We got our first real snow this morning, and it’s sort of been power flurrying all day long. Not really measureable, but it coated everything and made the world white. I’m calling it the first snow of the season.

We had lots of confused critters, of course. Faith and Buffy are still unsure and walk around licking the ground and eating snow as it falls from the air, very cute.

The geese were pretty laid back about the whole thing. I remember the first time they saw snow a couple of years ago — here — with hooting and hollaring and honking and telling me all about it. But I guess the grown ups passed down the info to the babies, so they just took it in stride. (Have I mentioned how much I like having the geese? They are so easy to keep, so pretty, so entertaining.) We are starting to get inquiries for Christmas goose, of course, and have to decide how many we need to do.

My foot it doing much better today. I can almost walk, just barely a limp. So I spent some time puttering in the kitchen. We got a box of 25 pounds of organic almonds that I’ve been trying to decide what I want to do with. I love almonds. I love almond butter. I heard someone somewhere made almond butter with maple syrup, so did some experimenting, and it came out well.

Pour boiling water on top of 3 cups of almonds and let that sit for about 5 minutes until the skins come off easily. Then toast in a 250 degree oven for 10 minutes. Turn off the oven and leave the nuts in so they dry completely. When cool, pulse in a food processor until crumbly. Pull out 1/4 cup. Process the rest until it turns to butter.

(I’d tried it before and didn’t let it go long enough. I saw it was a powder, added some oil and continued on. But if you go past the powder stage, suddenly the oils will be released and no additional oil is necessary.) (I’ve also tried it before without blanching, but I like it this way better, and it didn’t take that long to get the skins off. I wonder how much of the nutrition is in the skins?)

Add back the reserved bits of almonds. (I like mine with some crunch) Add maple syrup to taste. I used less than 1/4 cup — probably 1/8 cup. I added about a half a teaspoon of sea salt.

It’s really good! Extra-crunch Jif peanut butter was my guilty pleasure, but I don’t like the crap they put in it, so have been looking for a better alternative.