Christmas and New Years Holidays

Christmas was a great time, lots of family here, lots of driving.


Santa's little elves getting ready on Christmas Eve.  Brenda on the left wrapping presents, Lydia on the right, resting up for the big day.

 We enjoyed having the foster kids for Christmas, it's fun to watch little kids opening presents, but it's also wonderful to have our own kids around.



The little ones putting their Christmas bean bag chairs to use on Christmas morning.

 Lydia was home from college, so we were able to spend some time together. Abby and her husband were able to come home for a few days from New Hampshire, which was really nice. We were able to drive to Kansas City for a day to spend with Grandma and Grandpa Barclift, along with the Kansas City crew, Joseph and Miranda, and Andrew and Renae. New Year's was a nice relaxing day at home, and then time at the pastor's house with church family for the evening. We butchered one of the pigs for Christmas eats. A friend of Brenda's from work has a boyfriend who has done this before, so he was gracious enough to agree to walk me through the process, and he brought a pig of his own so we kind of did this together, him on his pig and me on mine. He shot his the day before, so it was already kind of halfway done. I picked the littlest one, as I figured since he was the runt of the litter he would never grow much, anyway.



I know it doesn't look like much, but this is going to be what is known in old-time cookery as "head cheese."

 After cooking it on the wood stove all day, I picked off all the meat, mixed it with spices and chopped it up very small, then packed it tight in a Tupperware bowl and put it in the fridge to cool. The next day I popped it out of the bowl, and there you are! Head cheese. I guess it's kind of like balogna, only that would be processed very fine, more like paste.

Getting ready to have a yummy head cheese sandwich.

We had a "ham" for Christmas dinner, only instead of it being cured and smoked like real ham, it was more like ordinary pork roast, cooked in the wood stove.

I found the recipe for "fresh ham" online.  It was really good!

Well, I have experienced a shift in my hobby interests. For some years I have had an old car, actually two old cars. I had in mind to get them all fixed up, but time and money were not in my favor, so they just sat for years. Well, Brenda and I were on a wedding anniversary trip for a weekend and I saw a sailboat for sale. I have always wanted a "real" sailboat. You know, with a jib and a spinnaker, and a cabin down below so that you can sleep down there and all that, and the price was very attractive, so I made a deal. I am getting rid of the old cars and I bought a boat. Now, I must admit that I have never been on a big sailboat before, even though I have sailed for many years, it was always in very small boats with a lateen sail. The one I have been using is big enough for one person only, and you have to duck when you tack or the boom will knock you over the side.



Santana 21, made by W.D. Schock sailboat company.  They are still in business, still make sailboats of this size.

 This boat is a 21 foot Santana. It was made in 1976, which goes along with all the other old clunky stuff we have around the farm. The great part about it is that it is all there, ready to sail. All the ropes, sails, mast, everything. The wood in the cabin is old and rotting but still serviceable. I have been buying and reading about every book on old sailboats and sailing that I can find, trying to figure out how the thing works. It is fiberglass, so I don't have to worry about the hull rotting. One of the previous owners apparently saw that there was a lot of rainwater accumulating in the bilge, so they thoughtfully drilled a hole in the bottom to let the water out! Wow! What a great idea! Now when I go sailing I don't have to worry about getting water in the boat! Well, anyway, there is that one thing that will have to be done before I go sailing for the first time. The nice thing is that it is small enough to pull behind the car, but large enough to actually spend the night if I want to. There's no kitchen or bathroom, but it's okay for picnics close to shore. Brenda has a friend at work that has a sailboat and she and her husband sail to the Bahamas every year, so they are going to come over and show me how the thing works. It was apparently used a lot for racing in the past, as it has a lot of very expensive hardware on the deck that was used for handling the sails.

I figured out a couple things with the wood stove. One, it really does help to get something hot quick, like the pancake griddle, or even just the big frying pan, to remove the lid and set the pan directly over the fire. I know this sounds obvious now, but I always thought the lids were there for a reason. I guess really it's the holes that are there for a reason. The other thing is, I always have had trouble finding sticks of the right size for the fire. I have to dig way down in the wood box to find the one I want. I finally realized that if I just stand them on end, it is immediately apparent how big they are, which makes it much easier to pick the one I want.



You can't get as many sticks in there going up and down, but at least you can see what's there.