So it's December

You know the drill.  Nothing happened but it was interesting anyway.

So we have had a number of concessions while deciding what we want to do in the house, what we have to do in the house, and how we will go about it.

In the Battle of Chandelier, I was victorious.  It was a hard fought battle, but once I had washed the dangly bits, I declared myself the victor and there was really not much any one man could do about that.  He hated the chandelier, but acquiesced  as I was persistent and also enlisted the aid of anyone who visited to help persuade Darwin that we should, indeed, keep the one thing in the house that was not ugly, broken, poorly made or so grubby that it could never be clean enough to use.

My concession, in return, was that a wall, which we called "The Donor Wall"  I thought it would have been good repaired, and left as a partial separation between kitchen and dining room.  He wanted it gone.  One day when I was feeling particularly destructive, I took it down. 

May I say that it was the most well built thing in this house, and it was not an easy job. Nor easy to clean up after.

Mind the mess.  I was going to tidy up and then take out the wall, but knew I would forget to take a pic just before I did that so snapped one right when I thought of it.

Maybe Dar was right.  I do like it without the wall.

I also decided to tackle the canity, thinking that if I could get that piece ready to install, then we would be forced to take out the old, put up the new wainscotting, but first having to put in the new floor and potty.  There always is a "piece" of every project that makes shit get real. haha. This time it was not the toilet.  The vanity was just really pretty and in great shape though the drawers needed some sort of stop, and the varnish on the top was bubbled.  It was just a really beautiful piece and we were very fortunate that Darwin's folks let us have it.  It will be put to good use and enjoyed and I think that making things functional is a nice way to keep our past with us

I sanded it all down, and another concession was made.  I liked this look and had Dar been able to love it, I would have sanded it to make it look worn where it would naturally wear.  He liked the painted look so I just sanded off the rough spots, and the top layer of varnish.  I believe I will do two coats of primer, letting them drying a couple days in between.

For being an older house, and for having only a partial basement with lots of unfinished crawl space, our home is sealed quite tightly.   Dar had a company come in and do spray foam insulation in the crawl space and anywhere else that might let in cold air.  As a result it's quite toasty in here, and incredibly humid.  We did not get to putting in any bathroom fans of kitchen fan yet, so in the winter it's hard to get fresh air in.  It is pretty sweet to be able to breath, not get dry lips and bloody noses, and not be scratching yourself to distraction, I have to say.  The only downfall, I suppose, is that we had to buy a dehumidifier to try and keep the moisture to 50% so that we can actually see out the windows.

The plants absolutely love it here. My orchids barely dropped their flowers and are growing new stems.  The african violet which has never bloomed more than once a year has been profuse since we got here. The peace lily and Christmas cactus are all blooming and the ferns and amaryllis are thriving. 
We got a huge mum from Karen and Tom and family for a house warming gift.  As it was blooming so nice in the fall when the snow hit, I brought it indoors.  It continued to bloom up until a point when it started to look straggly so I was going to pick off some of the blooms for a vase and chuck it.  Look what happened when I cut half of the foliage off!  All the paler green is new growth!  So I finished the job and set it back in the sunshine. Maybe I can keep it alive until spring!

And what would it be without some more pretty crystals?

The birds have been a source of enjoyment as well - we've a rather large contingency of chickadees, the evening grosbeaks which now come every mid-morning, one dumb squirrel, bluejays and nuthatches and lots of woodpeckers

Dar has been fiddling around with some geeky toys, under the pretense of finding ways that we can cut down on electricity.  He invested in a number of Insteon brand electronics that you can turn off and on lights, appliances etc with your phone.  I am not sure that I can always find a practical use for them but it creeps out the dogs and amuses Dar so I guess we have that going for us.

One thing that was quite interesting is that they also make a infra-red camera that can be accessed from your phone, so he installed that in the barn and for our amusement we have taken to spying on the cats.
Hey when you have no TV and it's dark as the inside of a cow, you do what you can for entertainment.

Anyway, so we had 4 Barn Buddies from the SPCA. One of them disappeared within the week after getting her.  The one I really liked disappeared after 3 weeks- I believe something must have caught her :(  We ended up with a pretty buff coloured one who seems to like it here just fine, and Stinky.

Yesterday, with the camera installed, we were not totally amazed to find that we actually had two vagrants coming in to eat and use the facilities.  I had seen them out in the fields in the summer, and now I know why we never have any food and the litter box is always full.


This week Ben and Felicia and coming for a visit, so I am looking forward to that.  I had hoped to do some baking but that didn't happen, so the best I can hope for is that I can tidy up a bit and get into town for some groceries.
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Until next time - stay warm and safe!

It happened this week

Ok fooled you. Nothing happened.

But I will write about it anyway.

The past few weeks, we have been trying to do some smaller projects around the house.  As we are in the slow time for home inspections, we are hanging on to our $$ until the season hits.  Then we can begin some of the larger projects.  Also keeping us from some of them is the fact that it's too cold and snowy outside to do some of the large wood cutting, and then hauling things inside from out.  No matter- we have all the time in the world.

