Chicken soup!

Well. Chicken noodle soup.

I make soup all the time. Soup is the one and only good thing about wintertime. But...hard as it is to believe..I've never made chicken soup! I'd had chicken quarters for dinner ending up with a leftover quarter. The light clicked on! I decided I'd make chicken with that leftover quarter.

I picked the chicken from the leftover quarter, boiled all the bones for an hour and a half. I had roasted the quarters in garlic and parsley so there was enough seasoning there.

I sweated some onion, coarsely chopped celery and carrot in some olive oil, added some garlic, the broth and some Hodgson Mill whole wheat egg noodles. Product review! I don't know how they did that but those are really delicious egg noodles! Then I added the chicken I'd picked off the leftover quarter. Oh, and I splashed in the juice from half a lemon. It still needed a couple pinches of salt for it to really come to life. Managed to prepare two servings.

I don't have much room in my freezer so I freeze my soups in quart sized zip lock freezer bags. It's easy when you put the bag in a measuring cup and then just dump it in.

What on earth?!

Normally I avoid politics and controversy on my blog. I blog purely as a recreational thing to indulge my idiosyncrasies. But. I read in the paper today. The President of the United States. Yesterday. The *President* of the United States. Held a press conference. From Camp David. On a Saturday afternoon.

To tell us all. He's been to the best schools. And he's very smart. And. This is quite rich. To reassure us he "do proper".

I was out enjoying my morning walk. In the freezing cold. When the full ...gravity..of it hit and I literally laughed out loud. It would be quite hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

Seriously. WTF was that?!

I'm really embarrassed.

Snow Day!

Blizzard Day is more descriptive.

The snow died down a little bit...I live in this building..
Today we're enjoying what's called a Bomb Cyclone. This sucker came roaring up the coast (Noreaster) this morning after having dropped snow in Florida yesterday! I haven't watched the news yet but it sure looks like an official blizzard. Visibility has surely been less than a thousand feet all day and mostly barely a few hundred feet. Cold wind blown snow all day long.

The only good(?) thing is it's colder than was forecast so rather than all heavy wet snow it's been more dry powder.

The horses are all tucked in with plenty of hay and water. Just going to have to catch up on barn work tomorrow and over the weekend.

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Edited to add:

The news says the official report isn't in yet but everyone has to agree it was a full blown blizzard. If you've never been through a real honest to God blizzard they are pretty bad.

And now the west side of the storm is going to bring in below zero Arctic air for the next couple of days. Wind chills -18 to -30° F.

Hey! That's me!

So here I am enjoying my morning walk on an absolutely beautiful day...and...THE GOOGLE CAR DRIVES BY! How cool is that?!

That Street View will probably be up for years. But it won't be there forever. So here's a screen capture for posterity.

I *think* that was 24 August 2017. I should have taken notes.
Edited to add:

Yes. It was really hard to be cool and not jump up and down and wave :)

Happy Holiday!

I don't celebrate Christmas. But I *do* celebrate my horse at every opportunity!

First snow!

Saturday 9 December was our very first snow of the season.

That's Sammi's stall in the doorway. Biggest horse gets the biggest stall!
Which of course meant Sunday L had her first snow bath of the season!

Barn life is hard in the wintertime. Every season gets worse and while it does have its rewards I just dread it. You just suck it up do it. The manure pile is a real burden in the snow. The manure pile is a 1000 foot trip from the barn. Three trips out and back is a little over a mile. Sometimes the landlord doesn't think plow down to the manure pile. And sometimes he's out of town when it snows.

Normally I use this Gorilla Cart to haul manure. I don't think they have this model anymore.

I can load 7 or 8 cubic feet of manure into that wagon and make 3 to 5 trips on a typical day. I'd rather have a tractor! But it will do. Most of the year.

Not so much in the snow! Oh I've used it in the snow the past 2 years and it's a *real* struggle. It gets better after the first couple of trips. The tires make ruts in the snow that act almost like rails. It's still a real workout.

This year I had an inspired moment!

I got one of these! I got a Jet Sled 1. And, on the occasion of the first snow of the season had a chance to take it for a test drive. We had maybe seven inches of snow. Enough to make using the wagon a challenge.

That's about 10 cubic feet of manure!
And handling it was a breeze. I swear not much more than a walk to the manure pile and back. The tow rope can be a little tough on the hands so I wrapped some foam pipe insulation around the rope and duct taped it.

I am just elated. Hauling manure (and bedding and feed!) is like there's just nothing to it. Winter can be pretty miserable and every little bit helps.

And stay off!

I've been chasing The Little Bastard off the table for years. Four years...to be exact. He's not stupid. Quite the contrary. He just doesn't care!

Get off the table!
And then there's the counter. Unfortunately watching pots simmer is one of his favorite things to do!

And *get* down off the counter!
And then there's the day he found my bag of bags. What. Doesn't everyone have a bag of bags?

Jackopot! This was tons of fun!
It's a good thing he's so cute. Seriously. How cute is this?!

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....zzzzzzzz...zzzzzzzzzzzzz....