it works out!!

Farm Fresh Eggs!

 Remember these guys I told you about a few months ago?? Well, they are all grown up into big girls now!  We are happy to announce that the dogs are being remarkably good with their new free range friends and nearly all are still accounted for!!  You might also recall that we carefully studied the requirements and worked really hard to get a nesting box all ready for them so they had a nice quiet place to lay eggs...

Who wouldn't want to start laying eggs in this beauty?!?!?!  But chickens are apparently independent thinkers... who knew??  Here's where this guy comes into the picture...

They found one of these to make their own nest and lay their eggs!  If you aren't familiar with these, they are protein tubs that you put out for cattle.  The empty ones can be used for all sorts of jobs around the farm.  We happen to be using a couple out by the chicken pen to hold some extra grass hay to bed the rabbits.  You guessed it... that is where Miss Hen decided she would start laying her eggs.  Once she did, the others followed suit and now that seems to be the nest of choice.  So when the book said they need a nice, quiet, private, dark place to lay their eggs... it was lying.  When the book said it didn't have to be anything fancy... it was right on!

For the record, this isn't my picture.  We only get one or two eggs a day so far but we have great expectations for more!!

And my friend Lyndi was right about the math lessons... so far we have gathered 6 eggs.  Nate has broken 2 of them.  How many have we gotten to eat?  Ally says 4.  Isn't she smart?? 

A time for work, a time for play...

When you wake up to a view like this, you know it's gonna be a good day!  After we got the cattle taken care, it was time to play.  We went sledding, made a snow man, jumped in the piles of snow, and just had a lot of fun!  I think the pictures pretty much speak for themselves!!!

Lexi and Trapper had a ball sledding and playing with the kids!!

My snow angels...

Bad photography or blizzard conditions??





Of course you have to end a day of snow play with a nice mug of hot chocolate and extra marshmallows!!

And just think... we get to do it all again tomorrow!!

When it snows on a farm...

When I woke up yesterday morning, this was the view out my window.   You can imagine the excitement of the kids when they woke up.  I don't recall ever having this much snow at once since I've lived in Nebraska.  Unfortunately, when you live on a farm, snow means as much work as it does play.  Luckily we did a little of both but our first priority is always the livestock.  Hubby was at work taking care of the cattle there so I was on my own to check our cows and make sure they had water. 

 I chose to sport the always fashionable Carhart line of apparel accessorized with my favorite Muck boots.  I thought of my dad when I was getting ready... he always used to tell me "This isn't a fashion show so just get out there!"  I eventually came back to the house for my ski goggles because it was snowing so hard that I couldn't see anything!

The cows were actually pretty content when I found them.  We are blessed with amazing wind breaks all throughout the property so they found a nice tree line to hide behind out of the wind.  The temperatures were comfortable if you stayed out of the wind.

Luckily the 4-wheeler has 4 wheel drive so we were able to get back and forth to the water tank to get it filled.  The kids came with me on my 2nd trip to shut off the hyrdrant. 

Did you know beef cows drink up to 20 gallons of water a day?  A dairy cow can drink 30 to 50 gallons of water each day due to higher milk production.  That's a lot of water!!

Even though it was pretty frigid outside, Lexi couldn't resis taking a quick swim in the tank.  I think she knows her swimming days are pretty much over til next spring!