We're in the deep freeze!

I milked the cow last night, before the temperatures started really dropping hard.  I usually try to get a fresh milk supply from Gracie every five days; raw milk doesn't stay fresh as long as pasteurized milk, and after five days, it starts to taste just a little "off".  We are expecting single digit temps for the next couple days.  

Notice my new header?  That's the baby chicks from last summer, and those pullets are giving me four or five eggs a day.  I have a couple of extra roosters I keep threatening to kill, but so far they live on, eating their weight in expensive chicken feed and pestering the hens with more romance than they would prefer.  I intend to keep the big black-and-white one.  The two reddish guys on the right are doomed, eventually.  In case you didn't know, a rooster isn't needed for the hens to lay eggs, but I like to have one around in case one of the hens wants to hatch out some babies; you can't get babies without a daddy.  The two older hens, Mama Hen and Chickie, were lounging in the chicken house when I took this picture.  Neither of them are laying eggs, but come February, they'll start up again.  

I boiled a turkey today:  Everybody thinks that's the craziest thing they ever heard of, but I got the idea from the Frugal Gourmet, back when he was on Public Television, before he was found to be a child molester and got kicked off TV.  I loved his show.  Anyhow.  By boiling the turkey I end up with lots of broth I can use in recipes.  We'll have turkey for dinner for a couple of days, then I will dice the rest and freeze it in two-cup portions for the various casseroles I have that require cooked chicken or turkey.  

Cliff and I are both reading books like crazy.  I read "Leaving Time" by Jody Picoult, and couldn't put it down,  Then Cliff read it in less than twenty-four hours.  It isn't the type book I normally read, but because it kept my attention so well, I checked out another one of hers that I've already started, "Keeping Faith".  With the baby gone until next Monday and with me not sharing two-dozen things a day on Facebook, it's time to read!  

In case you're wondering, the non-sharing on Facebook is going fine.  It isn't like I quit Facebook, so I'm keeping up with all my friends, sometimes leaving some of them a comment on a status.  I don't see any problem with this resolve lasting throughout the next month.