Merry Christmas, You Will Have

Big week for most everyone last week. We're guessing, we don't know.
For us it was. We had a few visitors, cooked a boatload of food and even partook in an adult beverage or two. The lead off batter this week is "Baby Yoda" or "The Child" depending on how strict one follows the SW story line. For us it's Baby Yoda.
We saw a recipe for Baby Yoda deviled eggs and had to try it. As the meme says...."Nailed it"

Arts and crafts were not our strong suit growing up. But, we had our ducks in a row for everything else.

See what we did there?

On to the food portion of last week.

The boy's favorite 

 Lawman got an air fryer for Christmas, so we broke it out and the first dish cooked in it was scallops wrapped in bacon. These were a huge hit. We don't know why we've never had an air fryer up until now?

Everybody's favorite

Cupcake threatened to take hostages if we didn't have fried oysters again this year. It's funny, because "The Outlaw" tried for years to get her to eat his, but apparently Lawman is a far better cook.

Cupcake's favorite. Fried oysters

Sampling the traditional punch

Our standout special last week was the pinwheel that Cupcake makes each holiday season. We did use Steakums. Lawman broke down and bought a food processor for Cupcake to make slicing and dicing a little easier, and man was it easier. We did the onions and peppers in under a minute, then got the bright idea we would use it for a leftover ribeye steak we had. We sliced it up and realized we had enough steak sliced up to do the whole pinwheel. We will never buy steakums again.

For fans of "Archer" we made his secret recipe for "Peppermint Patties" which is a hot chocolate based adult beverage. We see why Sterling keeps a thermos of this stuff around on snowy episodes. We made the hot chocolate from scratch. Now powder mix in this house.

Lawman was told to buy a sushi platter to graze on Christmas Eve, so he did. An early gift was Star Wars light saber chopsticks. How cool are these?

After the holidays, we got back to regular food making. Using the new food processor we sliced up fresh mushrooms and onions for a homemade pizza pie. We cant wait to use the leftover ham for a ham/pineapple pizza next.

We ride out the holiday update with a few pics of the fam doing what we do after we eat.

We ended the week with wings and a nap.
K&K

Keeping It Going

We are kind of history buffs here at The Acre, and we enjoy the tales of the ancient peoples bringing greens into their homes to keep the spirit of growing things alive through the winter. We're not so much purists in that tradition, but we do keep citrus trees and a pineapple growing through the winter as we look forward to spring and getting back in the garden. It's our passion.

Pineapple

Blooms on our lime tree

Year #3 with the same basil plant. Stayin Alive, Stayin Alive.....

And along with everyone else, we celebrate Christmas. This time of year means baking and prep work for the fatman's arrival.

Several requests for fruitcakes this year

Cupcake made Oreo Balls

And Cupcake demands boiled custard

Almond Joy cookies, new this year at The Acre

To counterbalance the fatman, Lawman picked up a limited edition "Krampus" mug for Christmas morning. If you're not familiar with Krampus, "Google it, Boot"

Along with holiday prep, "The Boy" had a birthday this past week. He requested a blueberry streusel cookie for his birthday.

We have a crazy critter entry this week. Lawman caught a skunk in his predator trap a while back, and it just stopped stinking enough he could remove it from the trap. And since buzzards have to eat, same as worms (thanks to Clint Eastwood for that) we left it out instead of burying it. So, the buzzards found it and the guineas wanted to know what these big black birds were doing in THEIR yard.

The two gangs squared off with each other, but no blood was shed.
And on a blood shed note, we have a bit of pride/controversy to share.
"The Girl" asked if Lawman would train her to shoot a handgun. If anyone local is following the news, you know that the incoming state government wants to make training anyone to use a firearm a felony. In a show of defiance to said proposal, we both took her out with a boatload of bullets. We started her out with a small .380 since she's never picked up a gun before. We thought this would be more suited to training. After about half of a box of rounds down range, Lawman asked her if she wanted to try his model 1911 in the .45 caliber. She indeed did, and after one mag of shooting it, she turned around with a sparkle in her eyes and said "I like that one".
We then moved her to the 10 yard line and gave her the 1911 with a target to shoot at. The Boy had been steady shooting at the same target for a while, but in his defense he was almost 50 yards away from it.
The Girl cranked off several mags with the 1911, and to her credit, hit the target every single shot. We could not believe such a small lady could handle that much handgun on the first try.

First time with a handgun at 10 yards. So proud

The Boy hit most of the rounds along the bottom and sides, but The Girl hit the small black box almost every shot. Then she requested to be shown how to break the gun down and clean it. So, if the new gun laws pass after the new year, we've got a really good start on being felons here at The Acre, but we'll have one more trained shooter by then.
We ended the week with a big ol grin, and tomato soup.
K&K

Building Up

We are working our way up to Christmas, much like everyone else, we would imagine? Cupcake has been putting the finishing touches on presents and jamming them under the tree.

Lawman is steady baking cookies. Cupcake finds new recipes every day on the Face Place for him to try.

Molasses cookies

Peanut Butter Choco Chip cookies

We had a bit of a snow one day this week,then ice towards the end of the week. Still does not stop us from hanging our laundry outside to dry. Bed sheet day fell on snow day. Or, maybe snow fell on bed sheet day?

The day it snowed, the rolling computer on wheels we named "Death Stroke" popped up a dummy notice it was time to change the oil. We're pretty sure Ford gets a kick out of making us change the oil in the middle of snow weather, or during a summer monsoon. Either way, Lawman gets dripped on every time he's changed the oil.

At least hes not laying in mud

And as promised, every time we change the oil, we give a shout out to "The Outlaw."
In Cupcake's previous life, simple car things turned in to two or more days worth of drama. Cupcake still cringes when there is mention of a vehicle repair. If she could get The Outlaw to change her oil, he would forget to put the new oil in, which caused some serious issues with the motor. One time, he forgot to put brake fluid in after a brake repair. Not that Cupcake uses her brakes that much, but it's still nice to have the option.

That big ol diesel engine sure holds a lot of 710 fluid

The oil got changed, new oil added, and Cupcake is back to keeping the roads hot.
The one meal we cooked this week, Lawman tried something new. He smoked some chicken breasts.

We ended the week with a nap and some finger foods, because this week is another whirlwind adventure for HCA.
K&K

Parade Season

We found ourselves in a rut the past couple of weeks. Cupcake has been nose to the grindstone at work, and Lawman has been keeping watch over the birds day to day. We've really fell down on the update documentation.
Week of Thanksgiving we didn't do the usual stuff, but we did smoke a turkey and eat on it for a couple of weeks. We boiled the bones to make a case of broth we will use in the coming year. But the biggest update we have is the big Floyd Christmas parade. "The Boy" represents station 3 every year and we go to support the community.

We grabbed a few other pictures from the parade.

The High Sheriff lead the way

For the band nurds tuning in

And speaking of nurds, when this float came into view, we both at the same time yelled "Thanos!"

And our pal Dana brought her tame critters again this year

Older stuff from the past couple of weeks

It looks burnt, but it aint

More boiled custard, because Cupcake demands it

Molasses cookies, because The Boy demands it

We ended the week with a few leftovers, and started watching "The Mandalorian" because baby Yoda is just too cute not to.
K&K