And Just Like That,

Malachi and Pilot are back at school 

Around here, Lydia has a new church outfit that I absolutely love:

Some of you will recognize the sweater.  It was Papaw's.  After he died, Mamaw gave me some of his clothes for the boys.  Neither Elijah nor Malachi ever wore this sweater, and they are too big for it now. I had put it up in the closet, but I recently got it down and realized that Lydia would probably like it, and she did!  She paired it with her green pants and affectionately calls it her "old man 'fit".  (Fit=outfit, for those not up on teen slang)

So Much Snow

 We've had a lot of fun in the snow this week.  Emry, Lydia, and Gyunay have all been sledding.  Lydia made a snow penguin chick:

We also made and enjoyed snow ice cream!

Buddy Bean loves the cold and the snow:

He is less thrilled that his tunnels are buried under snow.

The dogs love the snow, too.

Yesterday, the boys and their friends had a fun hockey game on the pond:

Right now, Nathaniel is out on the pond playing with them.

And Lydia drew a fantasy platypus:

It and the snow chick were both assignments from her Ceramics class this week.  She's been home with us and doing some online assignments from her teachers.

We got another couple of inches yesterday/last night (probably 2 or 3), but tomorrow it's supposed to warm up to 38, so we will see a lot of melting.

Snow!

 Real snow! Lots of snow!

Nathaniel and the boys shoveled a path to the chicken coop for me and the dogs.

The dogs love it!

These are from yesterday, when we had about 8 inches of snow.  We've added about 4 more, plus some sleet, and it's snowing again.  The paths are well covered now!  However, they are still considerably lower than the rest of the yard, and the dogs and I took them this morning for chicken chores.  The dogs went under the trampoline to do their business, where there is no snow.  

I'll try to get some pictures of the kids in the snow today.  Yesterday, we took shifts on shoveling, and the younger 3 all had fun sledding and playing in the snow.  Lydia made a snow angel on the carport roof.  

December Harvest Totals, and Jam and Preserves

 Eggs - 112

Bulgarian Pepper - 1

I have made jam since forever.  I learned from Mom when I was a kid.  Actually, one of my first kitchen memories is making jam: I was in my underwear, smashing berries with a fork in our kitchen on 5th Street.  Most of the jams we made when I was little were either strawberry or blackberry.  I'd help pick wild blackberries at Sleepy Hollow, and we sometimes had enough for jam.  Later, a neighbor kept us well-supplied with blackberries.  When I was older, Papaw would buy cherries for Mom to make jam, which was a fantastic flavor.  Once, someone gave us a bunch of nectarines, and Mom made jam from those.  Basically, I loved homemade jam, and I made it off and on as a kid.  As an adult, I have been making it for over 20 years now, and it is generally a well-received gift, so I make far more that we actually eat (although we do eat a ton of it).

This year, I made 47 pints of jam.  Last year, I made 66, so I'm a bit down from that, but we didn't pick blueberries this year, and we didn't buy tons of cherries like last year.  We also didn't get to upick strawberries, and I never did make mint jelly like I meant to.  However, I did make a new flavor, tangerine marmalade, since I bought a half bushel of Georgia tangerines.  Nathaniel is very happy with that discovery.  This year's jam flavors were: raspberry, strawberry with lemon, strawberry peach, cherry, cinnamon peach, peach, blackberry peach, peach hot pepper, apple, and tangerine marmalade.

Since my tomato harvest failed, and I got no canning tomatoes elsewhere, I didn't can tomato salsa for the first time in forever (excepting 2022, of course, when I was hospitalized).  However, I had a bumper crop of tomatillos, so I canned 25.5 pints of tomatillo salsa, and I canned an additional 18 pints of peach salsa and 3.5 pints of green tomato salsa, so we do have salsa, just none of the red kind.  I also didn't grow a ton of cucumbers, so I only canned 6.5 pints of relish and 6 pints of dill pickles, although we ate a lot of fresh cucumbers, and I fermented several batches of dill pickles as well.  Honey Peaches remain a staple for me to take to breakfast club, and I canned 28 quarts of those this year (down from 40 qts last year).  I think aiming for about 35 qts a year makes sense for next year.  I actually plan to can more tangerine marmalade and some chicken stock this month, but those totals will go to 2025.

