A few photos from the past few days ...

From Daniel and Abigail's shared birthday party last weekend:

Daniel's alligator cake (I'd like to add that my lovely and talented wife made the cakes)


Abigail's princess castle cake


Abigail, half a second before she blew out her candles


Nathan and Abby inspecting the cakes


A family dinner later that weekend


Daniel and Abby, "happily" eating at the bar (they really were happy, despite their droopy faces)


Our meat birds (we have 17 of them and we'll slaughter them in less than three weeks)


Our new-to-us chicken tractor! It's pretty big, roughly 50 square feet, and I plan to put four new laying hens in there this week (notice the cool nesting box on the right side for easy egg collection)

Next to our barn, in front of our pasture:


In front of the barn, next to our soon-to-be garden:

Brandi and I really liked this one. It was taken in the morning hours, after it had snowed most of the night.

From a couple of days ago:

Here's a shot from two evenings ago. I've got some better snow shots from yesterday morning (when the snow was thicker), but I haven't had time to process them yet (digitally, that is).

The buzz yesterday was about how Dallas (about an hour north of us) had gotten about four-to-six inches of snow, and that the snow was headed toward Waco. Thankfully, we got a nice little snowfall here yesterday evening, and we even had a decent accumulation overnight. Here's a pic from yesterday evening:

Brandi and the kids loosening soil and pulling up roots:


Yes, Nathan is wearing boots and shorts. :-)

After pulling up a bunch of roots, Brandi put a couple of chickens in our small tractor (cage) and put them on top of the soil she had just worked on. The idea is the chickens will scratch at the ground and loosen it up further, eat bugs, and fertilize it with their droppings.

I posted a few more photos over at Thinklings.

Our cord of wood:


A duck hen:


Meat birds (these guys are on death row):

We visited the World Hunger Relief Farm for the first time today. We had heard of the place years ago, but never thought about going until recently. It's actually on our side of the county, not too far from our home. I think it took us about 15 minutes to drive there.

Today wasn't the greatest day to visit anything outdoors, though. It was cold, windy, and rainy. We did manage to learn a bit about raising goats (Brandi's convinced she wants a goat asap) and we got to buy some fresh, organic produce (see the photos below). I think the WHRF is going to be a good resource for us; if nothing else it's a good place to buy fresh produce and goat sausage. Yes, we bought a pound of goat sausage and it was delicious! We have been contemplating getting a meat goat but were uncertain as to whether or not we were going to like goat meat. If the sausage we ate today was any indication, I don't think we're going to have any problem enjoying goat meat.

So, without further ado, here are some photos of Brandi shopping for veggies at the WHRF and a shot of the goat sausage cooking on our stove:

We had a cord of wood delivered yesterday and I rushed home to try and get a shot of the wood stacked neatly near our chimney. By the time I got got home it was too dark, but I decided to take a photo anyway ...

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One of our duck hens out ranging:


Our rooster and a hen inspecting the newcomers:

Here's a video clip from the now-famous Christmas Eve Blizzard in Waco last week. There actually wasn't much snow, but the wind was blowing like crazy.

Untitled from Eric Guel on Vimeo.

We had some snowfall in Waco on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, Nathan and Abigail had already left for Houston (with their grandma), so they couldn't enjoy the snow, but Daniel had a good time!

Daniel and Brandi brave the high winds:


Daniel trying to catch a snowflake on his tongue:


A bonus shot of Daniel with one of his Christmas presents (every country boy needs a BB gun, so we bought one for our boys to share):

We shot these photos in the field behind our house on Sunday afternoon.

We had a nice, long weekend. We accomplished (almost) everything we set out to do and made some good memories along the way. Here's a shot of the stockings we set up tonight: