Hard Water Fishing

Winter is here! And it has been here for the past few weeks.  We had our first snow fall at the beginning of November.  It quickly melted away and was only mildly cold.  Although, the last three weeks have been nearly unbearable (winters in south Idaho typically are).  We've had frigid temperatures, with highs reaching 11 and lows of -22.  They even had to cancel school this week because it was -12 and the diesel in the buses were gelling.  More snow has fallen, ice had covered everything else that was not covered up by the snow. 

Heath and I have found the key to surviving these harsh conditions is finding something you can enjoy in such an environment.  Personally, I would go skiing or snowboarding any day!  We've enjoyed snowshoeing and sledding as well.  But for Heath it's ice fishing!

With weeks of sub-zero temperatures Heath has been dying to get out onto the ice, and this weekend was his first chance in 7 years (He used to ice fish a lot when we were in College).  He even purchased a new ice auger in October, in anticipation for the upcoming season.  Let's just say he was really excited!

This morning was really beautiful, it had warmed up to about 20 degrees and the overnight fog had frosted everything in a layer of ice.  I think all of Heath's excitement was rubbing off on the kids because they were bouncing off the walls trying to get ready.  The morning started off great.  Heath quickly drilled a few holes to get us started.  

Everyone had a job and was so willing to help!

Heath told me this morning, "I like fishing, but I LOVE ice fishing!"  One reason that he loves ice fishing is because of the frequency that fish are caught.  It seems that fish are a lot more willing to bite when there is so little to eat during the winter.  

This really was true for today!  We started catching fish as soon as we could get lines in the water.  This was his first catch of the morning!  These little perch are pretty, but this one was lucky that she was too small.  We caught about 10-12 that didn't quite meet the size standards we were looking for.  

T caught the first keeper of the day, a rainbow trout.

I'm pretty sure he thinks of himself as a great fisherman, especially after catching such a nice fish!  

(Not to mention the two golden trout he caught this summer with his bare hands!)

We were joined by my brother and nephew which was great fun for all the kids.  But things quickly went south for the kids as soon as their feet got cold.  The kids and I spent the last half hour trying to warm up in the truck.  All the while Heath kept reeling them in!

He ended up with five rainbow trout, which of course he wanted to can.  So we did!

Our first attempt at canning fish...successful!

Happy Halloween

I know it's a few days late, but we had such a great Halloween week!  It felt like we had Halloween events every night for five days straight.  We attended Trunk-or-Treats, school Halloween parties, Halloween Carnivals, carved pumpkins, Halloween themed Cub Scout Pack Meetings, and of course Trick-or-Treating on the 31st.  

I do have to say that I LOVE Halloween!  It is one of the few holidays that we celebrate just for fun.  I love the fall, the leaves changing, cooler days (colder days now that we are in Idaho).  

The kids took their sweet time deciding what they wanted to be for Halloween.  E finally decided on a Pirate and the boys wanted to be Ninjas, but half of the time D went as 'Ninja Batman.'  I have to say they are all pretty cute!

I made the kids come outside to take pictures, and to no ones surprise the chickens came to see what we were doing and if we had any treats.  Ninja T was determined to fight the 'evil chickens.'

He went on like this for a good ten minutes!  And of course the chickens just stood there as though they were thinking, 'Is this guy for real?'

We also carved pumpkins that we grew in our garden.  This mainly consisted of the kids playing in the pumpkin guts, trying to describe to me what they had envisioned for their jack-o-lantern while I hacked away at the pumpkins.  

We finally came up with 'Scary Pumpkin'....

Kitty cat...

and Batman.  

Overall I was feeling pretty great about the whole evening. 

Until...the next day we noticed the chickens really enjoyed the jack-o-lanterns as well.  

Before...

After...

At least we had fun doing it.  

Summer Update

As everyone has probably noticed we've been a little behind on the blogging lately.  This is mostly due to my laziness, but we've also been busy working, playing, gardening, swimming, canning, collecting eggs and traveling.  Without a doubt we had a very busy but fun summer!  

 The kids stayed busy with trips to the lake, park, water park and just playing in the yard.  I think their favorite thing was to go the the little "lake" we have in our town.  It really isn't a lake by any means but its a great place to cool off.  

E and T both celebrated their birthdays this summer and the big hit for T was the remote control boat he had been dreaming of.  

Our garden was a great success. We had lots of veggies to eat and even more to can.  It seemed as though Heath and I were canning every night for 6 weeks straight.  

