December 28

Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas holiday and our hope and prayer is that you did, too.

Our December turned out better than we could have expected. We were intentional with our time and did not commit ourselves to anything “just because.” Most nights, after work and animal farm chores, we worked on the Christmas gifts we gave to our family members. This year, we made leather wine racks, wooden snowflakes, leather ornaments, and Ukrainian egg ornaments. It felt so good to be creative again and to spend time making things for others.

Since we knew we would not be with John’s parents for Christmas, we spent a weekend with them earlier in the month. We took them to Chateau on the Lake in Branson where they had a magnificent Gingerbread house display. We took lots of pictures for inspiration for the next time we decorate gingerbread houses! Fr. Nicholas joined us and we were able to enjoy a great lunch.

December 13^th was National Hot Chocolate Day, so we celebrated by having Hot Chocolate Bars at our workplaces. It was fun figuring out all the toppings. John’s favorite is mint hot chocolate and Katie’s favorite is caramel mocha hot chocolate!

At the end of the semester, Joshua flew to Los Angeles to spend a few weeks with his best friend. They did the southern California touristy things. He especially liked the beach and Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland. He was supposed to fly home on December 23^rd, but the Siberian Storm that blanketed the country in freezing weather prevented that from happening. He ended up spending Christmas in southern California with 70-degree weather! His best friend’s father passed away over the summer, so we know that God put him there as consolation for his friend.

The next week, we (along with almost all of the country) were slammed with a Siberian storm. We got about an inch of snow, but it blew and we had 5” deep snow drifts. The temperature got down to -8 F with a windchill of -34 F ! It was cold. We were very worried about leaving our puppy outside. We tried to get him to come inside, but he refused, even after I tried to bribe him with a bone. I did get him into the garage, but he would not stay – he wanted to be outside. We put extra hay in his house and gave him a little extra food. In the middle of the night on the first sub-zero night, we went out to check on him and he had taken his bedding out of his house and was sleeping on it in the snow! We moved him back into his house, but he pulled his bed outside again. He was as playful as he usually is, so obviously, the cold did not bother him anyway.

The chickens do not have an enclosed coop – we’ve always had a hoop coop, covered ¾ of the way with a huge billboard tarp. We were not too worried about them, after all, when we get cold, we put on coats made of down feathers (or similar). The chickens pretty much stayed on their perches the entire cold spell, only coming down to eat and drink. Other than one of our roosters getting freezer burn on his huge comb (which is already healing), the chickens did fine, too.

One thing we did learn about the cold is that our house is very well insulated! We did not install central heat in our house. We plan to put in a wood-burning stove and will install mini-split AC/heat units, but that will not happen until next year. We have a few space heaters, and they keep our house comfortably warm. We even had to turn the space heater in our great room off as it was too warm inside!

Eric and Amy spent Christmas with Amy’s family and Fr. Nicholas was at his parishes for the day, so we were home alone. We went to Mass Christmas morning and enjoyed the quiet of the day. Eric, Amy, and Fr. Nicholas made it in Monday morning and Joshua came in Monday night. While we could not celebrate with all of them together, we were able to have several lovely Christmas celebrations. For our Christmas dinner, we made stuffed turkey breasts wrapped in bacon. The turkey breasts were from the turkeys we raised and pieced out. They were DELICIOUS!

This weekend, we are heading to Alabama to spend the New Year’s holiday with Katie’s family. We will also be meeting with our business advisor there. Our goal for 2023 is to make our Apple Orchard a priority and get to where it will be a viable business. We will keep you posted.

Merry Christmas!