Holloween and Harvest Fun

This month has been very eventful for our little family.  It started out with the buck hunt for Danny.  He spent all day the first saturday and almost every evening the following week hunting.  He finally ended up shooting a buck in his cousin Timmy's alfalfa field.  It was a decent sized buck, not a "big spread" in Danny's words, but a real fat one.  It hung in our garage, wrapped in a sheet for a week and then we spent a saturday afternoon cutting it up.  Most of it was made into jerky and the rest we cubed and canned.  We had some really good barbeque sandwiches last night, made of venison.  All new for me, but I am keeping an open mind. 

This past Wednesday Danny went Elk hunting with Adam and Aaron and shot a spike elk first thing in the morning.  We took that one to the butcher.  That may sound easy but I had to back a pick-up into a very confined space and lower the 200+ lb elk into the back from its hanging position in a barn.  It may not sound too hard but I was pretty terrified that I wouldn't get in it the bed of the pick up and it would fall out and I would be stuck trying to lift the thing back up. The head if which is sitting out in the garage.  What a life huh? 



sorry if this is little much for the faint of...stomach

Although I didn't get much canning done this year, I managed to put away some peaches, raspberry jam, grape juice, apple pie filling, deer meat, and hopefully some tomatoes.  Not too bad either way.

Despite the fact that it was a hard year for gardens we enjoyed some really yummy stuff.  Mikelle had her first go at corn on the cob and did a great job.  We had some blueberry crepes which also left their mark on her face.  She is such a good little eater.  











she is about to say "smile"



Mikelle helped me carve a pumpkin this week.  She just played in the goopey pumpkin insides the whole time but she enjoyed watching it light. 

 She is fascinated with fire.  I have learned that the hard way while also learning that I now need to "mikelle proof" my kitchen.  She found a small box of matches while I was in another part of the house.  Then she ran to me crying and I found a nicely burned match and a pretty scortch mark on the living room carpet. She was fine, just scared. Close call that we will not be repeating.  That girl is too smart for her own good. 

I took Mikelle and Chance trick-o-treating on Main Street last night.  There were throngs of people and I made the mistake of thinking I could just hold Chance the whole time and push the stroller just in case Mikelle got tired.  She was the laziest little trick-o-treater ever!  Just kidding, she was really intimidated by all the people and didn't feel comfortable getting out of the stroller.  So I had to push her to every door to get her candy while balancing my little bobble head Chance.  I think they both had a good time.  Mikelle got plenty of candy for a two-year-old and Chance was held for an hour straight (second child doesn't get that often).  My back hurts now but I am really glad we went.  I had a lot of fun dressing them up and I got a lot of comments on my chubby pumpkin.   

I was walking around doing some last minute straightening before bed a few nights ago and Chance fell asleep on my should for the first time.  He's not a big cuddler.  I had Danny take a picture.  Sorry the pictures are so blurry my phone needs a lot of light or it doesn't turn out very clear. 

It's a fun time of year.  We got snow on the mountains and flurries in the valley.  Thanksgiving is coming and I love decorating this time of year.  I made a dollar store run and put together a wreath for the door.  From a few steps back it doesn't look like it cost me four dollars.  I love the colors!