We are going to Disney World! And we are leaving right after I get my Black Friday shopping done :) So, our trip has a rather tight budget....so in order to not spend way too much money at the airport, we are planning ahead!
Last night I made....
Pumpkin Peanut Butter Protein Bars
Honey Roasted Chickpeas
And Trail Mix
Along with this...we are going to bring our own water bottles, some fruit & veggies, string cheese, and hard boiled eggs. Jordan has his own snacks...Unhealthy Trail Mix, Animal Crackers, Pretzles, and some other things. We are going to make it on our trip with limited dollars if we can just stick to the plan!!!!!
P.S. We also learned why we don't have tons of snacks around the house all the time....we eat them! We eat them so fast they aren't even worth buying...literally. Because they are expensive! As told by the empty Oreos container, and empty economy size of honey roasted peanuts. Usually its me that has the sweets portion control....but this time I can blame Jordan! :) And secretly, I am happy about that!
Tonight we have two houseguests. My 6-year-old and 9-year-old nephews. They. Are. Nuts.
I decided I better make breakfast for them tonight. Since every two seconds since they have arrived they have come up to me and said "I'm hungry". I have some sourdough starter on the counter so decided to use that to make a whole wheat pancake recipe.
Whole Wheat Sourdough Pancakes
2-3 cups Sourdough starter (Friendship Bread variety)
1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 cup Rolled Oats
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 Egg
1/2 cup of milk (or however much it takes to create the consistency you like)
Yum!
I debated whether or not I wanted to share this story----but it is too funny not to. Shortly after the time change, Jordan and I were still having our dedicated weekend hikes. Sunday night we were at the park and barely made it back before complete darkness hit. I guess I didn't keep track of what time that was...
Monday after work, I was pretty motivated to work out (Family Biggest Loser contest is in Week 3 now) but didn't want to run on the treadmill. I decided to go to a nearby park with hiking trails, looked at the map and knew I wouldn't have enough time to go on the long trail, so found the shortest trail color on the map and went to town. It was a mile loop that I wanted to walk/run but it was pretty hilly (with lots of leaves that made it slippery) so I had to walk quite a bit.
Well, the sun was going down and----I wasn't back yet. Hmmmm...it was only 1 mile WTH???
Oh...yeah, I missed my turn. I ended up doing over 1.5 loops of the trail and was now stuck at the furthest point on the map. AUUUGH! Let's add another dynamic to the list---my cell phone battery was dieing. After a frantic call to Jordan to let him know my predicament...I attempted to decide which fork in the road to take me home. One fork would lead me back to the trail head. The other fork...would also take me to the fork head but not before the treacherous hill up and down with a water crossing. Problem was, I didn't know which was which.
I did the inthinkable....I had to call for help. Who did I call-----yup. The police. Ohhhh my goodness I felt so bad...and embarassed! They were sending help.
I sat out in the quiet, pitch-black woods alone, for about 1.0-1.5 hours. Looking at the stars, trying to make noise to keep the deer away from me that I could hear in every direction, pretending like I was camping...thinking about sasquatch. Anything to not freak out. Surprisingly, I kept pretty calm and eventually, 2 very nice policemen came out to save me and escort me back to the parking lot.
Totally embarassed, they were very surprised that I was 1. alone and 2. not totally scared. Impressive, I know.
Well, I won't be hiking alone anymore....and definitely not after Daylight Savings Time. Lesson. Learned.
Sorry for the delay. No one is really reading this anyway :) However, I am sad that I got away from writing. We are still trucking along on the farm here. November (and October) is a very busy month. I finally broke down and make a monthly calendar for the fridge to keep my schedule, and Jordan's on track. Between the upcoming Church Festival we are in charge of, Jordan's basketball league, the livestock, and everything else...we are busy bees!
This weekend we went to NAILE (North American International Livestock Expo) in Louisville, KY to pick up a couple of bred ewes from an online sale---and scope out the lambs, mingle with our cohorts, and get icecream :) It was a good trip but it was a long drive. And quick! Went down Friday night and came back Saturday afternoon.
We are also going on vacation this month to Florida. Which means, we have to coordinate feeding plans, load up on hay, and get the ewes ultrasounded before we leave. The hens have pretty much stopped laying (except for Old Reliable...I don't know which one she is but she is still faithfully giving us an egg per day).
