Cold Snap

 We had a cold snap this week. The past two years we had really good luck with fruit trees, but it looks like this is going to be a "miss" year for us. A warm couple of weeks caused the plum and peach trees to start blooming. Saturday morning we woke up to a ground covering snow, and Sunday we had below freezing temps and plenty of wind. Most of the blooms have fallen off our plum trees, but we really cant complain, we probably have enough jelly to last two generations. We still enjoy making it though.

We have had some wild visitors to The Acre recently. A gang of wild turkey have been passing through on the regular, maybe we can put a couple gobblers in the freezer this year?

The DT's took advantage of the warmer weather this week and got in a little pond time. Augustus has started wading out into the pond and walking along the bank. He wants to be a part of it.

And just before the cold snap, we had a double rainbow over The Acre.

On the food front, we used brand new flour to make a pizza crust. We like it.

We liked the corned beef brisket so well, we picked up a couple more after they went on clearance, Clarence. We cooked one low and slow in stout beer, then sliced it up.

We have enough meat now to last us a couple of weeks at least. We started using it in our Sunday egg casserole.

Lawman used some of it for Sunday gravy, along with 'Cat head biscuits.'

We ended the week with naps and Reuben sammiches.

K&K

Thank God for the Irish

 Were it not for the Irish, we wouldn't have a thing to report this week. 

St. Paddy's Day always makes Lawman think about his old partner T.Marc Colburn (expert witness).

Marc's favorite holiday was Easter, but he got the most mileage out of St. Patrick's Day. Every woman he came across, he'd ask "Do you have a little Irish in ya?" and if they said no, he'd say "would you like some?" And if they said yes, it was "would you like a little more?"

Anywho, we went all out here at The Acre. Cupcake requested a Irish stout beer cake. And what Cupcake wants, Cupcake gets. None of that from a box stuff 'crazy granny' passes off as home made. All from scratch.

Real chocolate powder and duck eggs is how we roll

Then it was soda bread. We used the gifted bottle of Bushmills from T.Marc for the raisins. 

And of course, corned beef and cabbage. We usually do it in a crockpot all day, but we found a recipe on the interwebs for a dutch oven and stout beer. And since we had stout beer on hand, we pulled the trigger.

We cooked the brisket for a few hours, then took it out when it was tender, and added potatoes and carrots. We added the cabbage at the end. This will be our new "go to" brisket recipe. We sliced up what was left over for Reubens Sunday night.

We did add a new piece of equipment to The Acre this week. 

A few years ago, The Alphageek family gifted us their father's riding lawn mower. It was a Craftsman and it was great. It was easy on gas and didn't give us a seconds worth of trouble. Until the engine blew last fall. We had a local fix it guy look at it and he said it would cost more to fix than it was worth, so we pulled the trigger on a shiny new ride for Cupcake. 

We bet Junk Deere wishes they had stood behind the POS in the background, we'd probably have a new one of them. But never again.

Sunday after breakfast, we went ahead and got our garden started for the year. We started our seeds. Cabbage, peppers and a goo gob of tomato seeds. One of the packs were sweet green tomatoes. We would like to get enough that we could make a batch of all green spaghetti sauce this fall. We will keep you posted.

We ended the week with naps and full bellies.

K&K

Rub my Belly

 We've had quite the run of weather this week. Maybe you did too? We don't know. 

The lead off picture this week is Willow hamming it up for a belly rub. 

Early on in the week, Lawman put the brush blade on the weed wacker and cleared off the spot we picked for our pear corner in front of the Bitch Barn. After he got the undergrowth cleared, he planted both pear trees.

The pear trees started to "put out" already, which may be a bad thing after the weekend cold snap.

As the week turned rainy, Lawman butchered some meat. We bought a couple of slabs of NY strip, so he sliced one up into individual steaks and did his prep work to make them 'cut with a fork' tender. 

It made sixteen steaks, so that's eight 'steak and tater nite' meals in the pipeline. 

Speaking of, Cupcake put her own twist on the 'tater' part Saturday night, and it was delish.

It looked as good as it tasted.

On top of S/T night, we did a bit of prep work Saturday for Sunday morning breakfast. Cupcake wanted deer tenderloin gravy. And what Cupcake wants, Cupcake gets.

And a blast from the past, Lawman decided to put that big ol griddle to good use and make English Muffins for breakfast Sunday morning. Some of you may remember from a couple of years ago, Lawman got on an English muffin kick, and would cook them in a cast iron skillet, two at a time. Now we have the Blackstone, so he could do a whole batch at once. And none of that "crazy granny" store bought muffins, from scratch.

After he got them cut out, he covered them and left them out in the garage overnight. Sunday morning he used the proof setting on the new stove, and let them rise for an hour, then on to the griddle.

We love being able to do an entire meal all at once, even in the snow

We ended the week with naps, steak sandwiches and belly rubs.

K&K