Snow dog

I forgot to put this one on.  When tired of sledging and snow P got Beefy to drag her home.

Beefy doesn't like the cold so was sporting his Pepper Pig Tshirt. (He's so tough!)

Cold feet!

Snow, snow, snow

We have been snowed in for the last week.  We finally dug the car out of the snow yesterday so that P could get to her trampolining class.
I could have got moving earlier but we were in no hurry.  It is nice to be home when its cold outside.

 To start with it didn't look like much was happening and P did the best she could just poking pictures with a stick.

But it all soon changed to this

Bottom of the garden

 

The field

Everything looks good covered in snow

Enough for snowball fights

and sledging

We had to have a snow puppy to go with the
snow alien man

Making Butter

 They sell off cream at the supermarkets on New Year's Eve - 23p a carton.

So New Year's Day was spent making butter.  This was our first attempt but now we know how easy it is I know it will not be our last.

My Grandmother gave me these old butter pats and a butter mould/impression thingy years ago.
The mould has a picture of a fox on it.

First you leave the cream out of the fridge for a few hours until it reaches room temperature.  Then you just put it in the mixer and whizz it up a bit - not too fast!

When it has reached thick cream stage turn the mixer to the slowest it will go (you don't want to be redecorating the ceiling) when it happens it happens very fast.

First the cream will turn yellow (butter colour!) Then it will take on a crumbly texture.

Then all of a sudden you will hear a slosh and turn it off quick!
It will have separated into butter and buttermilk.

Pour off the buttermilk - you can drink it, feed it to the chickens, dogs or cats or use it in your cooking.

Then wash the butter in cold water.  Keep poking it about and changing the water until it runs clear.
You are getting all the buttermilk out so keep going.

Then comes the best bit.  P took over here and I was hardly allowed a look in!
You get to smack it with the butter pats, hard, lots.  This time you are getting all the water out.

P, the butter making master

See all the water under the finished butter.

Then wrap it in baking parchment. I just wrapped it and twisted the ends like a cracker.  The butter that was going in the freezer I left unsalted.  I will put salt in it later when we need it.  Apparently if you salt it first it goes in the freezer tasting ok but gets extra salty somehow when frozen and doesn't taste so good.

The one pat that I kept for us to eat I salted by bashing the butter flat with the butter pats (P was tired from all the hard work so I actually got to do this one myself) sprinkling it with salt and then folding it over (like puff pastry) and patting it back into a squarish shape.

Now we have lots of butter which cost us less than £2.50.  Each tub of cream made one block of butter.

The Tree

Now, how to get it out!

After a struggle, we won and then how to carry it without poking each other in the eyes?

But we did it and it is quite the best tree we ever had, it is a perfect shape and now its the 3rd Jan and it still has all its leaves!  Our trees are normally bald by now.  It will be sad to take this one down on the 6th.

We had a visit from the Elf on the Shelf this year.  P was so excited to find a parcel on the doorstep from the North Pole! (fuzzy photo - my phone is not good indoors)

The elf visits for the whole of December, each day he looks at how P is behaving and each night he  flies back to the North Pole to report to Santa.  Each morning he returns to a different spot in the house and P had lots of fun each morning looking for him.

Most times he was good and was just hanging around, trying to get into cupboards or eating the cornflakes, once he was found with a straw in the maple syrup having a drink, and the thing that P thought was the worst ......

He went into her cupboards and hung her knickers all over the Christmas tree! Can you see him looking out of the tree with a sock on his head?

She soon removed them!!

He sat under the tree on Christmas Eve and when he heard Santa's sleigh bells he flew back to the North Pole with him.  P was sorry to see him go, but I was quite pleased.  He will be back again next year.

Hope you had a good Christmas.