It was really hard to go outside tonight after work and do chores. I was hoping that Daryl would come home sooner than he did and then he could do it. But I was laying by the fireplace with Reno not too far from me and decided that Daryl was going to be late and I might as well get up and get them done. So I put on a sweater and a hooded jacket, another pair of socks, and then some boots and out I went. I found the pail that we use to water the chickens with just outside the cellar door, so I went back in and filled it half full of water from the tub. It’s easier to fill the water from the house for the chickens instead of going to the barn to do it. So when I was walking really fast to the chicken house I could tell that something was wrong with my one boot and guess what it was. I spilled some water on it and it was getting froze to the ground when I was trying to open the brooder house door. Yea, not good. This morning when I went to work it was -8 F with a wind chill around-25 to -30 below and I wasn’t sure how cold it was this late afternoon… but it was cold enough. After I feed and watered the chickens, I picked some frozen eggs and was going to put them in the house before I fed the cows. By this time the wind picked up and I was cold. So I half ran to the house with the frozen eggs. I figured if I dropped them – what could happen right? They were frozen solid. After I put them in the house I literally ran to the barn with my 5 gallon pail to feed the cows. I’m thinking that this probably wasn’t a pretty sight because the pail kept hitting me in the legs and I was kind of stumbling – but I really didn’t care what it might have looked like. I just wanted to get it done. Once I got the cows fed and into the house I had a little bit more ambition for supper, so I thought I’d make something that would warm us up. So for supper I made a beef and mushroom soup. This soup is the easiest soup ever to make, and if you don’t have something in the recipe you can either leave it out or add something else. You take 1 lb of stew meat (or whatever you have in your freezer at the time), 8 cups of water, couple of carrots, couple of onions, couple of beef bullion, and a couple of packs of fresh mushrooms and let it simmer on the stove for about 40 minutes. Then add 1 cup of barley and cook it until the barley is done. The soup is so good and so easy. A perfect meal for a cold night.
Beef and Barley soup