Haven't done much this week.

We haven't done much for the last two weeks. I worked four twelves in a row and then caught the crud. Chills, a snot nose, the usual crud. He's just been doing chores waiting to be sure that his sciatic nerve is truly healed. No extra lifting or shoveling. 

Today's the first day I've felt better than a wrung out dishrag. He's got the crud today....but, he always gets over things like this sooner than I do. He's a tough old bird. 

But, all the garden seeds have come and we're already talking what goes where. There's hope for spring.

Lazy woman's scalloped potatoes.

Last Saturday was one of my birthday parties, with both of us being January birthdays and blessed with enough family to fill the house four times over, we celebrate with a multitude of small parties. Ada, my best step daughter and friend came over for our lunch of roast beef, scalloped potatoes, green beans and bacon, with blueberry buckle to follow. The scalloped potatoes were the hit of the meal. I had to explain that they were the lazy woman's recipe.

Have husband peel and slice potatoes. 


Fill the casserole with in an inch of the top, an onion chopped fine, layered in with the potatoes. 

Then pour on ranch dressing till the casserole is full. 

Cheese slices a quarter inch deep, cover and bake till done. 

I check every half an hour or so and if it still looks sloppy I take the cover off and let the excess moisture steam away. 

That's it, lazy woman's scalloped potatoes.

I was making conversation.

I was making conversation. 

In December, the story starts with a friend of mine. Pam had something wrong with her foot that turned out to be gout. Her old mare, Dancer, managed to step on a nail. So, two lame creatures and the little one has to give 40ml of penicillin to the big one. When Pam asked my husband and I to help with the ten days of shots, of course we went to help. Towards the end of the ten days, Pam's brother called to say that her inheritance from their Uncle Virgil was on its way from Alaska. There was going to be a lot of furniture, Pam asked if we needed any beds or dressers. Fay and I don't lack for furniture, that's what happens when you marry and put together two households. I passed it off saying we didn't help her to get something and really, the only thing that could do with replacing was the dining room set. 

God has the most marvelous sense of humor. There was a blond oak dining set in the load of furniture! 

 

There goes the old set. Amos is tying on farmer style with 

baling twine.

Here's the new set in the pieces it arrived in:

 

Next we set it up:

 

And now, with my birthday present on it:

God is so good, I never thought about actually there being table and chairs or that it would have anything to do with me. I just was making conversation. 

The Kubota goes to work

 

I worked a call in the day before yesterday. We'd had snow, so I took the truck, feeling better safe than sorry, but most of the roads were wet and bare. By 2:00pm, it'd snowed 5' to 6' inches and when I got home I couldn't open the gate.

Husband and canine cheering section to the rescue! The Kubota that was our Christmas present to ourselves came with a six and a half foot blade. That wet, sticky snow just rolled away, opening up the gate for me to come in.

 After he got the gate cleared, we needed to haul hay to the horses. My husband's middle son, is a bit of a tinkerer, he'd come down and built out of junk lumber a bucket extension so we can carry hay bales.

Not going to get any nicer than that. Fay goes out the front gate and around by road, a trip of about five blocks. I go on foot across the lots and get there ahead of him. 

 

 Our Fjord mare heard the tractor coming.