The secret revealed...(and how to make tomato soup!)

Well, it didn't snow nearly as much as the weatherman was talking about, but we did get quite a bit of rain and then it did snow in the later part of the afternoon. I took this picture around 4:00PM, in hopes that the snowflakes would show up, but they're rather hard to see... Currently, there is a thin blanket of snow covering everything and it's beginning to look like Winter again!



You may already know what the boys' birthday surprise was, (if you read Jacob's blog...) but I thought I'd post some pictures here too.

My parents bought each of the boys a brand new shotgun! My dad's never gotten into hunting very much, but the boys would like to give it a try, so now they can all learn together. :) Dad also bought several "Clay pigeons" and a thrower so they can practice.

Here's Jacob, checking his gun out...

...and here's Andrew, looking mighty pleased! Their rifles look quite similar--the only difference being that Andrews' barrel is 2 inches longer than Jacobs'.

We had a pleasant surprise this afternoon when our hunter friend, Gaylin (he's more than that implies though, as he's the one who got their group to finance our farm 6 years ago...) stopped in for a visit. As he's very much into guns, he was almost as happy as the boys were to see the new rifles in our house! We had a pleasant, hour-long visit with him and then he wanted to get going to hunt some pheasants--in the snow!

The rest of the afternoon was spent in: schoolwork for Mom and Jacob; Dad fixed the furnace and the washing machine; Andrew worked on trying to fix a scanner/printer he bought at a second hand store and helped Dad a bit; and I canned tomato soup and cut up a box of apples for sauce and juice.

As a fellow blogger has asked how we make our tomato soup, I thought I'd share the recipe with all of you here:

CANNED TOMATO SOUP

The recipe calls for:

1 large kettle full of tomatoes (I know, that's very vague, so I'll say that we use apprx. 1 1/2 gallons worth of quartered tomatoes)
1 bunch celery

6 med. onions

1 bell pepper (I use more like 2)

Cook this all together until the celery is soft. Then, remove kettle from heat and allow to cool for a while so that the contents are easier to deal with. (This is the point where I usually put it in the fridge overnight and then deal with it the next day...)

Grind up the tomato mixture and return the soup to the kettle.

Add:

1/2 cup flour

1/4 cup salt

Heat this up and let it cook for about 10 minutes. Then fill jars; seal them; and can in hot water bath for 45 minutes.

We like to eat this soup with cheese sandwiches or to add it to casseroles (especially Shepherds Pie!) Enjoy~