Rainy days = catch up

Rainy days are not always my favorite, (I do enjoy a good rainy day though too!) but they give me time to catch up on some things.  Mainly life. Haha.  This rainy November day has given me time to catch up on quite a bit of things.  First thing I did was sleep in! Last weekend we were in Jackson, which meant we were up about the time we're up to get ready for work.  I have been looking forward to sleeping in this weekend for a long time! Since it was rainy, I didn't feel too bad about sleeping in.  First thing that D helped me do was brown hamburger.  (Also, it was brought to my attention at lunch today that I've been saying "grounding hamburger" instead of "browning hamburger".  So...sorry if I have ever confused anyone while talking about this subject.  I clearly didn't know what I was talking about.)  We browned eight pounds of hamburger to freeze.  We call these days, "meat day".  It's nice to be able to brown a bunch of hamburger and freeze it to have for days we don't have a lot of time for dinner.  I just use simple seasonings when doing this.  Deverle's seasoning, and onion salt.  Usually we use this meat for tacos, hamburger helpers, tostadas, spaghetti, things like that.  It's really useful when you're in a pinch with time.  

For our anniversary (we weren't supposed to get each other gifts..) Devin bought me the Instant Pot! I got the IP-LUX80 model.  8 quarts of pure awesomeness!  I was so terrified of using it at first.  When I think of pressure cooker, I think of a lid in my ceiling, with food all over my kitchen, with the smoke detector going off.  This is SO easy to use though! I love it.  With that being said, along with my eight pounds of browned hamburger, I made a batch of homemade chicken stock!  In my Instant Pot, I can saute things directly in it.  It's great for keeping extra flavor!  I threw my rotisserie chicken bones in and hit the saute button.  They browned up nicely.  I added carrots, celery, onion, four cloves of garlic and browned them with the chicken and bones.  I added 10 cups of water, two bay leaves and a bunch of thyme -- hit manual and set the cook time for 100 minutes.  While this was cooking (in a "pressure cooker") Devin and I acutally went to dinner with my family!  It did a natural release and it was so nice to not have to sit there while making this stock!

  

Rainy days also give me an opportunity to catch up on missed blog posts. *insert embarrassed emoji here*  September and October were good to my little family.  We started September off by helping my dad put a new roof on.  Whatever it was that I did, is the reason the entire roof is staying on!  HAHA! Just kidding.  I didn't even get up on the roof cause I hate heights that bad.  Infact, my palms are a little sweaty just thinking about it.  Devin was able to smoke some great meat!  We smoked some chicken and ribs. 
Also, we took Aggie to the Founders Day parade with us.  She was very well behaved!  She LOVED the marching bands.  So enjoy this cute picture of her listening intently to the marching band.  

My little Aggie baby is growing right up!  She graduated puppy class.  Unfortunately for us she has literally forgotten everything.  Except for sit and lay down -- but only cause I usually have a treat.  She will not lay down unless there's a treat in my hand.  In case it's not obvious, she rules the roost.  Because it's starting to get colder, and her mama (me) has some anxiety issues, she also got a new house.  It's supposed to be insulted and keep her extra warm.  As in, if its 0 degrees outside, it will be 30 degrees inside her house.  It came with a cushioned bed and an electric heater for colder temps.  She is so protective of her house too!  That is HER house.  Along with anything inside.  She gave D the cold shoulder for close to 20 minutes because he was messing with her house. (He was adding her electric pad in...silly dog, little does she know he's trying to help her!)  Today for instance, it has rained nonstop.  Her bed was soaking wet, her blanket and towel were soaking wet, SHE was soaking wet..I thought I would be a good puppy mom and put her blanket and towel in the dryer for her while we did a quick 15 minute errand.  She cried the whole time and then proceeded to stand in the rain until we were back. (Trying to break her mama's heart!) Even taking a single leaf out of her house will make her almost die of worrying. #dramaqueen

We went to an Aggie volleyball game, which was really fun! I'm sad we never went to anymore games.  We had planned on attending more, but we all know that life happens and doesn't always goes the way that you would like it to.  An example of life not going the way you want is my toe.  Ya'll remember how I had to have my toe nail removed OVER A YEAR AGO?! -- Still not fully grown in.  I had to do an ingrown toenail procedure which seems to have helped.  I've almost got a full nail back.  Yay! 

We got to do one of my favorite things on the farm! -- as well as one of my not so favorite things.  Preg-checking the cows (yay!) and castrating bulls. (boo!)  We ran almost every single cow in our herd through the shoot that day.  All the mama's are pregnant, except for maybe two.  Every time they exit the shoot, I tell them "congrats, you're pregnant!"  Then the least favorite part.  Making bulls, steers.  Poor dudes.  They walk into the shoot not knowing they were going to be leaving their manhood behind.  Literally!

I have had an obsession lately with making cookies and decorating them.  I'll do a post on cookies hopefully soon.  They have been so much fun to do! I'm hoping that I could maybe make cookies for small parties and/or events.  But here are cute pictures of my first cookies, to my most recent ones I've made.  I haven't made cookies in a couple of weeks, but you can plan on some cute Thanksgiving ones coming!

Jackson Hole in October was by far our most successful trip!  We saw 41 moose, 3 bear, elk and a whole lot of buffalo!  We determined that 36 of the 41 were different moose. (Sunday before we came home, we saw 21 moose..) A lot of people who live in Jackson say that the park resets at night, and you'll never see an animal in the same place twice.  Its sort of true -- for example: If we saw 3 bulls and 2 cows near the Gros Ventre campground one night, and then the next morning we went out and there was 4 bulls and 2 cows a mile or two away from the Gros Ventre campground, chances are there's only one new bull in the group.  Alot of times too, bull moose have patterns in their antlers that are very different from each other.  I would compare them to a snowflake.  Not every moose's antlers are exactly alike.   We saw Blondie (the bear) and her two twin cubs too!  We got really lucky.  We've known that they've been up by Pilgrim Creek, but we didn't know if they'd be there again on Saturday morning.  There she was, a mile or two up the road in a little field, just being a cute little photogenic bear.  (I apologize if the pictures aren't fantastic.  Remember, I am NOT a pro photographer and it was really cold outside.  Even with a tripod I was shaking so bad. -- I tried to edit them with photo shop, but again, not a pro :) 

One of the most memorable experiences happened in Jackson on this trip.  If you're at all familiar with Jackson,  when you're on highway 89/191, going north, there's a road that will take you to the Gros Ventre campground.  Right at the intersection between the two roads, is where the elk refuge starts.  With that being said, there's also a 10+ foot tall fence.  On Saturday night, we were starting to head back to the Moose-Wilson road, when we noticed a bunch of cars stopped near the intersection.  Right there, 15 yards from the fence (on the inside of the fence) were 5 moose!  We were able to walk right up to the fence and take pictures, 15 yards away from these beautiful animals.  You can only imagine the kind of heaven that I was in!!  

Hopefully now that it's starting to get cold outside (as I'm typing and getting ready to post this..its currently snowing...) and darker a lot sooner, I will be able to keep up with my "blog".  (I know, I say it all the time..but a girl can dream, right?!)