another new year

Its hard to believe we are on the doorstep of another new year. 2016 Its almost mind blowing to think of. I remember as a kid, in 2016 we would all be in flying cars, and living in space like the Jetsons...

2015 had its up and downs for our family. Through all the good and bad and whatever we were handed, God continued to bless us and make us stronger.

I was thinking of the best thing to look forward to in 2016, and the one thing that immediately popped into my mind, was the  fact its Obama's last full year as President. ( at least I hope it is, and that he doesn't try to executive order himself into a third term). It is my wish that more Conservatives turn out to vote, even if you don't like the candidate, because this country can't deal with Hillary in office. I will say and go on record for the fact that I am not overly joyed with the field of Republicans thus far, except maybe for Trump, Carson and Fiorino. Why? Because they are not the status quo politician.  And I think that's what America needs right now to help salvage her.
I got into a bit of a discussion the other day with a friend who doesn't like Trump because of his attitude. I asked her if she had to choose between him or Hillary in the general how would she vote? She said she wouldn't. I reminded her that mentality is why we got stuck with Obama for this past four years...conservatives who didn't like Romney, chose to stay home. 


Anyways,  I was thinking about resolutions, and while I am not one for making them, I would like to go to church more, and add more to our preps. We are working on new ideas for our chicken coop, and possibly adding goats in the spring. And of course there is always the monster garden...........

So now I ask you , what would you like to do more of in 2016?  whatever it is, I wish you all well and have a prosperous and blessed New Year.

-JUGM

Merry Christmas 2015

To all of my blogger friends far and wide, from my family to yours:

 We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas. 

And to our Troops who can not be home this holiday, Thank You. 

frequent flier kindness

Right when you think you have lost your faith in humanity, something happens to reignite that faith. This is a true story, it happened yesterday on a domestic flight.

A friend of mines husband, we will call him "J" works for a paper company. Friday, he was returning home from a three day business trip. As it is the weekend before Christmas his flight was crowded with holiday travelers, one being a soldier who was going home for Christmas who was seated next to him.  The two struck up a conversation, the soldier was entertaining J with some of his experiences being overseas. Just after take off when the "stay in your seats" light when off, the stewardess approached them and told the soldier that a man in First Class wants to trade seats with him. The soldier, politely said its okay, that he was fine sitting in coach.
The stewardess said the man in first class was being a bit persistent, and insisted the soldier have his seat.
The soldier then agreed, got up, shook "Js" hand and moved up to first class. J sat there for a bit with a smile on his face, that is when the first class passenger came back to the seat in coach. J looked at him for a bit, and asked "Why"
The passenger was an elderly man, obviously wealthy, and explained that his son had died in Afghanistan, and he has made it his mission to give back: when he could and as much as he could for our military- including something as trivial as a airline seat "The sacrifices they make, giving up a seat to say Thanks, is the least I can do"........

When I first heard this, I thought about the true meaning of Christmas: "Giving, instead of Receiving" ....   With things the way they are in this country, with this "Me, Myself and I" generation. Its good to hear that there are still people out there who do nice things for others....  

Things round here #5- teacher gifts and chickens

Tomorrow will be two weeks since we acquired our Barred Rock girls "Checkers and Chessie". Almost all of the tension in the coop is gone, and everyone is getting along. I think in this picture that the bucket says it all--the new girls learned where the water comes from, and taught themselves how to get a drink. They are adapting well, and also started to pop out eggs.

Today is the last day of school for this year. Which means class Christmas parties. I like doing "gifts in a jar" so I bought dry cookie mixes, added in some more chocolate chips, dressed up mason jars a bit, printed the recipes on decorative card stock and the boys are giving them to their teachers. I do these quite often and its always a hit.

Today is also a Christmas lunch thing at Seniors work, so I made "White Trash Candy" for the occasions. If you have never had any, its like crack, you cant get enough of it. And if you have had it, then you know what I mean. I told Senior that since it is so addicting to please not bring any home. I also put some in quart baggies, and added to the teacher gift bags for the kids. 

