Beef jerky

Rod's cousin told me she makes her own beef jerky, i thought that was a clever thing to do since we have a lot of beef right now from a family cow. After a month of searching for my dehydrater, i decided to give it a whirl. (found in the basement closet with sporting goods?!?) It's rather easy and tastes good too! I would take a salty snack over a sweet snack any day, so jerky is perfect for me. This can be done in the oven too, but i'm not sure what that process looks like.

1.5 - 2 lbs. flank steak ? (i just used whatever we have, chuck roast maybe)

2/3 c. worcestershire sauce

2/3 c. soy sauce

1 T honey

2 tsp. black pepper

2 tsp. onion powder

1 tsp. liquid smoke

1 tsp. red pepper flakes

MIX in a gallon sized zip lock bag.

(it's a little spicy, you could probably omit the red pepper).

I thawed our roast for a few hours and thinly sliced into long strips (i cut as thin as i possibly could). You want the meat to be slightly frozen so you can cut it easier.

Place stips of meat into the marinade and place in fridge for 3-6 hours

Then remove the meat from the brine and pat dry. Evenly distribute the strips onto the dehydrator trays. Top with 1 empty filter. Dry the meat for 8-12 hours. (mine took 10 hours). Once it's dry, you can store in a cool dry place for 2-3 months.

Your jaw will get a nice workout!

Goose & Guineas

I'm serious, you just never know around here.

Yesterday and today there's been a goose hanging around. Just as calm as could be.

He doesn't fly away or make any noise. It's interesting to watch the guineas follow him around. We can only get so close till he starts walking away. But how halarious.
Another great way to get my kids outside, in the damp, cold, rain! Thanks Lucy!

Babies shower & snow..

Saturday i had a twin babies shower for Nadene! She found out it's boys, which i'm very excited about. She got a lot of neat things, encouragement, and fellowship that afternoon. I'm happy to walk with her through the whole twin experience.

A couple goodies at the shower--

I was shocked with how well the cookies turned out. I've never made sugar cookies with icing before, plus Adam was helping me. That combination led me to have pretty low expectations on the results. Nadene loves elephants...

These were really easy, a recipe using Phyllo cups, with a cheesecake-like filling

Clay's piggy bank matched the color scheme perfectly. Piggy was the centerpiece.

A cute card:

The inside (can you read the sticker?):

I was thankful the snow didn't keep anyone away. Also thankful for neighbor girls who have been playing with the boys in the snow the past couple days and keeping them outside for hours!

Adam learning to snowboard.

It lasted about this long...

Ben and Brad sledding through their homemade ramp. pretty funny. I was hoping Adam would have a delay this morning! I'm all about delays, don't want too many cancelled days though.

Have a happy week.

Books

Never thought i'd have a blog post titled "books"! I'm really not a reader and don't normally choose to read in my free time. But since most of my hobbies require the summertime season, i figure i can do this reading thing.

Right now I am enjoying 3 books. (it's all or nothing)

Don't let the corny title scare you. 52 things kids need from mom is a very good book! Angela is a great author, i've read her stuff before. Her suggestions (and they are just suggestions) make sense, and aren't overwhelming. Just good old encouraging reminders of what our kids need from us. She uses examples from her experiences which is fun to read. Some of things are so simple, like thing #4 "watching them till they are out of sight". I started doing that with Adam. I have always taken him to the door when i drop him off at school. But instead of just turning around and leaving right away like i used to, i watch him until he's turns that corner inside the school and i can't see him anymore. He actually turns around and looks at me right before he's out of sight. I hope that makes him feel good to see me stand there watching him until he's gone. It only takes an extra 10 seconds of my time each day.

Backyard Gardener, a Christmas gift, is a very helpful book on raising and growing your own food, living off your land. It's got our wheels spinning about how to best use our space here for our garden and animals, what to add, what to do different... We're already doing some of the things in here, to a certain degree. But we have a lot to learn! It's a very detailed resource, as it thoroughly covers every veggie, fruit tree, herb, nut, etc. that you can grow and tips on raising animals for meat and eggs. It also gave me the itch to grow stuff NOW, so we made a quick visit to Stauffer's the other day and picked up a few seeds. Now my kitchen window looks like a mini garden filled with this!

(alfalpha sprouts, flowers, salad mix, grass-just for fun-, tomatoes, and herbs).

Power of a Praying Parent...i just read thru but am reading again. The most helpful book in how to/what to pray for in our children. this book is an excellent guideline for praying for your kids. She gives examples too on incorporating scripture w/ our prayers.

The boys love being read to, which surprises me because i don't think of them as having a good attention span. We came home from the library today w/ lots of new books. But I'm contemplating what new chapter book series to start up on. They liked Charlotte's web, which is a chapter book, but it's not a series so after a week that was done. Let me know if you have any ideas on that.

Haircut

It happened. The hair...gone.

Rod took Clay to Salon Grandma, she did a nice job removing the sticky, clumpy Clay hair!

When they came home, i was on the phone w/ my poor brother who got to hear my lovely reaction :) i didn't know it was getting done today so i was a tad shocked! It'll take some getting used to. i like how it still wants to curl and go all over the place.

We kept the top long, so it wouldn't be such a drastic change. Still looks kinda out of control here, it was windy :)

Who would have thought this would be such a big deal...You can tell he's the baby. We're left with a nice sized bag of hair memories!

Farm show '12

We made another trek out to the farm show this year. This time it wasn't snowing like crazy! we left after lunch on Monday, and stayed till 7:30pm! I thought that was a big accomplishment until we ran into a friend who was there by herself with her 4 children for 10+ hours! They have quite a variety of thing to enjoy...

corn boxes:

clowns:
animals: lots of walking:Brad and Clay...3 years apart. 1 pound apart.
Machinery! a fav....
We stuck around for square dancing, Lloyd and Sue were in it again. Smoker clan, can you see them?? Clay liked the square dancing: We're starting to learn our way around there, which is nice. good times.

The Pet Hawk.

You just never know around here....

Because the weather was so beautiful yesterday, Rod decided to fly in the morning, and after landing, a couple guys came over to see what's up with that flying machine...They came from a nearby field where they were walking with a pet hawk!!? When he was talking to us, Roxy (ya gotta name your hawk) was far away in a tree. He called her and pulled out a dead mouse to lure her in.

First she came in and landed on the barn roof... Then to the owner. I'm sure Tractor grandma was glad we picked this day for the sleepover, so she could witness this tame hawk!