Snow! We love snow. Even when it is eight inches of heavy, dense snow.

Spectacular! Also destructive. We lost some tree limbs from the pines. We will have to trim them off before they tear down fences.

Working together, Michael and I cleared our 600 foot driveway in about three hours. It feels so good to be well enough to work this hard.

It also allows us to eat the tamales we made yesterday, beautifully paired with the last of the cabbage from our garden

We experimented a bit with the basic recipe. Michael ground me three cups of red popcorn cornmeal.

Mixed with seven cups of masa harina, two cups of lard, two tablespoons of baking powder, a tablespoon of salt and enough pork broth from cooking a very large pork roast (stewed with garlic, salt, bay leaves, oregano and chile flakes) until it was a very soft paste, it made a sparkly, lovely base for the tamale meat. That was made from that pork roast, cooked until fork tender, which I then cooked down with green chile from our garden, more garlic, more oregano, more salt, and comino. We discovered that the comino from the Asian food store is more pungent than the comino we have found elsewhere. I also made a batch of filling with chile caribe from chile pods my mom sent from New Mexico. Yum. Oh, and the darker side of that tamale combo we made from blue corn masa (7 cups) mixed with 3 cups regular corn meal (and all the other masa ingredients). These may be the best tamales I’ve ever eaten.

We used our new space to make tamales. We are looking forward to making cookies with all the Grands this weekend. We are all feeling well enough to get together, and for that I am truly thankful. We look forward to seeing them, and then to having bizcochitos to share with my church group. We already delivered tamales to neighbors. Spreading New Mexico traditions in the Big Woods. It also gave us a grand incentive to get the driveway cleared. Oh come all ye loved ones!