Baking cookies and fruitcakes today. I should have done the fruitcakes before now. I was spurred into action by a phone call from my sister who is coming today for our annual gift/goodies exchange.

Our weather has been dry and mostly sunny and below freezing. December is our third wettest month here, with an average 1.02 inches of precip. The record low precip is .05 inch, and so far we are on a course to break that record this year. Our weather records go back to 1913.

Foggy earlier this morning, now it's just cloudy and looking like rain. Sposed to get rain sometime today and perhaps turning to a smattering of snow later. We'll see.

I made some cookies the other day; not impressed with the basic dough so will substitute a different dough, add the "additives" and go from there.

yesterday I made some chocolate drop cookies and added chopped macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips. Yum.
I really want to make some divinity too. Didn't make any last year, and next to chocolate, it is my favorite candy, especially with chopped pecans in it. Yum.


Am going to make some cinnamon rolls for a few neighborhood goodie plates.........probably make 4 of them.


Going to SIL's on Sunday, I was requested to bring beverage and "some of that wine you forgot at Thanksgiving". LOL Primrose Winery (local) Holiday wine. It is cranberry and oh, golly.........the best.

My mom's on Sat. for noon meal with my sibs; going to make an apple pandowdy for that. then to Christmas Eve service at church at 8 pm. I will have to play for that. Then will have regular Sunday services Christmas morning at 10:45. Christmas night (after the deal at SIL's) we'll go to DS#2's for just us and the boys and the 2 grands.

Monday night (after Christmas) SU and I have a milking job..........so the people can go have Christmas with her family an hour away and don't have to worry about coming home to do chores.

Monday the vet was here to dehorn, vaccinate, and deworm the 35 heifers that we have here of the neighbors'. I think they will have headaches for a week. There were a couple of bleeders, but they were seen and taken care of early on, so no problems there.

Guess I kinda jumped around here; hope you don't get dizzy following it.

Off to do cookies.............BBL. ~

Oo, Mary, we had a couple inches overnight! All it does lately is rain. Stan says, don't complain - normally it's a couple of feet of snow! The grass is green, the 4 heifers that are outside are loving it.

Hey, Shoe, good to see you. No tree! Isn't that practically unAmerican or something?

We went shopping this morning - last time until we think of something else we need. I've got baking and cleaning to do, my family is coming Saturday. And, I have a vest to finish for my eldest GD. Guess I'd better get at it.

I'm unamerican along with Shoe. No tree here either. The cats would LOVE it too much. LOL

"We went shopping this morning - last time until we think of something else we need."

Hah! I know whats that means! Did that today after thinking this past Monday was all it took. Oh well...ended up buying myself a self-emptying rain gauge as my present!

I don't feel "unAmerican" w/out a tree. DD's first Christmas tree, a cedar, was planted in the front yard 18 years ago. It has lights on it...not all the way up though cus that tree must be 20 ft tall now! Our tree is outside this year, thass all!

Over an inch of rain here today, very muddy out. Red clay mud. Guess we'll have a red Christmas instead of a white one. (I wonder how much snow an inch of rain would make if conditions were right?)

Shoe (off to get eggs then figger out supper....)

Shoe, if my memory is right, it takes about an foot of snow to make an inch of water. Some snow is wetter, some is dryer. We usually have the dry kind which the wind blows into fantastic sculptures! I'll look for pictures.

Wow...if the weather was colder then my DD would have me out on the sled, earning sore bones and muscles for days to come.

Love your "horses on the horizon" avatar. One of these days I'll break down and ride a horse. You'll see....you'll see.

Shoe

Just a couple for now.

Great pictures, Mary. We get the dryer snow in January or February, depending on how long it takes Lake Erie to freeze over. Until then, it's heavily saturated with water. All the little feeder creeks and the bigger creeks are running heavy right now. It looks like it might be a green Christmas. They are talking a little snow on Friday, but warmer on Sunday. I have to keep reminding myself of the date, because it sure looks more like late October out than late December.

Shoe, I rode a horse once, took me two weeks to get over it! And I was young then!

I think we'll have broiled beef and cheddar sandwiches for supper with a little fruit salad, bless the Chilean fruit farmers. I really like the idea of local food, but you put some nice Chilean blueberries and raspberries in my local supermarket produce department and I am hard pressed to pass them up this time of year. Add a Jonamac apple and some vanilla yogurt and it makes a lovely little bit of late summer here on the eve of winter.

Made my divinity, oh, it's good. Cutting my bars and putting them in a container. Now, if I could hide them were I can't find them...........LOL

Watching Animal Planet as I putz in the kitchen. Jungles is the topic for this hour.

"Shoe, I rode a horse once, took me two weeks to get over it! And I was young then!"

Oh no! That reminds me of the one time I went snow skiing! I was so sore afterwards I could barely lift my leg to push in the clutch of a Volkswagen! Ouch.

Anna, I just pulled some "sopapilla cheesecake" out of the oven...gonna cut it up and give it to my egg customers tomorrow.

Great pics, Mary!
Shoe

Well, I guess it was the longest night of the year last night and I was up for most of it. Gah!!!!!!!!!! Should have opened a bottle of wine, I guess, and celebrated.

No big Christmas preparations here - no big Christmas either. Most of the family will be working. The excitement is less now that the children are grown and scattered around the country. We will have a good dinner in the evening for everyone who gets here - whoever they are! I still love the season!

Our 3 boys still live close, so we will have a get-together Sunday evening. We used to have it here, but since DS#2 has the kids, we just go to his house. Said it didn't make much sense to have it here, and then he had to pack up all the kids gifts and crabby babies to boot because it is late. Works much better for him this way. And a plus for me............HE has to clean.

I spent the day before Solstice baking and mailed on Solstice.
I am the keeper of my grandmother's recipe (~1920) and I bake them to send to the younger folks so they, like I, can have them every Christmas of their life (52 Christmases for me, only 3 for the youngest).

And I haven't done a tree since I started keeping CATS. Only one cat at present, but he's young and spirited.
Safety first.

Crittergarden...............what is it that you made that is the family tradition you are keeping going?

Yes, I'm curious too, please tell.

We have three visiting young cats of my daughter's. So far the tree has survived, but we didn't really decorate the bottom 18" or so, and wired the lower ornaments to the branches.

I put out some of the left over winter rye seed in a couple of paddocks near the barn. The earlier planting came up and died as there was no more rain. This is very late but we have had a little rain this week and more is predicted. Clover is coming up now so there is a little grazing in all the pastures, with luck the rye will make it too. Hay is very hard to find, I don't want to run out.

Also trimmed feet on three of the pensioner race horses. Two or three is my limit if I want to be able to stand up again.

Last night we drove through a nearby subdivision to see the Christmas lights - very impressive! We also got lost, as usual. which didn't matter - until we were ready to leave and couldn't find our way out!

Something like a corn maze? Sounds like fun.

Yes, I suppose so!

Crittergarden: Are we going to learn more about the treasured Grandmother's recipe?