The Feast!

Just look at this Delicious, seasoned, roasted Turkey and the golden tasty dressing! You can almost smell and taste it, right? The Lutheran Hen sure put on a great Thanksgiving feast.

Here is the Rooster doing a little Turkey carving. He is so big, it makes the Turkey look small but it was plenty for all plus leftovers for supper and of course turkey and gravy over biscuits for another day.

Hear are the scrumptious home made rolls that were baked by the Hen. When these were baking and then pulled fresh from the hot oven, the smell filled the house! I can't help but think back to the pioneer days and how that same great smell excited many people in anticipation of the fresh baked rolls.

Isn't this a gorgeous dish? It tasted as good as it looked. Fresh asparagus, garlic cloves and fresh mushrooms. Um good. There wasn't very much of this dish left over.

This is a close up of the food just before we said the Thanksgiving grace.

The ugly duckling was entertained with a half lemon peal. He wasn't sure he liked it, He did entertain the Chicks and the rest of us by playing with it and a few strange looks and lick tests!

After the meal, I caught the Rooster and Hen looking through the Black Friday ad's. The news paper was thick full with door buster sales. You can notice that each are checking out adds of interest to them. The football game was also on TV so the rooster had to keep his eye on both. He loves football and since he played football while in college knows a lot about the sport. I must admit I took my share of time going through the sale ad's too. The Hen and I had a fun 4 hours shopping early Friday morning. We left the house about 5:30 AM and it was only about 12 degrees out. It's not too often that we get to go shopping together. It was a special time for us and we did find some great buys too.

Here is the baby Chick #4, He also is very interested in the ad's, this would be the TOY section! Isn't he adorable when he thinks so hard?

These are the two pies, pumpkin and apple, that my daughter (the Hen) and I baked on Wednesday. It was a lot of fun and they not only looked nummy but tasted nummy as a mid afternoon treat. (because we had to let the Turkey meal settle a bit)

Would you believe the Hen even made her own cream cheese? It was Delicious too. Maybe she will do a step by step blog on how to make it sometime.

Giving Thanks

Papa Porcupine and I had the wonderful opportunity to spend a week with the Lutheran Hen (our daughter and family). We give thanks for the many fun enjoyable memories that we have of Thanksgiving week. My next blog will show a little more of the meal. We had plenty of home cooking, great food prepared by the Lutheran Hen.

Our week started out very warm, 75 degrees, wonderful for our long fun walk, we were enjoying the walk so much that we almost wore out the youngest Chick, he had to be carried part way home.

The Chicks all had to take their turn walking our Dog. He enjoyed the lovely weather and walk as much as we did. I always enjoy fall walks with plenty of crunchy leaves.

Two days later the weather had changed. NOT A LITTLE as you can see from this picture.

With snow on the ground, a north wind and 17 degrees. We did have a lot of fun in the snow during the warmest part of the day. I think trying to throw snow at Nana was the main activity. The snow was too cold to stick for snow balls but a lot of snow was flying through the air. OK, OK! I admit I did through some myself.

Some of the fun things we did indore's were making and eating Carmel apples, played Barbie dolls, puppets, Star wars, played several games, colored, drew, Lincoln logs, scrap booking,

and made a Ginger bread house. The 3 oldest Chicks read some for us and we can't believe how well they read and improve from each visit.

In the up top picture you can see Chick #3 with a bright idea to decorate the back side of the Ginger bread house.

WOW, now you can tell it was a candy smiley face. What a cute idea that was!
Here is Chick #1 adding things to the very fully decorated house. It was a lot of fun especially with the 4 chicks helping.

This is toward the beginning of the project.

Even Papa Porcupine had a hand in decorating the Gingerbread house.

From Thanksgiving to Christmas in a day! I helped the Hen decorate their home with their many Christmas decorations. Only thing left now is for the Rooster to put up the outdoor lights and the Christmas tree. This home certainly displays the true meaning of Christmas with many Nativities in each room. I believe me and the Chicks counted 15!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures of the Chicks.

This is Chick #1 as she works on her scrap book. You can tell the seriousness of this big project and how busy she was! She looks beautiful in that hat, just like her mother, The Hen can wear almost any hat and look gorgious!

Hear is Chick #2. He had just finished a Lincoln Log project.

He is very creative and I might add very good at playing the game "CLUE" He beet me twice. I think he might have seen my hand!!! It was a lot of fun though.

This is Chick #3, She was showing me some of her dance moves. She is learning a lot since this is her first year in dance. She also loves to dress up so will do almost anything to change clothes and

put on a show. She also has a great imagination and we put on a great puppet show.

