New years eve, Kyle and I had a lovely evening of bonfires, margeritas, hors d'oeuvres and Alfred Hitchcock movies.  Standing around the fire, being dusted by snowflakes, we played fetch with Ollie until he could no longer find the frisbee in the dark and the snow.  The girls were warm in their barn, watching the festivities from the comfort of their window seat.  The new year was rung in without bells or whistles.  No ball drop, party hats, crowds, or bar bills.  Just us kids down here on the farm, standing around a fire in our muck boots, drinking frozen drinks out of authentic German steins in the crisp winter air.  In hindsight it probably would have been a little more pleasant if we were drinking hot drinks- like mulled cider...oh well!  We've got plenty of winter left for that.

We were gifted a beautiful, homemade, cedar storage bench that Mom made herself.  It is taking up residence at the foot of our bed and it is just absolutely beautiful.

The rest of the weekend was spent snowblowing (both with the john deere and the wind), shoveling, and staying cozy in the house when we could.  We brought our tree out to May and Chutney on Sunday but that was about as ambitious as we got.  The wind and the snow made spending time outside a little less than lovely.  I had grand plans of working on the guest bedroom but settled for making some awesome breakfast burritos, spicy homefries, and mamosas before spending the rest of the day in sweats with Kyle, watching Psycho and back episodes of Lost online at Netflix.

I did start shopping for our seeds for this year's garden.  We're going to be buying them from High Mowing Organic Seeds just a few towns over from us in Wolcott.  They're a great local company that sells organic seeds at fair prices- we like them.  Now my only challenge is going to be to wait to start the seeds once they arrive...I'm ready but if we start them now we might have a full-fledged garden in our house before Spring even shows its lovely face- not a good idea when you've got cats and dogs just dying to find something new to dig in.  Although, maybe I'll start some herbs and hot peppers just to get my gardening fix...good idea, I think I'll spend my break shopping.

Last night I got home and immediately set in to making dinner, it was just one of those days where I needed to keep busy.  I had bought a little broiler at the grocery store earlier this week to roast and make chicken soup from.  It is to be, hopefully, the last chicken we will ever buy from a store as we are set to butcher our fifteen broilers this weekend.

As a recently converted ex-vegetarian this was the first time in a LONG time since I had handled a whole dead chicken, so I had a little trouble remembering how this all worked.  I seasoned it all over with salt and pepper and rubbed it down with a little bit of butter mixed with six cloves of chopped garlic and some rosemary.  I set it in the pot on top of a few chopped carrots and onions and threw it all in the oven for the next 50 minutes.  I set myself to starting the massive amount of dishes that were sitting on the counter when Kyle got home from work.  The wonderful man had not only brought home a bottle of wine but he had in hand a little bouquet of yellow lilies for me.  I do love him so much.  I'd been upset all week about our poor cat, Elvis, who has been suffering from an acute urinary tract infection.  So this little thoughtfulness was very much appreciated.

My darling husband took over doing the dishes while I went upstairs to feed the cats and give Elvis his pills which is getting increasingly more difficult as he is really getting sick of it.  But, we managed and both cats set in to happily eating their new vet-approved cat food.  I headed back downstairs and cleaned up the dining room table which unfortunately ends up being the catch-all for whatever we happen to have in our hands when we walk in the front door.  By the time I had finished I had just enough time to make some garlic mashed potatos to go with our dinner.

I took the chicken out of the oven and it looked beautiful.  Only one thing was wrong; I had put it in the pot upside down.  So instead of the skin covering the breasts being nice and golden and crispy, it was regretably the skin on the back of the chicken that looked so appealing.  Sure enough, I turned it over to carve it and the skin on the breast was cooked, yes, but soft and kind of gross looking.  We never buy chicken with the skin on, so we haven't eaten chicken skin in a long time...so whatever, but it was still a little disappointing.

The chicken turned out beautifully otherwise, it was moist and smelled delicious.  As soon as we had finished carving it up I plopped the chicken carcass into a big pot with salt and water and a few chopped potatos and began my chicken soup (I hate to waste anything).  So now we've got three containers of chicken stock and a big thing of chicken soup in the freezer.  And by the end of the weekend we'll have fifteen fresh, new chickens in our chest freezer...I'll let you know how THAT goes.