As promised - pictures, and SNOW!!

You'd think that leaving Reno on the heels of a winter with 3-4' of snow and sub-zero, lamb-freezing nights for 2 weeks would make me not like snow.  However, since my roots are farther south (about 5 miles from the Mexican border to be exact), snow is always fun to me.  They were predicting snow to fall last night, and it did!  These views greeted me as I did "farm snow maintenance" before going into work:

And:

This is in my back pasture, looking north (more or less).

Even though I'm a competent snow driver, most of the people on this side of Oregon are not.  I was able to drive into work in 2-wheel drive until I got 5 blocks from work, when I had to shift into 4-wheel drive.  It's a mess in town, and they only got about an inch.  There's glare ice everywhere, and not enough sand down on the roads.  Since that's the Division that I work for (though not the section - I monitor the swarming behavior of motor vehicles), I was a little disappointed.  Hopefully they'll catch up during the day today, so I can get out of town to get home!

I called my dad last night - since it's going to be snowing all the way home for me on Sunday, I made the decision not to try to get the trailer.  My dad is pleased, other than having put $110 of diesel in his van, since he can drive his car, which is much easier on him.  Maybe in the spring, around Memorial Day, I can get down there to pick it up.  With the new chain rules, Even with 4-wheel drive and traction tires, you have to have chains on the tow vehicle AND the towed vehicle.  Since I've always maintained that if you need chains on a 4-wheel drive, you shouldn't be on the road - this makes much more sense and will be safer.
Here's a picture of the turkey stock (isn't it gorgeous??):

We had a potluck on Friday, which included two deep-fried turkeys.  During clean-up, I asked what they were going to do with all the bones, etc., and since no one else wanted them, took them home to make stock.  They also threw away the necks and giblets (horrors), which I retrieved, and the dogs enjoyed them for dinner.  I simmered all the leftovers for about 6 hours with a chopped onion, some celery (including the leaves), and some carrots.  When it was done, I took it outside to cool (it was 40 degrees).  When I checked on it later, it was still rather warm, so I bailed some water out of a stock tank, set the stockpot in it, and went to bed.  30 gallons of water does a marvelous job of cooling 16 qts. of liquid/bones, etc. down!  After straining out the biggest chunks, I warmed it back up, and put it into the jars.  Now for the neat thing I 'unvented' - since I knew that I hadn't gotten all the solids out, I poured the stock through some butter muslin (a tighter woven cheese cloth).  While it's not clarified, it's definately chunk free!  Amazingly, even though the turkeys were deep fried, there was very little fat.  The broth is really rich in flavor, probably because of the caramelization that happens when the bird is fried.  Yumm!!

Speaking of turkeys, here is a picture of my Auburn tom and one of his hens:

These are a very rare, heritage breed.  Because these particular birds spent a lot of time in my house, he thinks I'm one of his hens and displays to beat the band when I'm around.  Both hens are also very friendly, as well.  These are basically a "brown" standard Bronze - a Moorit Turkey!!

This is a picture of my Black-winged Bronze pair.  They're about 3 yrs. old, and I really like the hen's structure (which isn't very visible in this picture).  I'm hoping to get some poults from them this year.

Ok, so here's the final picture - my sister's sweater, so far.  Now, I know that I am not enamored of the color scheme, but there have been some other opinions floating around.  Here's your chance to comment (not that it makes any difference!!) on what you think of the colors!  It's actually a sweater from "Color Style," and the colors in the book are more my style!  However, I think the pattern is written weirdly, so I'm doing it my own way (bigger steek, not shaped, duplicate stitching in some of the colors instead of having huge long floats on the back).  Since this is actually iteration no. 5, I'm hoping it meets with Mary's approval - I'll know tomorrow evening!

I'll be taking my computer and camera down to Reno with me. It'll be fun to take "touristy" pictures!