Winters Moon

A winter moon rises over the farm.

All is quiet except for the howling of they coyotes in the distance.

 The equipment awaits warmer days!

Cockadoodledoo...

Christmas Recap

The day was full of fun, laughter, family and food!

 

 The dinner table was full!

 

 Daughter's boyfriend deep fried a turkey for us!

YUM!

I also did a prime rib!

 Never too old for a stocking!

 Mom and daughter selfie!

 Even when they are all grown up, sitting in the box is fun!

 Her brother likes to get inventive when he wraps gifts for her!

This year he took leftover wrapping paper from a gathering the night before, stuck her present on the bottom of a big box and then put the used paper on top!

So funny!

 She liked the gift once she got to it!

 So happy our son was able to spend the day with us!

For the last several years, he has worked on Christmas day!

 The boyfriend was surprised when he had gifts from us to open too!

 The third and fourth season of The Walking Dead!

Happy girl!

 The critters got goodies too!

Santapaws was good to them!

 "We love our toys!"

 What's in my stocking?

 Waiting for Santapaws to come!

 Stockings all stuffed!

 The 2014 tree!

It was a real tree this year!

And The Rain Came Down

Had one heck of a rain storm yesterday!

It rained and rained and rained!

We needed it!

Giant puddles formed everywhere!

 

 The coop flooded!

The chickens were not impressed!

 The equipment yard became a soupy mess!

The farm is quiet this time of year, so no worries about anything getting stuck!

 I had to venture out into the rain storm to secure the chicken coop and deal with the flooding issue!

When I came in, I looked like a drowned rat!

Had a little holiday cheer to help warm me up!

Today the wind blew and blew!

The puddles are all dried up and the wind fluffed the chickens right up!



Going South...Going North

Hubby and I headed south to Arizona before Thanksgiving.

We had planned to go anyway, but got a call that hubby's father was in the hospital.

We spent nine days in AZ before heading home.

It wasn't the visit we had planned, but everything is okay for now.

 

The trip is long and we usually stop a few times a long the way.

One of my favorite stops is in Tonopah, NV at the Mizpah Hotel.

The hotel is old and has a lot of history behind it.

For years it was closed and in a sad state of disrepair!

 

Several years back it was purchased by the Cline Family and lovingly restored to its former glory!

It's beautiful!

You can find a bit more information here on the hotel.

 

We stopped twice on this trip, once going down and then again coming back.

On the trip down the hotel was decorated for Thanksgiving.

On the trip back it was decked out for Christmas!

 

I took a few minutes to snap a few pictures of some of the Christmas décor.

It was pretty and provided a bit of relaxation before the rest of the trip home.

 

  See that window...

It is an original from the 1800's! It was brought over from Italy!

When the restoration was done, a few of the original windows had to be replaced and they too came from the same town in Italy that the originals came from!

The photo does not do them justice.

They are absolutely beautiful!

 

The sun was setting at one point on the way home and the landscape was pretty.

I snapped this photo through the window as we were zipping along the isolated, empty road home!

It was good to get back home!



Cold and Snow

It's cold!

It's snowing! Nothing major, but still snowing!

Our high today will only be 38 degrees!

Burrrrr!!!!

 

Took this photo from my kitchen window.

I was too cold and lazy to walk outside!

I think it will be a good day to do some baking.



Veterans Day

Fall Storm

The first fall storm rolled through our valley yesterday.

The temperature really dropped and it rained all day!

When the clouds lifted off the range in the late afternoon, I could see snow!

 

Woke up this morning to bright blue sky, snow on the range and it was down right cold!

I will miss the 70 degree days we had been having!