Snow, bread and deer

We have had a TON of snow and subzero temps this winter. This is our basement walk out. The wood at the top is taller than I am. This is mostly from drifting.

Yes, that is a -12 f. It's been as low as -19 f. 

The chickens have handled it well. When it's below 0, I don't open their door except to put their water in the coop. The coop stays nice and toasty.

We lost a tree in a summer storm last year. It finished coming down recently and took almost all of the branches off of this tree and left a gaping hole.

I made challah! My first challah and my first braided bread. It's part wheat.

I made french toast and bread pudding with it. Yum.

I finally spotted our three-legged deer and was able to get my camera before she left. We nicknamed her "Daisy". We first spotted her in 2011, and almost three years to the date, I got the bottom pics. We saw her a few times this summer with a fawn. She gets along really well. No clue why she's missing a leg, but it doesn't bother her.

4th Birthday!

Wow, I am really far behind! Sorry about that :)

Connor is 4!

Madi has to supervise gifts.

Lots of fun things to play with! 

3 layer chocolate and vanilla cake with chocolate buttercream made by yours truly.

The bulldozer had chocolate covered raisin "rocks" and a road of crushed Oreos.

Connor LOVES it when people sing to him.

Not really.

Those star candles were tricky.

It was a checkerboard cake. 

Wilton makes the checkerboard pan.

Home, Home on the Range...

Yeah, not *that* kind of range... but the oven/stove type.

A few months ago, I had steaks under the broiler when I heard sizzlesiiiizzzlesizzlePOP! The broiler went out. Ok, fine. I turned on the oven to finish them. Nope, didn't work. I ended up finishing them in a cast iron skillet (which was quite good, by the way).

My husband finally had time to look at it this past week. He replaced the ignitor. Nope. We found out that the range was 16 years old. We went to Lowes to check out a new one. Thank God for Labor Day sales! We picked a lovely Whirlpool with 5 burners and a two-piece grate that goes all the way across the top. Originally $749, we got it for $600.

They delivered it on Monday. Everything looked great... burners worked... but after the delivery people left, we tried the oven. Nope. No oven. No broiler.

A repair man came on Wednesday. He was stumped. When he pulled it away from the wall, everything worked fine. When he pushed it back in, no oven or broiler. He recommended a new new one.

So.... today, the new new one was delivered. I made them check everything before they left. Oven works great, broiler works great. Yay! I have my oven back! Isn't it pretty?