Posting again already!

Here's one of the best pictures of the year!

Okay, it's only January, but it'll be hard to beat this!

This is Kathleen's husband, Gregg, and their granddaughter, Aislynne!

As kathleen wrote in her email: "She was so impressed that Grampa Gregg could pick her up by the ears!"

Meanwhile, up the road from Kathleen and Gregg, I've been canning cream cheese.
It looks so nice and snowy-white!

Also canning more cheddar cheese!

I can slide the cheddar cheese out of the jar and shred it like fresh cheese.

"I'll hide my butt in these pillows! Then she won't be speculating about whether my butt looks fat!"

I cooked up a big kettle of pinto beans on the woodstove, then spread them on racks to dry.

This isn't all of them. I have so many things drying right now that I was short of racks.

The rest of the kettle of beans was sitting outside waiting for rack space.

Beans and rice dry quickly and are one of the easiest foods to do this with.

When I'm ready to use them, I'll soak them in water for an hour or so, drain them, and use as fresh. They are particularly good for refried beans.

To make those, I heat lard, shortening, or any oil (Olive oil, if I'm feeling "healthy"!). Then I mush the beans into the ban along with some garlic salt and fry them.

Sometimes I add a touch of taco seasoning, such as from the bottles of it they sell at Costco.

"Darn! Where's my pillow when I need it!"

The kitten knows just where to spend these cloudy, damp, cold January days!

I worked on sewing the curtains for the uhaul windows.

Looks kind of goofy against the Christmas tablecloth I've yet to take off the kitchen table!

Steven worked on his writing while I sewed. We enjoyed cups of vanilla chai tea while we worked.

I brought this roll of linoleum in from the barn. It used to be in our kitchen. It's gotten wet a few times out there, and dusty and dirty.

Here it is after I washed it. One end (the rolled end) is pretty bad, with holes in it.

I had hoped to use this in the uhaul, even though it's not quite big enough.

If I do so, I'll have to cut the bad end off.

Right now I'm not sure what I'll do.