Monthly Archives: November 2025

Happy Thanksgiving

Chickens, Fall, Firewood, Reflections, Splitting Wood, ,

As far as weather goes, Monday was our best day of the week leading up to our Thanksgiving holiday. I took this opportunity to get out to the farm and work with my husband.

The sky was gray and the wind was brisk. I appreciated my winter coat.

Most of the trees are bare now and the pond level is still very low indicating that we are still in a drought. According to the US Drought Monitor we have moderate drought conditions.

The sun unsuccessfully tried to break through the clouds.

The chickens spent the day out and about. They don’t mind the wind and cold so much but when the snow comes they will spend most of their time in the coop.

They have been going through their molt and most have stopped laying eggs. I always feel sorry for them when I see them molting. They look so disheveled.

Many of them have gotten their new feathers in but won’t start laying again until the days become longer. For now we are still getting one or two eggs every other day. I’m thankful that my daughter and son-in-law have a new flock this year who won’t molt and should continue to lay through the winter. Hopefully I can get my eggs from them.

There isn’t a lot of work to be done at the farm this time of year but my husband has been working on cutting and splitting firewood. The large maple logs have been seasoning for two years so are ready to be split and burned. He had a stack cut and ready to be split.

We worked together – he placing the log on the splitter, me operating the lever, both of us removing the split logs and tossing them on the pile.

We also worked together to stack the wood once we had it split. We are so thankful for the gas-powered log splitter we purchased two years ago. It makes short and easy work of the task of splitting firewood.

Now as my husband and I prepare to watch the Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day Game, I wish you all many blessings and a Happy Thanksgiving for those of you who are celebrating today.

GO LIONS!

Pirates of the Bird Feeder

Birds, Reflections, Suet Cakes

Hello and welcome.

Getting ready for winter, my husband hung the bird feeder earlier this week. I love the location where I can see it from our kitchen window. The window is above the sink so when I’m standing at the sink, preparing meals or doing dishes I can enjoy watching the birds at the feeder. Sometimes I just pause there, even without having work to do, just to watch the bird activity.

So far we have mostly had sparrows eating from the feeder – lots of sparrows. I am calling them the Pirates of the Bird Feeder, not because I have seen any with an eye patch or a pegleg, but with that many sparrows I’m certain one of them must be named Jack. (For those who don’t know “Jack Sparrow” is in reference to the Pirates of the Caribbean movie.)

On Tuesday I made some suet cakes so we could hang the suet feeder as well. To make the suet cakes I melted beef tallow then mixed in some chicken feed. I poured it into some dishes that were smaller than the size of the suet cage then put it in the freezer to solidify. On Wednesday my husband hung the suet cage.

It didn’t take long for this woodpecker to find it.

We will be adding some sunflower seeds this weekend and I expect we will see many more birds show up once we do.

Thanks for visiting. Will you be feeding the birds in your neighborhood this winter?

Catching Up

Aloe Soap, Apple Pie, crochet, Making Soap, Pie, Pumpkin, Reflections, Sewing, Snow, Weather, Winter

Hello and welcome.

I’ve fallen a bit behind in my posting so today I’m going to be playing catch up.

From the Garden

Back in early October, my husband harvested our squash and pumpkins. Like nearly everything else, we had a nice crop this year. I put a lot of squash and pumpkin in the freezer, and we’ve been including squash in our meals once or twice a week.

We shared some with family and friends and still have some fresh in the storeroom.

I made five or six pumpkin pies in October. They are my husbands favorite.

By the end of the month, he had his fill of pumpkin pie, so we finished the month with apple pie.

But we still enjoyed some butternut squash with dinner.

Crochet

I dropped off the meandering paws afghan (can you see the paw prints in the crochet pattern?) that I made earlier this year at the Humane Society. A donation for them to raffle off at their upcoming pawzar fund raiser.

Soap Making

I also made a batch of soap in October. We liked the aloe soap that I made earlier this year so much that I decided to make that again. If you’d like you can find the recipe in this post.

Things to Celebrate

The holidays will be here before we know it – Thanksgiving in November followed by Christmas then the New Year. As usual I will be spending time making Christmas gifts for the kids and grandkids over the next several weeks.

But first we had (granddaughter) Addie’s birthday to celebrate last Saturday. I made her this hoodie and a pair of matching black leggings. I didn’t get a picture of her wearing it, but it was a perfect fit.

On Sunday we celebrated a Detroit Lions win over the Washington Commanders. Our Lions currently have 6 wins and 3 losses and are in first place in the NFC North division.

We are hoping to celebrate another win this coming Sunday when the Lions play the Philadelphia Eagles who are in first place in the NFC East division. It should be a good game. GO LIONS!

Winter Comes Early

Sunday, November 9, was our first snow of the season. Even though it snowed most of the day it didn’t really start to accumulate until it was getting dark. We only had about an inch of snow around 8:00 p.m. but when the dogs got me up to go outside around midnight this is what I saw.

We had about for inches of snow and it was still coming down. By the time we got up Monday morning the snow was finished, and we had between five and six inches on the ground (and everything else).

We do need all of the precipitation we can get because we had such a dry summer, and since it will melt away as the temperatures warm back up later this week this snow really was a blessing.

Thanks for visiting? Are you looking forward to the holidays?

Monthly Inspiration

Inspiration, Reflections

Hello and welcome. It seems that November snuck up on and the holidays will be here before we know it. For our monthly inspiration I decided to share a poem that I recently was reminded of. I remember this poem, from when I was young, as being a favorite of my parents.

Footprints in the Sand 

One night a man had a dream.

He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Across the sky flashed scenes from his life.
For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand:
one belonging to him, and the other to the Lord.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him,
he looked back at the footprints in the sand.
He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints.

He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life.
This really bothered him and he questioned the Lord about it.

“Lord, You said that once I decided to follow you,
You’d walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life,
there is only one set of footprints.

I don’t understand why, when I needed you most, you would leave me.”

The Lord replied,
“My son, My precious child, I love you and I would
never leave you. During your times of trial and
suffering, when you see only one set of footprints,
it was then that I Carried You.”

Carolyn Carty, 1963

While searching for the “Footprints” poem I came across the following poem that I like as well and thought worth sharing.

In His Footsteps

When someone does a kindness
it always seems to me,
That’s the way God up in heaven
would like us all to be…
For when we bring some pleasure
to another human heart,
We have followed in His footsteps
and we’ve had a little part.
In serving Him who loves us
for I am very sure it’s true.
That in serving those around us
We serve and please him, too.

~ Helen Steiner Rice

The above poems were found at https://poem4today.com/footprints-poem.html

Thanks for reading!