If you are looking for a quick snack to make, its really easy, just add dry cereal, such as rice or corn chex, cheerios, salted peanuts, pretzel sticks...coat it all with white chocolate, let it cool...and there ya go!  

In this case I also added in Christmas colored M&Ms, but I don't think you can see them too well. Anyways, if you have questions on making it, just go do a google search, there are tons of recipes for it. 

Well I can not believe that a week from today is Christmas. Is anyone else in shock over that? I have about all my Christmas shopping done, just got little things left to pick up. It has not been a bad year for shopping, Amazon has had amazing deals, and they had a free prime trial, so I had free shipping on everything. Yahoo!  lol . I just keep reminding myself to cancel it in the next few days so I am not charged 99.00 for it. 

So now I am off here to finish things up before kids get out of school. Happy Friday everyone! Stay safe out there...

-JUGM

Army / Navy

As a girl from a family with a long naval history I have always loved this rivalry..

Let's keep the streak alive Navy!

YUP!

A good comparison....

a facebook friend had this posted today, the comments she got was overwhelming and I thought so much of this comparison that I wanted to share with you guys.

      Folks, these Rattlesnakes are in need of a home. They're refugees from the Brush country pushed out by snake hunting, and feral hogs. Now, we think most of these are good snakes and won't bite you, but we are sure some of these will bite you without provocation. We can't tell you which snakes in the bunch are the ones that will kill you because they all came in together and we can't tell which is which! Some of the biting ones were actually trained to seek out anyone and bite and to hide among the good ones. Our federal government has promised to figure it out, so don't worry.

So who wants to give all these snakes a good home?

chickens and a birthday

First the birthday, yesterday our girl Liberty Bell aka "Libby" turned 3. She is the alpha female and full of piss and vinegar. Ruger and Jack the Cat bow to her when she passes... But, she is protective and a faithful companion (as long as her bowl is full). Needless to say, life without her would be boring.  

do you know how it is when you start out to get one thing, but bring home other stuff? Well, here is our other stuff. See, I got this guy that sells barrels, and he had some nice, clean metal ones. Senior and I jumped on them. The mans son raises chickens for his 4-H Poultry Club, which I think we might join. Anyways, he was selling a pair of Barred Rock Hens. I jumped on the chance and brought the girls home. ND quickly named them "Chessie, and Checkers" because of their coloring. They are only about 6 mos. old and should start laying soon.Since they were from 4-H they had been vaccinated and accustomed to other chickens, so we went ahead and  added them in to the big coop. But, things there are a bit stressful and I am not sure if Senior should build a separate place away from all the alpha female chickens, as I am not seeing them drink much water. Every time they try, they get ran off.  My plan is to mate them with the Jersey Giant Rooster ( Black Jack) I think they would turn out a nice bird, that is not only a good egg layer, but good for meat too.The chicks should also net me a little profit at auction.

I know Senior just talked about this over at his blog last night but, remember back over the summer when I did the post about buying pullets from the feed store, only to have two of them be roosters? Well, we gave one away to our buddy Mr. Farmer, and the other one - was  a horrible nuisance crower. All the time, non stop, it could be 3 am and you would hear him. Black Jack who is housed in the large coop behind where this one was, is not at all that way. You can spend all day outside and not hear a peep. So, we had enough and butchered him.

 I got to say, Jersey Giants do make a nice meat bird. We roasted him last weekend, I do need to work on the marinating issues and seasoning, because he was a tad bit dry. I think next one we will do over the spit outside.

The leaves have been taking up our weekends, and I am happy to say that the majority is now off the trees. Christmas is literally around the corner, and  I have started my shopping and think Amazon and the free Prime trial is a wonderful thing. I just have to remember to cancel it before months end.
Take care all and have a wonderful day

-JUGM