Making Jam

I hope everyone had a great Christmas... things have been really busy around here but today I finally have a chance to catch up!

This year we decided to gift everyone with homemade jam for christmas. Having never made jam before, it was quite an adventure... and I loved every minute of it!

Of course, I completely forgot to take pictures of most of the jam making experience... but I remembered to snap some of the marmalade!

Cut up fruit goes into the pot....

After boiling for 1 hour...

Strawberry Daiquiri, Marmalade, and Strawberry Mango

By the time I remembered to take some photos of the bottled jam, I had already gifted all the raspberry. Next time ;)

New Feeder and New Visitors

We picked up a new suet feeder for our woodpecker friend, and found we have a little female downy woodpecker who has discovered it!

Of course the chickadees were fighting over the new feeder as well... =)

Snow Angels and Feathered Friends

David saw the most beautiful snow angel the other morning. I went outside and tried to get a better picture of it, but the best one was taken from through the window:

While I was outside I was being watched by several curious chickadees and a hairy woodpecker. Actually, almost every time either of us go outside, we hear him calling and he always likes to perch nearby... I guess in hopes that we have a tasty snack for him =)

We have ignition!

After we brought some of the wood in to dry, David decided to get the fire going with some junks of wood that were fairly snow-free.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck...

We received our first load of wood for the season... 4 cords of wood, and the pile is almost as big as our little Yaris!

We've been working on moving it in for the past hour or so, but it's slow going! Now to wait for the snow & ice to melt off our "dry" wood ;)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

It was a beautiful day today so we decided it was time to put up the rest of our christmas lights and the snow fence.

We saw some brave chickadees too!

Barn Cleanup

All summer our barn has been home to countless spiders (eww!) so yesterday, after the nice cold below zero nights we've been having, I decided it was time to start cleaning up the barn. I started with the work room - organizing, and clearing away some spider webs.

Before & After

It's starting to look better, but there's still a lot to do... cleaning, painting, and eventually a new counter to replace the makeshift one that's there now.