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Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Thanksgiving: In Review!

    Thanksgiving this year was a fun-packed weekend-long undertaking filled with incredible food, awesome friends and family, warm fires, and merriment. Whitt and Martha had the usual suspects up for Thanksgiving dinner aside from Grethcen and Austin. Unfortunately they were unable to make it up from Asheville, NC.
    The meal consisted of three (yes, three!) of our turkeys prepared in different ways. Two birds had been brined by Mia and Martha prior to cooking: one in a water and salt mixture, the other in a mixture of water, milk, salt, and various spices. The third was relatively untouched prior to cooking. The idea behind brining is that the salt and liquid mixture will coat the skin and form a protective coating that holds in the moisture of the bird while being cooked with minimum basting required. The two brined birds were grilled while the third was cooked as normal in the oven. Howard and Whitt spear-headed the grilling of the turkeys.



Howard sprinkling on some magic.


A couple swipes of goodness...

And viola!
Whitt and Howard talking about the boring view.



In goes the bird!
Annie doing one last nose check before the lid is closed to make sure it smells good.
     According to all present, every bird was unbelievable, but the grilled birds where exceptionally good. Of course the birds were merely the center piece to the meal. All of the sides and desserts were also, as normal, incredible.









Monday, December 12, 2011

This Is Ground Control to Major Tom


Hello blog followers!

As many of you may have expected, the holidays on top of our regular work schedule have been swallowing us whole. Thanksgiving is always a blast at the farm because not only do we celebrate on Thursday, but we also have Thanksgiving Pt. II! The barn was in dire need of a re-vamping with the influx of animals in need of storage. I'm glad to say we have finished most of that project up. We've been able to get Christmas trees, decorate for the season, throw a holiday party, host lot's of visitors, AND rent a ram to breed our ewes. Needless to say, the blog will not be neglected for the next few weeks.

There's so much to tell you about! Stay tuned!

-Brendan and the whole Cair Paravel Family!

Friday, December 9, 2011

Hunting

    As most of you may know, it is hunting season here in Virginia. For you hunters, it's the season for waking up early, stocking the truck with bullets and beer, and sitting in a tree for hours and hours on end. For us non-hunters in the middle of the action, the season consists of our loveable dogs bringing back all the pieces the hunters didn't want one disgusting piece at a time, and constantly being worried someone is going to shoot them. So, we have come up with an attempt at a practical, yet fashionable, way to help prevent buck shot from finding our dogs.


    Here we have Tsuki modeling a dog safety vest complete with a handy pocket for treats or anything else she wants to put in there. Actual dog vests run a surprising amount of money, so I just ended up making these with 97¢ human vests and a 47¢ spool of thread. Hurray for safety!