Shortcut to Mushrooms

These are the dollies I made for Christmas this year. I never got a good photo of them finished. My mother in law gave Angelica a book on how to make these years back and we finally learned this year.



Quick news from the homestead:


Rain again, still no snow in this strange warm winter.


Ronia learned to wave. She waves at everyone now. Yesterday she waved rather helplessly at her father as her four year old sister carried her out of the bathroom and into the living room.

I learned to fishtail braid on a Rapunzel doll no less. My hair is finally long enough to pull back again but it will be a while before I can fishtail it.

First week of pig slaughtering is behind us. Two piggies down, four more to go. I rendered lard and made stock yesterday. I'm really mad because I was doing too much and it got too warm because I was impatient at one point and so while creamy white, it is not as odorless as it could be. (oh to answer questions: We unfortunately do not have the resources to save pigskin. (not enough manpower to dunk the pigs into the vat of boiling water, however we did save the cheek meat this year! .... and Maggie, you can come by and bake bread whenever you want but set aside two days and spend the night because it is a long process. )

Day's begun. . .