December 14 - This marked day 1 of our light quarantine week and our first planned (of several) family winter cut back day. Due to a pending ice storm, we helped Kali pick up and haul all the firewood she had been cutting. We also started cutting grasses to mulch the seed turnips. Jason worked on the new outdoor firewood storage but even with some extra hands we were not able to finish it up by nightfall. These days where we spend most of the day outside together are still among my favorite kinds of days! The evening (until late night) was focused on the final hog butchering task (slicing and freezing bacon - all 83 lbs of it!).
December 16 - Jason and Kali finished up the outdoor firewood storage and named it "Wilson" (as in Woodrow). Now we just need weather that is conducive for making an outdoor fire!!
December 17 - The piglets were officially named Snuffle, Upa and Gus. And Alida is making fast strides at taming them! Glad they have their house and lots of pine needles and hay to make their little nest to burrow into during this cold snap.
December 18 - The yearly chicken banding commenced (for Jason and Alida). We are also into corn processing and finished sorting and shelling the Shenandoah Scarlet flour corn, making a ginormous mess of the front room! The weekly cleaning was delightful - I could easily tell where I had been!
December 19 - In preparation for the next day's biochar burn, Jason and I distributed duff from biochar pit onto various fruits (raspberries, blackberries, blueberries...). Then Jason worked on one cleaning out project (the red coop) while I worked on another (the human coop) before we all headed out to select and cut our Christmas tree. I don't think we have ever had such a shapely tree from our place! The evening felt like our first day of Christmas festivities with the lit tree and celebrating early with Mom and Dad who are spending the holidays in Florida. We packed a lot into the evening - a delicious meal upstairs followed by a puppet show the girls wrote (which they "owed" to my parents for years from receiving the puppets as gifts), decorating the tree and opening a few presents, putting together a wooden puzzle I bought for all of us to enjoy together, and finally introducing my parents to Ransom Notes. So fun!
December 20 - After a holiday brunch of ponhoss, eggs, chicken sausage, fruit salad and coffee cake, we headed out for our yearly biochar burn. As is now our tradition, we kicked it off with a reading together of Jason's meditation he wrote a number of years ago. Once we finally got the fire rolling in the damp pit, the burn went so well and fast (the ticket to that is dried brush!!). It was done early enough that we got to work together on some final garden harvests of arugula, radicchio, spinach, turnips, and carrots before the bitter cold that was on its way, along with more ice/sleet first. 
We enjoyed many of those fresh garden veggies in a salad at dinner, along with Alida's delicious pepperoni and cheese pizza. I'm really getting into her being on the cooking schedule, and the fact that she has alluded to doing it even more than once a week going forward!
December 21 - My parents left for Florida and we said goodbye until 2023. This also marked the start of our week of deep quarantine and our 2nd family winter cutback day. I neglected to take many pictures this day at all. We did a whole host of things, including some more preparations for the single digits headed our way. It was even warm enough for a picnic lunch. With all hands on deck, we helped Jason finish up the black raspberry pruning right as dark fell...
December 22 - Today included more chicken banding in the rain/sleet/ice. This time, a week since the last power outage, we lost it 10 minutes before finishing the final episode of Schitt's Creek. Thankfully the outage was just long enough for Alida to get lots of candles going.
December 23 - Day 3 and the final one, wrapping up the chicken banding for the year. In the afternoon, Kali and Alida did the weekly town errands. I'm so glad that Kali had no problem donning my fancy face mask and glasses to run into Kroger for a few prescriptions. All the other errands were able to be done outside to keep within quarantine AND the curbside pickup at Smiley's ice cream netted us an extra 1.5 gallons of Peppermint Bark ice cream. The girls were surprised when they brought out two tubs of ice cream but weren't sure what was up and thought maybe I was just going all out of the holidays. When I called, they said we should just eat and enjoy it. We will!!! The afternoon was a gift as Terah and I had some hours just the two of us and had fun reading and practicing reading as the world glittered outside and we stayed cozy inside! After the frigid temps last night, we are very happy for our cozy wood stove. Now back to enjoying Christmas Eve with the fam!
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