Birthday Boy

 

Here's our Birthday Boy.  Hubby had a B-day, and we celebrated with our kids and grand kids.  I made: Roast, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Green beans, and Carrots.  The kids brought Homemade Rolls, Baked Beans, Trifle, and Pumpkin Cupcakes.  Yummy! 

I had Erin carry the cake to him so there would be no tripping by me this time, he-he.

Look what we received---a Rocket Stove.  It came yesterday afternoon.  We ordered it less than a week ago.  It's for emergency situations.  A few sticks is all it takes to boil a little water, which is what we were doing here, and today I plan on making some stew in the Cast Iron Dutch Oven that was my mom and dad's.

That little stove blackened up the bottom and sides of one of my good pots, so I will be using cast iron from now on.

I plan on making a wonder oven, and I think that will be a great combination if we should have another ice storm this winter--We had a terrible one in 2007, and were without power for 12 days.  That taught me a lot.  We had another one the very next year, and were without power for 4 or 5 days if I remember right.  It wasn't nearly as traumatic.  We had a propane camper burner for one pot, and I have propane, but this rocket stove just uses twigs and small scraps of lumber.  Kind of fun.  We also have a self-pruning-tree, as my hubby calls it.  It's a silver maple that drops a lot of small limbs, ALL. THE. TIME!  That will be a great way to get rid of them.  This stove even burns up the smoke after it gets going good--look, no smoke coming out of the top.

We had the sweetest little visitor last night when we were handing out candy--my great niece Arianna--isn't she the cutest thing.  My niece made her costume out of a used suede garment.  How cute is that?