Pumpkins and Promotions

This week we started practice for Thanksgiving by using fresh pumpkin for pie. Regular followers know we have been on a buttermilk and chocolate pie kick recently, but with the holiday approaching, we decided to get more traditional.
We don't know why everyone wouldn't want to use fresh pumpkin, but we try not to dwell on it. We went by the recipe, to the letter, for our first attempt. It turned out well, but we thought we could do better.

Split it, gut it and bake it

Home made pie crust. Always

Next year's pumpkin patch is ready for planting

We thought the first pie could have used a little brown sugar and a little more spice, so we gobbled up the first pie and tried again.

Pumpkin fell right out of the skin

Brown sugar really changed the look

The second pie turned out much better. We think we have hit on our mixture for the holidays. Plus we had a little left over pumpkin that we used in Saturday morning pancakes.

All blue eggs, all the time now

And speaking of pancakes, Fraidy Mutt always looks forward to Saturday because she gets a helping of silver dollar pancakes. She waits patiently until it's time for her breakfast.

For the promotion part of our title this week, we are proud to announce that Jake was nominated and elected by his crew mates to be the new engineer at his firehouse.
And before his bump up, the cooking bug rubbed off on him. He asked if he could bake a meal one night.

Pizza rolls

And he put down another deer this week.

Shot through the heart, and he's to blame.....

For the food portion of our weekly update, Cupcake went old school Army and made a big pot of "Chili-mac"  Everyone who's been to the field always looked forward to at least one chili-mac meal.

Project for the week, we made a double batch of cranberry sauce. Ten more jars in the pantry.

Followers know our cousins Bill and Francis gave us a big load of canning jars last week. One of the things in the box of jars was a plastic bird with grass seeds. We planted them last week, and the grass has sprouted. What's life without a little whimsy?

And since it's cooled off and we've been keeping the windows shut, we started our boil pot to keep the house smelling seasonal. We added fresh grown mint to it this year.

And lastly this week, we mention our winter forecast. A pal of Big Man who lawyers in The People's Republic mentioned this past week that he saw honeysuckle blooming outside of the courthouse. We have always heard that when spring flowers bloom in late fall, it's going to be a bad winter.
We have spring bushes blooming here at The Acre, and the apple tree out back is holding on to fruit in the top of the tree. This is so the animals will have food above the snow. We predict a whole lot of snow.

We ended the week like we always do. Wings
K&K