When Christmas was finished we loaded these ladies up and headed to Gorde, NE to meet Miss USA.  The girls, aunt works for The Twister in Nebraska covering the news in northwest Nebraska.  She had a story and the girls went to help.  We had 6 hours of road time, a time change, and an hour of helping move residents to the meeting room, helping Casey with her story, and visiting with Miss USA.  Just like at Christmas, a road trip that won't quicking be forgotten. 

The girls wanted to have a Christmas party with their church friends, os why not?  We had about 15 middle school kids come to the church.  We did a scavenger hunt, escape room, minute to win it games, gingerbread houses, and lots of laughing and fun.  

You will get to see a lot of Macy the next few months. She is Elizabeth' show heifer for this year. If you remember last years show heifer, Janice, never quite got over the random kicking and we always had to be so careful while walking around others and little running around her.  Macy is a seeetheart and come in for her feed each morning.  She is easy to halter and hasn't given anyone a bruise yet.  She lets us brush her from head to toe and though sometimes she doesn't agree with it is always very patient to let us finish.  This will be a hard one to pasture in the fall.  

This year I wanted to work on producing some fresh vegetables in the middle of winter for our family.  I purchased a stacker planter off Amazon, which I thought was going to be bigger, filled it with soil and watched it grow.  I will admit I haven't been great about watering it regularly and I am going to start feeding it a little bit.  However, fresh herbs and vegetables in the middle of winter in South Dakota has been awesome!

Our 4-H club was tasked with making 55 homemade items to gift to the residents in the local nursing home and assistant living in our small community.  Each family brought some items to put in and then we started creating. We had so many items made and a wide variety of items such as snowflakes to American flags.  

Well, pigeons of course. We arrived home from the movie and the chicken coop door was open, this couple was so cold that, I guess, the needed to be brought in.  (I am sure this was not the case.) So we decided on if they brought them in they would have to follow them around and clean up after them as they went  So, 1 container of Clorox wipes later and a child with pigeon poop on her clothes, back out to the barn they went   This may have been a record of following them for 30 minutes before folding  

Dad took care of the daily chores so we could take these ladies to the city, Sioux Falls, to the big theatre to watch the long awaited, Wicked: For Good movie.  The girls had a blast while I also greatly enjoyed their suspense on the way there and replays on the way home was driving through some "wicked" winter weather. So after 8 hours on the road which should have been six it was a unforgettable experience I hope the girls take with them throughout their lives.  The joy of family and time spent together.  

The girls participated in the Bon Homme Poultry and Rabbit Fun Show with great success!

Rabbits - which are shown first, by class, then by breed and last there is an overall.  

    Elizabeth was able to win her class and breed with her Mini Lop, Hellen.  She also earned Resserve in Show with her lady Rhinelander (Inga Dudley). 

    Lydia also had a fairly successful day with her Sebrights getting a 3rd in show, her D'Uccles placing in top five and her homeraised RIR Single Comb placing in the top five.  

Our singer in the family was able to stretch her skills by participating in Region V Festival Choir in Platte today.  Mom felt a little stretched with a 10:30AM dental appointment, 2:30PM concert, 5:00PM pickup from basketball, and a 7:00PM Recogniton Night.  

Elizabeth has been accepted as a South Dakota Beef Industry Council Ambassador for this year.  She is so excited to help promoted the beef we produce.  Her first event was at a meat processor and informative meeting.  She now has seen this process a couple of times and is starting to understand it more every time.  So if you live close by keep an eye out for the local SDBIC information.  

The ladies, Willow and Bluey, have been giving us 4-6 gallons in the morning and 3-4 gallons in the evenings.  It seems like a lot more than that each day as we spend the time, first cooling, then separating (hoping Santa will bring me a seperator), and then either making butter, ice cream, soup, or cooking with it, and washing it all up.  

I have never seen the Northern Lights from my home before.  However we had the opportunity to see them tonight and it was amazing.  Of course, these pictures were with some help from our iPhones.  I hope my girls never forget.  

We had a couple of boys who wanted to get in on chicken butchering.  They had so much fun chasing the chickens around before we scalded them and pulled feathers.  Lydia also had a friend that wanted to know how it was done also, so she came to help.  For those of you that think it is inhumane to butcher, we hatch our own eggs and when the rooster numbers get to high we have to put them in the freezer for the safety and humane treatment of our hens.  Now they will provide nurishment for our family. 

It is time to get the weaning weights on all the calves that we will be keeping at home and/or later selling as bulls or replacement heifers.  We had great help this year with Morgan staying home from school and Elizabeth and I decided to take a day off to help them.   

We sell registered Angus Bulls which requires weaning weights and yearling weights to complete their paper work to get them registered.  We also like to have all of our heifers we are keeping as cows to be branded to help us identify which cows are ours if the stray off.  Angus cattle are all black and most producers in our area are raising black cattle which can make it difficult.  Plus this also helps with theft of cattle as there are brand inspectors at sale barns to make sure everything that goes through belongs to the person who is selling it.