We ended up with over 325 onions to store for the winter along with the ones we used right out of the ground throughout the summer.

The carrots we grew were actually a huge surprise.  As mentioned before, our soil is very, very rocky.  We were expecting twisted, split and gnarly looking carrots but over 90% of our carrots were straight and beautiful.  

This was our biggest cabbage.  It was sweet, and very tender!

We really did eat as much as we could from our garden and the rest we put away.  Here is our canning/freezing tally for the season:  

7 pints grapefruit

5 gallons frozen broccoli

9 quarts frozen peas

5 quarts freezer slaw

7 pints strawberry-rhubarb jam

26 pints strawberry jam

9 pints pickled squash/zucchini

19 pints pickled yellow squash

5 quarts ham and bean soup

3 pints frozen strawberries - sliced

1 gallon frozen strawberries - halved

4 pints bread and butter pickles

12 quarts frozen zucchini

10 pints apricot halves in light syrup

20 pints apricot jam

12 quarts frozen apricots

7 pints kosher dill chips

60 quarts kosher dill pickles - whole

34 pints green beans

7 quarts new potatoes

29 quarts whole tomatoes

8 pints crab-apple jelly

8 golden acorn squash

6 pints canned chicken breast

7 quarts homemade sauerkraut

10 pints yellow squash

6 quarts diced tomatoes

10 pints beets

19 pints salsa

4 pints frozen green beans

3 quarts goulash

325 onions 

223 lbs potatoes

5 pints black eyed peas

4 pints white beans

5 pints pinto beans

2 pints roasted green chilies

38 quarts peaches

27 pints carrots

10 quarts pears

4 quarts chicken soup

1 quart chicken broth

8 pumpkins

14 quarts applesauce

7 gallons apple cider

65 lbs venison 

3 gallons frozen plums

Just before Memorial Day we found some praying mantis egg sacks at our local nursery.  We seemed to have an over abundance of wild ladybugs, but we wanted to make sure that any unwanted pests would get eaten.  So we took a chance and hatched out hundreds of baby praying matids.  When the hatched each was approximately 1/4 of an inch.  

 After they hatched we placed them in the garden and it seemed as if weeks went by before we saw a single one.  After about about 5 weeks we found three healthy matids on our corn.  Although we didn't see much of them in action, we weren't plagued by a single potato beetle, squash bug, or aphid! 

Amid all of our gardening and canning we also extracted honey from Heath's beehives.  

Despite having a fairly dry summer we managed to get over 200 lbs of honey from Heath's 3 hives!

Our chickens have also come a long way.  They are now full grown laying hens.  We are now have 9 hens and we get about 8 eggs every day.  In all reality they are quite spoiled.  They wander around eating anything and everything they can find.  

 I know it sounds weird but they love to be involved in anything we do too.  They are more like pets than livestock.  They play with the kids and follow us around everywhere.

This last weekend we had the pleasure to visit my parents and they graciously let Heath hunt.  Heath was really excited because it has been 3 years since his last deer hunt.  T wanted more than anything to go hunting with Dad, so Heath explained to him that it would be cold, early, there would be lots of hiking and he would have to be very quite.  T agreed that he could do it.  It turns out T is a natural born hunter like his Dad and did great on his first hunt!  He tagged along with all the men and didn't complain or give up!  He was especially excited when Heath shot his deer.  Heath and I feel that it is very important for our children to know where food comes from and what sacrifices are made in order to feed our family.  And Heath is adamant that our children understand that meat does not come from mysterious Styrofoam trays in a grocery store, but rather from living, breathing animals.   We hope to instill in our children a sense of appreciation and gratitude for what we have been blessed with.   

My brother and sister-in-law also visited my parents the same weekend.  And upon planing this trip we agreed that we should make the arrangements to press apple cider.  My amazing sister-in-law scoured our local area to find apples to pick.  We found posts on Craigslist for apples to pick, we picked wild apples, and my dad even found us a great apple tree just by asking the homeowner.   

We all had a great time, and I loved that everyone was involved.  All the kids really enjoyed picking  apples and there was so much to do, we all had our own part in making the cider.  

Heath and my brother manned the cider press while my sister-in-law washed apples.  My mom bottled the cider and the kids helped with everything!  We ended up with over 23 gallons of fresh, delicious apple cider.  Our share was 7 gallons.  It was a lot of work and a lot of fun and worth every minute!

All in all we had a great summer!