Thanksgiving!?

What are these people doing?

So is everyone ready for the holiday season?? What? It’s February? So we’re a little bogged in our blogging. It’s nice to see you haven’t totally given up on us yet. So, for your sick, twisted pleasure of wondering what the hell we’re doing up here in the dome, here is the Thanksgiving back entry- written, just not posted in a timely manner and then stay tuned for a more current recap of Christmas with the family.


HI All! It's finally cooling off here in the warmest non-snow November ever in Vermont/upstate NY (Revisionist history:December 2nd and there's finally a dusting of snow!). The Subie has new snow tires and been winterized & is ready for the onslaught of winter. Come Christmas, Gina's car we are trading with Jackie for her jeep for the winter, wahoo! We had beautiful weather though on our whirlwind 2200-mile transit of the mid-Atlantic states, visiting Gina's parents in Roanoke and my Aunt and Uncle in Chattanooga.

Except for the long drive, the trip was truly wonderful. We spent a delicious Thanksgiving with Gina's family, and then headed down to TN to visit my family.

Some of the highlights were finally meeting Gina's aunt and uncle, Glen and Eileen & their 4 strapping children. I say this as they towered over me and were all sports stars. The youngest Kyle, shot his first buck- a 4 pointer while we were down there.


We got to watch Otto in action demonstrating his expert butchering skills while sharing his homemade red wine. It was such a pleasure to watch a master work his skills, and I'm not talking about his dancing.


Aside from a detailed gourmet-anatomy lesson, we got some fabulous stories and tasty deer meat for the freezer. We whipped up a batch of BBQ venison from it to share with the dojo at Jeremy's going away party, it was the food hit of the night. Along with the culinary delights in Roanoke, we played lots of games including, Mexican train dominoes. We ran the dogs in the playing feild at the local highschool. Much to our disgust, they all 3 decided playing in the mud was much more fun than playing fetch.


The piece du-resistance however was the game Jackie brought. It defies description till you have played, so go look for Extreme at Spencer's Gifts! (Not reccomended for those with heart conditions or pacemakers.)
In

Chattanooga

At Gary and Kim's Walden Ridge Farm, we got to finally meet the California Red Sheep!

Possibly the next new addition to our family up here in NY! They were wonderfully gentle, once Greta stopped chasing them. The rams were skittish but the ewes were pleasantly social. Rosamunda was very affectionate.



Gertie, the great Pyrenees watchdog was wonderful, very sweet, although with Greta, she was somewhat less enthusiastic and thus had to be separated from her during our stay. There can be only 1 princess in the kingdom at one time.



Gary and Kim were spectacular hosts, whipping up fabulous meals and conversation. Aunt Marie's leeks in soup were great! On Saturday, my grandmother and Aunt Marie came down for dinner. There, of course was never enough time to spend with all our families.



While we haven't been traveling, here at the dome has been busy in the heat of the warm November. The delay of cold and snow has given us some much-needed time for outdoor work. I've been putting up fence posts for our future flock of CAreds and cleaning out the woods to make more pasture. Uncle Gary, very generously gave me an electric fence system, which will help immensely speed the process.

On the drive home from VA we discussed possible names for the farm and have decided Pecora Farm(s) as the leading candidate. Pecora-translated in Italian as sheep. We aren't really sure, it just sounded good. Other than that, Dixie and Greta are curled up on their new beds, and the kitties have finally forgiven us for leaving them here at the house for a week un-chaperoned. The boy, Deigo, is growing twice as fast as his sister. By this time next year he's going to be the size of Dixie, who has stalled at about 30lbs. We hope everyone had as fun and yummy a holiday as we did - cheers!