this and that

yesterday we woke up (very, very early, i'm sure due to sleeping in the Big Girl Bed) to more snow. it was fun to watch it swirl around and even better when it had turned into a dry, sunny afternoon. now it is just raining, raining, raining. the poor chickens are ankle deep in water and mud in their run. good thing they have a nice coop to escape into.

i made these, recipe here. they are based on lara bars, which i really like, but are quite expensive. these only have four ingredients (almonds, cashews, dates, and apricots), were really easy to make, and are a hit with everyone in the house. i call them gigi bars.

recently i realized that our freezer is almost empty! last fall we purchased half a pig and 1/8 of a cow. i am amazed that it is almost all gone! we got it all from kookoolan farms, and it was so good that we are going to do it again. they have a few different varieties of pork now, which is great. we have decided that we are going to get more beef and pork, which means in addition to figuring out how we want the pork cut up like last time, we are also going to get to decide how the beef is cut. i'm looking forward to that a lot! i have realized lately that one of my favorite things about a project is doing the research ahead of time. does anyone have a favorite cut of beef that i should consider?