What a way to end 2010

This am Peter got up at 6 am and made coffee, went to work. Me, I went back to bed until 745 when Alex comes in wanting cereal. (He would live on cereal). We had no water. I called Peter and after picking up a few things for the weekend, he came home. Seems the pipes had frozen because the pipe heater had quit working. Peter fixed that and after several hours we had water again. I DO NOT like not having water.
A number of years ago my dad gave us a big blue water jug, thankfully it was filled so I could water the small animals. Thanks Daddy. The bigs had water in their tanks. I did have to turn on the heaters. It was very cold last night and is already 5 below tonight. We lost one chicken, not sure if from the cold or why. I did bring in Peanut the bunny so she'd have water and not break the water bottle when it froze. Mischka, the aussie shepherd, is in the laundry room. Libby and Lucy are in their igloos. The cats have elected to stay in the feed room, burrowed down in the hay.
The Addaman Group cancelled the Pikes Peak fireworks tonight. Too cold with wind chill of 50 below. We can see the fireworks on the Peak from our family room if it's not cloudy.
So tomorrow is my bff, Magie's, birthday. Mine's the next day and on Tuesday the kids go back to school so we are going out to celebrate, probably at Culver's. Love their fries.
So Happy New Year from Green Gates Farm.

Verda's Hominy Bake

When you're married you have to arrange holidays to fit all the relatives in. Since we had Christmas day with my MIL, we spent Christmas Sunday at my parent's house. Mom made this as part of the dinner. Since my dad is on blood thinner meds, he has to watch what he eats, but he can eat this. More interesting, Mr. Picky-eater Alex liked it.

1 large can of hominy
3-4 beaten eggs
grated cheddar cheese
1 can green chilies

Put hominy in 9x13 baking dish. Cover with cheese. Sprinkle with green chilies. Pour beaten eggs over the top and bake at 350* for 25-30 minutes.

Even with the green chilies, this was not spicy hot. My brother was going to try it with jalapenos.

From "Favorites from our Table"

Recapping Christmas

It was a fairly quiet Christmas. We attended the candlelight service at the church. We had been discussing changing churches (most of the boys' friends go to the other church, the other church has AWANAS and I'm not comfortable with the organization of the youth group at our church.) And I really don't like contemporary or cowboy church services, too much of a traditionalist. But what do you expect, I went to a Lutheran college, Peter's been an Episcopalian his whole life and my family came from Mennonite roots. But we decided to stay at Antioch, partly because of the outpouring of support for my BFF Magie as she deals with a distressing issue.

Saturday morning, the boys were up bright and early and quite upset that all Santa brought them was some things in their stockings and a video game. I told them to look closely at the video game and then they noticed that it was a Wii game so they went running off to find the Wii console (or whatever you call it) We had opened presents when we got back from church on Friday night. We then went to the daughter's home for brunch. We were going to walk around Garden of the Gods but I thought it was too cold so we settled for driving. We did go play for awhile at America the Beautiful park.

And then we went for dinner (prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, chocolate cream pie- my faves) at the MIL. Almost the whole family was there. Niece Suzy stayed at college in Alaska. BIL Alec and his family stayed in Idaho (expecting their first grandchild soon, Ali- January 2 is a good day to have baby- I can share my birthday).

Sunday we went to my parents for Christmas. We had a nice time, lots of food etc. My dad is on meds which means he has to watch his diet so the salad I took, he couldn't have.

So for the rest of the week, we'll be staying close to home, cleaning and organizing. Still looking at moving in the not to distant future. And since it's a smaller house, I have to downsize some things. But it's okay to not have so much stuff.

I'm hoping for Red, Hot and Blue for my birthday dinner. Or Olive Garden. Or....
Any suggestions?

A Christmas Letter

You know how people send out letters with their Christmas cards every year? I sent out these rather thick multi folding cards and I thought that sending a letter would raise the postage. Seriously, I didn't make the time to write it before now and look it's Christmas eve.

So what has been happening here at Green Gates? Chickens have come and gone. We raised two turkeys to adulthood and Sir Henry has just starting to fluff up and it's driving the dogs nuts.

The horses are doing fine. Ariel, our momma llama, had her last baby in September. She finally had a boy, probably because the dad of her last three daughters went to a new home. We had a number of baby goats this spring. Sadly, Sage the beautiful matriarch of our herd had her back broken, we suspect by a horned boer, and had to be put down. But she left us with Sasha and Simon. The evil boer is gone.

We added two chihuahuas to the canine family, Chico and Princess. Katie, our old Keeshond, passed away this summer. And Cody, the mix, had to find a new home after he killed half of the chicken flock and pulled the boys' pet rabbits out of their cages and killed them.

So Andy, now 8 years old, is doing well in the 3rd grade. Still crazy for dinosaurs. He's become quite the artist and is really starting to read more. His favorite books are about dinosaurs and he really likes the series "the Magic Tree house". Since I got tired of two messy bedrooms Andy has to share his room with....

Alex, now 7, is technically in the 1st grade but he is in the 2nd grade classroom doing 2nd grade work. Alex scored in a national test in the 99% in math, reading and writing. Sometimes he's a little scary how smart he is. Alex loves computer games, card games, (bugging his brother) and he also likes the treehouse series.

Peter is keeping busy with work, being secretary of the HOA, and trying to keep sane from all my ideas of what projects we (meaning him) can do here at the farm. And I have a lot of ideas...

I want a new horse barn cause then I could put the goats in the old horse barn and use the entire goat barn to store feed. Hey, when I find a good price on grass I feel the need to stock up. You never know when we'll will get a bad storm. I've also been busy with the church's food pantry, serving on the school board and volunteering two days a week at our school's front desk.

I forgot to mention we added two parakeets, Bert and Ernie, and a canary, Teddy, to the menagerie. I just heard Teddy singing which reminded me.

For Christmas we are having brunch at daughter Melissa's home. She has two boys now, James is one and Derek is 3 1/2 months old. And then we go to the MIL's for Christmas dinner with Peter's family. Sunday we are going to my parents. And this is after Christmas Eve candlelight service. And sometime Santa has to find time to visit our house.

So from everyone and everything at Green Gates Farm, Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year.

Weekend Update

This past weekend I spent Friday and Saturday at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs for the Colorado Association School Board annual meeting. It was fun and informative, but I didn't spend the night at the hotel.
Saturday evening I picked up the grandboys because someone had an appointment on Monday morning that they couldn't go to. Said someone decided not to go to the appointment. Normally I wouldn't have minded but Andy and Alex were in the Awanas Christmas program on Sunday night and I missed the program because the babies wouldn't stop crying.
We did pick up the new couch for the living room on Sunday. I still need to pick up the canary.