Christmas Celebrations...

It's been a busy week of family celebrations...

We spent Christmas day with Jim's family.  As usual, we ate really, really well...and had a good time together.  I didn't have my camera along, so there are no pictures...but we enjoyed our time with family!

Today was my family's celebration.  We had a mid-morning brunch here at our house, minus one cousin.  As the cousins get older...with jobs and college...it's becoming harder to juggle the schedules to get everyone together in one place.  But we did it!  The missing cousin arrived around noon, and we had about three hours in the afternoon when all eighteen of us were together.

My parents...

the cousins...

My youngest nephew accompanied us on the piano as we sang some Christmas carols...

And much to the excitement of some, we had a few inches of wet "packy" snow today.  the young ones headed outside.

Mom (Grandma) watching the activity outside from the warm kitchen...

Putting on the finishing touches...

And then the guys headed out to play in the snow with the big toy.  My oldest nephew bought this four wheeler recently, and they had fun with it in the snow.  He has a Go-pro camera attached to his helmet...

Eric took a turn...

Late afternoon called for a round of Dutch Blitz...

We have one more extended family gathering tomorrow, and then our family celebrations are over for this year.  It's been a busy, but fun week of spending time with family!  It may get a little hectic, but we wouldn't want to miss out on any of it!

Merry Christmas!

"Joy to the world, the Lord is come...

Let earth receive her King.

Let every heart prepare Him room,

Let heaven and nature sing...Let heaven and nature sing...

Let heaven and heaven and nature sing!"

It felt a little bit like heaven and nature were singing last night, as we were given our first white Christmas in a quite some time!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas!

Nasty Birds...

I remember a few years ago...a local shopping mall was having issues with crows hanging out on the roof...making a mess of things.  The "powers that be" were trying to decide what to do about the dirty birds.  Someone suggested that they try to relocate the birds to some farms in the area, where they wouldn't be a nuisance.  Hmmmmm...

#1.  Did you ever hear of a bird being told where to go, or where to stay?

#2.  Do you know of any farmer who really wants a huge flock of crows hanging out on his farm?  Or even a small flock, for that matter?

They are a nuisance...not only are they dirty birds, but they can cause a lot of damage.

Most of our balage ag bags are close to the buildings, and appear to be fine, but we have a couple of groups of bales along the edge of a field that seem to have attracted some unwelcome visitors!

Take a look at these...they look fine from a distance, but if you look closely, you can see a black hole on the bottom right side of the bale closest to the camera...

We've been finding holes like this all over these round bales.  Some of them are at beak level (if the crow was sitting on the ground) and a lot are on the top edges of the bales, as if the birds were sitting on top and leaning down over the side.

This hay was baled wet, and needs to be completely air tight in order to be properly cured and preserved.  When air gets inside the plastic, the hay starts to get moldy, and can eventually be ruined.  Not only does it not taste good, it can be dangerous for the cows to eat.

Most of the holes are rather small, but here's a larger one on the top of the bale.  That plastic is really thick, so the crows had to be really determined to get at whatever they thought was inside.  They most likely were hoping to find some grain.  Too bad for them...

So...armed with my "tools", I headed out to try to repair the damage...

There were sixteen bales in this group, and I used almost all of the ag bag tape to cover the holes tightly, hopefully sealing them in time to prevent further damage.

The first bale that we found with holes in, has been opened up and doesn't appear to be moldy, so we are hoping that we caught them in time!

There's always something to keep us on our toes!

Making Christmas Memories...

No matter that it was warm and damp outside, today was a Christmas cookie baking marathon at my sister's house. Jenna and I, my sister and my niece, and my Mom spent the day together.  We each prepared several types of cookie batter ahead of time, and we baked today from 9 to 5!

The sugar cookies took a long time to decorate...

I saw these at a friend's house this week, so we tried them.  Dip these in your hot chocolate for a yummy treat...

Snickerdoodles...

...made from this recipe, written out by hand in my Grandma Herr's own handwriting!  She would be 113 if she were here today...

While the cookies baked this afternoon, we were serenaded by Mom playing the piano...

All finished!  We will be eating good...

...or perhaps rather, we will have cookies to share for quite a while!

Christmas Greenhouse...

Hidden away in the southern end of the county is a wonderful greenhouse that is a must visit for any of you who live in Lancaster County.

This morning my sister, my Mom and I visited Henrys' Greenhouses  just west of the Buck.  It was my first visit, and I was not disappointed!  They have retail hours several times a year...Christmas being a great time to go and stock up on beautiful flowers and great ideas!

We loved the original ideas that we saw.  There was so much to see before we even got inside!

This is the porch where you enter.  Check out what's growing on the roof over the porch...

I loved the old bicycle leaning on the post.  In the spring, my sister said the old ladder that you see hanging horizontally was filled with hanging baskets...

If you just happen to have some old stairs laying around, you might as well decorate them...

And I loved this old nesting box filled with green and swags...

Then we headed inside.

Make the seat of an old chair into a planter box filled with bulbs...I think these were "paper white" bulbs...

Unique ways to hang plants...

I have some old canning racks like this in the basement...what a creative idea!

This nesting wreath is unique.  It's a wreath form wrapped with wool...hang it out for the birds to pick at and have something soft to line their nests!

The hood of an old Farmall and an old gas can make nice decorations too...

And of course the highlight was seeing the tables full of beautiful poinsettias, in every color, style and size you could imagine...

These were my absolute favorite, so I bought a couple for myself...

And of course there were lots of the traditional reds...

We enjoyed ourselves immensely...

If you have the chance to visit, they're open until December 22nd...Monday-Friday, 9-5 and Saturdays, 8-12.  If you go, allow plenty of time for browsing, and don't forget your checkbook!  :)

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