On another note, we are still going for our weekly hikes with Bocephus---the dog. I LOVE it and I am certainly glad that Jordan is enjoying it too. I think it is something we look forward to now. Getting away, pretending we are somewhere further from home than we really are, and enjoying the last little bit of sunshine before winter hits. Sigh.....I am not looking forward to winter.
*Special Update---It is now November 14th and we finally turned our heat on. Evidently 52 degrees inside the house is just too much to bear*
Things have been pretty busy in our house over the last few weeks. With my father-in-law having health issues, we have had to take on a little more work with the lambs but still waiting for the last few ewes to get bred. Hogs and chickens are doing well.
Timeout for a Chicken Story....
Not sure where I left off with our chickens but we had a litte mishap a few weeks ago involving our dog and our chickens. I went out to let the chickens graze, as I usually do, telling Bo (the dog) to stay at the house and leave them alone, as he usually does. I walk back inside to work and I hear a terrible noise coming from outside. I look out the windows and see chickens scattering everywhere from all sides of the house. I ran outside to find chickens across the road, in the fields, in the garage, and none in the hen house. I caught the ones across the road and continued to carry them back to the house when I see Bo has cornered a hen inside the garage. Blood. Everywhere. AUGGHH!
I corral what chickens I could find and put Bo on the leash to keep him sane. Jordan came home and helped get the remaining chickens out of the field and back in the coop. Then we head back to the garage to deal with this doggy of ours. I was FURIOUS! Come to find out, the blood was not from the chickens, it was from the dog. Somehow he had sliced the pad of his foot and thats what was bleeding. Jordan took care of Bo and everything was good to go...but those darn chickens (and DOG) had us scattered for awhile! Everyone is back on their roost and laying as usual so the story ends well.
In the meantime, Jordan got rid of a rooster but the other one on the chopping block retreated to the corn field and wasn't seen again-----for a few weeks. He had come and gone and after finding him a mile away from the house, hearing him early in the morning in the fields, and a crazy article in the local newspaper about a man who found a stray rooster in the next town over (luckily not ours)....I came to the hen house with a pleasant surprise. I went to shut the hens in for the night and who was in the door way....that renegade rooster crows RIGHT at me as if to say....."Hahahaha made it back here you sucker!"
He is still around....for now.
Not much going on right now. Haven't had a lot to report but I did get to see my pony perform at the fair this week with his 10 year old 4-Her. They did SUCH a ncie job! Here is a picture of the little guy....
Two 1st place trophies, three 3rd place ribbons, and one 9th place ribbon. Not bad considering he is just a hillbilly pony against huge hunt seat horses!
Also, I am pretty proud of my husband as I continue to dig through our closets to get rid of unwanted clothing. We have a garage sale coming up and we can donate them to charity too. Honestly, 75% of our clothing has been tucked away, never unpacked from when we moved here almost a year ago! It is about time! I then organized each piece of clothing into different closets for now....I mean really...we have at least 5 closets! So, one closet is for dresses and work apparel for me, one closet is for Jordan's polo shirts, button up shirts, and suits, one closet is for long sleeve tshirts and short sleeve tshirts, and another closet will be for frequently worn clothing---as it is most accessible. As long as we remember to rotate that clothing from the other closets we will be in good shape! I still need to organize my clothing, but it is a good start. I needed to get through Jordan's clothing just to make room to organize mine!
Another thing I am not ADDICTED to is pinterest. With all of these tshirts and other junk we are going to go through to finish unpacking and organizing the rooms....I am sure we will have plenty of "upcycling" to do! Pretty excited about it!
Really loving this fresh egg thing. The yolks are big and bright and I still love going out to check and see if there are any new eggs. So, last night I went out to grab the afternoon eggs and I found this....
It was huuuuge! That poor chickie! Well this morning we got to see what was inside that big egg and it looked like this....
Even though it was a double, the yolks were both still bigger than a regular egg I opened next to it. They were good too. A little difficult to flip but mmmmmm. They are sooo bright colored too!
Need to update some pictures of the sheep soon. We did loose one hog the other night. He seemed like everything was fine. I guess we are still below the average when it comes to losses so we should be in good shape yet.