And here is the precious chick #4. It was hard for me to pick just one favorite picture of him. I think it was a tie between about 4 or 5! I love this one because all the other chicks had gotten cold and were already in the house. Of course they had been out several minutes before us due to taking so long to get the #4 chick dressed warm enough. He loved the snow and just before I took this picture he told me, "I'm going to stay out in the snow forever!" I love his little cold rosy cheeks. It wasn't long before we decided we had better go in for a cup of hot chocolate!

What a fun week even though all 4 of the chicks had a mild flue bug. We Give Thanks for all the blessings God has given us!

50% FULL OR EMPTY?

This is one of my favorite lakes. It is absolutely beautiful and in a very picturesque setting. Last weekend was so warm and perfect for a drive to the lake and even a little fishing. It has been so dry for the last several years that the lake is at a record low of 50%. It hardly looks like the same lake as we have enjoyed for the last 25 years.

Here is our Tahoe on the lake bottom, well dried out enough to drive on. It's almost hard to believe that only one year ago we were in our boat 10 feet above this area.

The hills and pines still make a beautiful back drop for this very low lake.

It was so still and you can just see the reflection of the new shore line. It normally should be up close to the pine trees.

As you look straight ahead, you can tell the lighter part is where the water was earlier this spring. With the nice weather there were many motorcycles enjoying a fall ride across the Dam road.

Our 10 year old dog certainly enjoyed the outing and even got his feet wet. Actually, more then his feet, the water in this lake is always very cold so he would not stay in the water for more then a minute, even though it was close to 70 degrees temperature.

This is my trustworthy, well used rod and real, My real acts up from time to time probably because of it's age and many hours of use. NO, we didn't catch any fish this time but sure enjoyed the peaceful outdoors and fresh air.

Maybe Santa will see my well used real and bring me a new one for Christmas or I may have to Wait until the big Sport Show at our Civic Center and take advantage of some of the special sales. It's still a good looking real and can still bring in those big fish!

If only they would bite!

On the way home, as the sun was starting to set, we stopped a another almost favorite lake to try a few casts. Guess what? The fish weren't biting there either. Here you can see the fragrant pines at the water edge. They always smell so fresh. This lake is not down as much as the other lake. Across this lake is our special picnic area we and our friends often pull our boats up to the shore and enjoy a picnic, good visit and sometimes even a short hike.

Reflections of a pleasant fall day.

This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!

It's a Caramel time of year!

OK, OK! I do this the easy way. I use the individual wrapped caramels rather then cook my own Caramel. I wouldn't really call this easy though, unwrapping all these caramels takes awhile, patience, endurance, even when you have your grandson helping.

This was his idea, we make Caramel apples every fall around this time of year. When he sent a email asking when we were going to make Caramel Apples, I knew it was that Caramel time of year! Here he is stirring the caramels as they melt on low heat.

He pushed the sticks in the apples and we were ready to go.

Rolling the apples in the hot caramel. UM UM, I just love caramel apples!

I like mine dipped in crushed peanuts or pecans, whatever you happen to have on hand.

It looks good enough to eat, RIGHT? They still needed to cool just a bit in the refrigerator.

I place them on nonstick aluminium foil or wax paper so they don't stick. The crushed nuts not only add flavor but help so the runny Caramel dose not stick too bad.

Hear they are. Some people add drizzled white or dark chocolate. Ours were quite plain but very tasty.

My grandson enjoying that first bite of his caramel apple!

Still enjoying the 6th bite of his caramel apple!




Looks good doesn't it? It's a mouth watering experience and not too bad health wise either!

For Nov 5th in this area, these beautiful flowers are quite unusual. While taking my dog for a walk I couldn't help but think how warm a fall we had had and what a long season for these lovely red Geraniums.

It's like the Flowers are giving it one last powerful bloom before the hard frost.

Just one day later the temperature hit 24 degrees and so now everything is pretty well frozen.

The day time temps have still been getting well up in the 60 degrees. Maybe we will have a mild winter or maybe we will have a later winter that lasts long into spring. We will just have to Waite and see.

This tall grass was standing so pretty in the lowering west sunlight, I just had to take a picture.

As I have been slowly working at reading through the Bible, I remember just reading about Grass. In Psalm 103 verse 15 - 18 it says, As for man his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord's love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children's children with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.

We worked diligently to clear the vines and frozen plants from our garden and tilled in a bunch of chopped leaves from the yard. They should decay and make the soil rich and ready for spring planting.

The far western part of our garden still has collard greens and kale so we have left that until the hardest of frost. Hopefully we will still get several meals of fresh greens from these plants.