In other news, last month Lydia, Malachi, and Acorn serenaded us with music:

Elijah has been busy with 3d puzzles, including this owl:

And he spent a great deal of time with Emry's dragon/phoenix one.  Emry's friends got him it for his birthday, with no idea of how hard it actually would be.  Emry enlisted Elijah's help.

2024 Reading List

 The year is not quite over, but I won't have time to finish any more books tonight before bed, so here is my 2024 reading list of all the books I finished this year.

Fiction

Double Take by Lynette Eason

A Penny for Your Thoughts by Mindy Starns Clark

Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels by Mindy Starns Clark

A Dime a Dozen by Mindy Starns Clark

A Quarter for a Kiss by Mindy Starns Clark

Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

The Buck Stops Here by Mindy Starns Clark

The Irish Matchmaker by Jennifer Deibel

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (JFIC)

The Sound of Light by Sarah Sundin

If I Were You by Lynn Austin

The Lady with the Dark Hair by Erin Bartels

The Elusive Truth of Lily Temple by Joanna Davidson Politano

The Underground Library by Jennifer Ryan

The Wreck of the Golden Mary by Charles Dickens

The Road Before Us by Janine Rosche

The Hudson Collection by Jocelyn Green

Her Part to Play by Jenny Erlingsson

Stella Diaz Has Something to Say by Angela Dominguez (JFIC)

Until Our Time Comes by Nicloe M. Miller

The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder by C.L. Miller

This Thing of Darkness by K.V. Turley and Fiorella de Maria

The Spice King by Elizabeth Camden

The Souls of Lost Lake by Jaime Jo Wright

A World Lost by Wendell Berry

Tea with Elephants by Robin Jones Gunn

Unforgotten by Shelley Shepard Gray

A Most Dangerous Innocence by Fiorella de Maria

A Little Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Retold by Joe Sutphin (JFIC)

Not by Sight by Kate Breslin

Nonfiction, Biography, and Memoir

St. Marianne Cope: Heart of Hope by Sr Fran Glangloff

Remembering WWII Women by Linda E. Minton

St Marianne of Molokai by Mary Cabrini Durkin (JBIO)

The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy Has Destroyed Us by Carrie Gress

Taught by Ten: A Psychologist Father Learns from his Ten Children by Dr Ralph Guarendi

God is Near Us by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedict XVI)

From Slave to Priest: The Inspirational Story of Fr Augustus Tolton by Caroline Hemesath, OSF

The Marian Option by Carrie Gress

The Splendid and the Vile by Eric Larson

An American Little Flower: Blessed Miriam Teresa Demjanovich by Gina MarieTennant (JBIO)

Greed in the Guilded Age by Wm. Elliot

The Anti-Mary Exposed by Carrie Gress

The Tigress of Forli: Renaissance Italy's Most Corageous and Notorious Countess, Caterina Riario    Sforza De'Medici by Elizabeth Lev

Benjamin Harrison by Charles W. Calhoun

Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist by Brant Pitre

The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon's Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of WWI by Lindsey        Fitzharris

St. Isaac and the Indians by Milton Lomask (JBIO)

The Thefts of the Mona Lisa by Noah Charney

The Prey of the Priest Catchers by Leo Knowles

The Fisherman's Tomb: The True Story of the Vatican's Secret Search by John O'Neill

The Family Economy by Rory Groves

The Shadow of His Wings: The True Story of Fr Gereon Goldmann, OFM by Fr. Goldmann

A Merry Christmas

We had a very Merry Christmas!

As usual, we had our Christmas at home before heading into my parents' house.  We had a great evening at Aunt Darlene and Uncle Keith's (no pictures taken, unfortunately), then back to Mom's.  We got to see Jeff at lunch on Christmas Eve.  We attended Mass on Christmas Eve, as usual, and then had a short visit with my uncle and cousins.  Christmas day was a whirlwind at Mom and Dad's and then Mamaw's, and then back to my parents'.

The day after Christmas, some of us enjoyed the zoo:

Nathaniel, Malachi, and Jake had an enjoyable golf scramble.   Later that evening, we celebrated Emry's and Charles's birthdays.  We kept busy!  We headed home the next day.

We were home for a day, then off to Natosha and Ben's for an afternoon.  The kids enjoyed Grandpa's cellophane ball game:

Merry Christmas!

 

12

So this guy is 12.  Crazy.

We celebrated Emry's birthday, and we continue to get ready for Christmas.  Lydia has been doing a lot of crafting:

The younger boys love having their big brothers around: