Its not Halloween anymore!

Merry Christmas from the Palen house, Eric, Wendy and Tess and a few four-legged critters. Since we have been absent from the blogosphere for a time, here are some very random photos of some of the more interesting (I hope) things we have been up to.
It was chariot race time again in the Horseshoe Valley and Santa made a special visit.

A person just can't dress warm enough for the chariot races!

MEAT! This is the prime rib I cooked up for Thanksgiving dinner. I tried to have a mostly local food Thanksgiving and this nice prime came from one of our steers. I had our neighbor Frank feed him with some others that he was feeding and now we all have a freezer full. I also have a pig and a goat that I bought at the 4-H sale. The fact that I have announced that we will be having leg-of-goat for Christmas dinner is likely why everyone is going to Herb and Phylis's this year again. If you are afraid of expanding your culinary tastes, please don't come to my house when we are having meat loaf. "Goat Loaf" as my dad calls it, is actually very tasty.

Tess performed "on stage" at the Glendo School Christmas program. She is in the front row on the left. We were happy to report that she did not fall off the stage and the little guy to her left only suffered a few elbows to the nose. He started it.

This summer we got an additional 10 chickens and they finally began to lay a few weeks ago. Well, at least those that aren't roosters started to lay! This was the first tiny egg that Tess found.

We are already thinking about our garden for next year. Eric is quite the green thumb..here is one of his artichokes that we let flower. Notice the bee.

Have a peaceful holiday season.