New site forthcoming!

Aaaaaaaand we haven't posted anything since winter.

It's the old homestead blogging paradox... the more awesome stuff you do that you should be blogging about, the less time and energy you have left over to do so.

Good news is, we're in the process of setting up a brand-spankin' new website that should be easier to keep up with (and also has some neat features like being fully tablet/mobile friendly).

It's still very much a work in progress, but if you're one of the people actually reading this, I figure you deserve a sneak peek.

Check out the new site at sixroosters.com

Please update your bookmarks/RSS feeds/etc, and we'd love to hear any feedback about the new site.  See you all over at the new place!

Just another snowy farm morning picture...

Winter morning on the farm...

I know that it's the time of year where it's become acceptable (and even fashionable) to gripe on constantly about the winter weather.  Gone is the shock and mild outrage of early winter (Gosh!  How cold it is out there!), replaced instead with the sort of salty resignation (I'm ready for Spring now).  

And I feel that.  Really, I do.  I'm totally ready for flower buds and warmer temps and ephemeral growth and baby everythings flopping about through nature's new flush of spring.  But sometimes winter can surprise you, and present you with moments of epic beauty that are impossible at other times.

So it was this morning when I was bumping around in the kitchen just after sunrise.  The sun was glittering off the freshly blown snow, rabbit tracks were everywhere (as always), and snow was falling so slowly through the morning light I felt like I was witnessing some sort of cheesy slo-mo treatment from an indie film.  Quite lovely.  I even tried to get all that beauty crammed into a camera (I only caught some), and in that brief moment I was thankful for winter, despite the inconveniences it brings.

Baking Away Winter...

By this time of year, with the temperatures once again vortexing themselves down around zero degrees and the snow drift slowly overtaking the tops of the raised beds, being stuck at home is starting to wear on me.  Being unemployed all winter certainly doesn't help.

I know it's getting bad when I start getting really excited to perform any small, mundane task or errand that involves leaving the house.  Are we out of something?  Even if we don't really need that thing right now and probably won't for a while, anyways?  Nevermind, I'd better go pick some up, just in case.  I even savor the act of trudging out through the snow to pick up the mail by the road.

So over the past few days I've taken a new lean and dusted off the oven mitts (seriously, I need to wash those) and gotten back to some baking.  In addition to keeping me generally occupied, it has the added benefit of keeping the kitchen warm and the house smelling good.

Last night I did a few loaves of from-scratch banana bread, and tonight I knocked out a pretty excellent batch of chocolate chip cookies.  So tonight, while the wind howls around outside, I'll be putting myself to bed with a few chocolate chip cookies and a tall frosty glass of milk... stout.  The tasty stuff from Left Hand Brewing Co.  Even better than the white stuff, I swear.