 On Nov. 5th-ish on a miserably snowy and cold day, Pat and Don stopped in on their way back to Saskatoon for a quick breakfast which allowed us to visit with Dar's nephew Tyler (Shaw).  He was on his way back to S'toon for a sound check for the "We Day" event and also some radio interviews.  Was good to see him again- just a super young man.  It occurred to me later that I should have printed the pic out and had him sign it for under the glass table top. 

These past few weeks we were fortunate enough to have guests - always nice!  One weekend was the twice yearly Geekend, where there is much laughing and silliness, games and movies.  And food.  So good to have lifelong friends making the effort to gather.  Also good to have guests who will help you figure out how to hook up the snowplow to the riding mower, and some muscle with which to do so.

The following weekends we have had Dar's friend Kim out who has decided to try his luck at deer hunting.  Mostly we are offering the bed and breakfast service, without the breakfast even, but he was called into action one Saturday afternoon to tag along into town for errands.  One of them was to stop at the SPCA and pick up another Barn Buddy.
      Off they went into town and some time later, while I was out with teh dogs, I saw them return.  Being that it was very cold, I wondered for a split second why they would be driving with the windows open. And then I remembered the cat. 
     Did you know most cats are not good in cars and their main way to show it is projectile purging?

     I don't believe the truck came to a complete stop before both men got out gagging, and gulping in the nice country air.

     I present to you, the newest member of our mouse control team, "STINKY!"

 

It was a beautiful week as far as landscapes.  Grey is not a good colour for the camera to look at, but it certainly does show the mood of winter.

Also this week, with the cold temps. (-33 yesterday with windchill value to -42) there was a return to those fabulous frosty feathers that can only form when warm, moist air from underground rises up and meets that frigid winter air.

If I were Karen, I would probably have photoshopped a little Santa sleigh flying over these little white feathers that look somewhat like snow covered trees.

This was a strange remainder from the heavy wet first snow storm of the year.  The storm dropped about an inch of heavy wet ice snow first before filling in with maybe 6 inches of heavy snow.  The snow clung to everything and it rested on this wire fence.  It was so heavy it just stuck to it, and when we have a few nice warmer days, the ice started to melt through and made this odd sculpture along the fences

Here is Dar in the second storm - in which the snow was too deep and the wheels got stuck in the soft approach to the yard.  It called for much hammering on the ice encrusted snowthrower so the blades would move, and the truck with a tow chain to pull it out.  Luckily it was only -28 and not -38.

 I looked for some snow pants as I appear to have ruined my last year's pair.  I was down to the Value village thinking there is no point buying nice pants that I will also likely ruin this year again.  Those blasted raspberries and rose bushes just rip at them like you would not believe!
     Anyway I found two pair of SunIce snow pants there for $12 each.  Onoe pair is a baby poop yellow and the other pair is red. My favorite colour NOT!  Anyway $12 so whatever.

     So I get to the check out with my $3 pure wool blankets (for the spoiled little barn kitties to snurgle up in)  and there is the nicest young guy that works there, who dresses like he works at Old Navy as opposed to Value Village.  I said "So do you think I will look all stylin' in my red snow pants out on the farm?"
    He looked at me and said "Oh I never say what I think, I just put stuff in the bags and take the money.""  LMAO  Cute kid.  And maybe I could learn something from him, because I walways say what I think, before I even am finished thinking it.

     Ok today it is, believe it or not, -6 out.  I don't really have anything to do outside, but I am sure I can find something.  Maybe dust some trees or make a igloo for no reason at all, except that there are no neighbours around to come ask what crazy thing are you doing now?

    I'm reminding everyone about the possibility we will be able to see a cool comet and here is a link that shows approx. dates and places to look in the sky.  Let's hope this great weather holds out until then !
   

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25052236

Apparently all the cool kids are doing blogs

Ok.  So I don't go anywhere fabulous and I don't meet up with amazing people, and I have to eat the food I make which looks nothing like everything other people post in their blogs.

Good to get that over with right away, so no one is disappointed when they see yet another picture of dogs in snow, or flowers growing in my house or a really big spider that was in my bedroom.

I do miss Facebook simply because I could pass notes and leave messages, and enjoy pictures or thoughts that you guys all posted, but we all seem to post much less frequently than before.  What ended up happening was that Facebook and Google and Yahoo and many other sites have started to make more things synchronized so that once you sign into one site, make a comment or post a story, all the other sites would tell the world about it.  It doesn't seem like a big deal to anyone else, I guess, but stories I would post on Cowbird, which is still a good story telling site, would suddenly send hundreds of strangers to my personal Facebook page.  Pictures I posted on Flickr would have dozens of people trying to friend me. and I worry about people's privacy.  Mostly I just don't like having no clue where my information is going.

Having got that all out of the way, I thought maybe a weekly email might be fun, so as to bore everyone all at once and get it over with. Sending pictures by email here, however, with less than spectacular internet can be problematic.  We sometimes use our phones as wifi when the internet goes down, or is slow, but despite what Sasktel calls :"unlimited service" they send us regular emails saying we've used our phones too much and are therefore being cut back. Que sera sera.

Hence, I decided to make a block and then I can just email the link and this blog site can host my pics and it shouldn't be a drain on anyone's resources.

Ok. So this week started out so amazing with the jewels hanging in the trees that I was pretty upset I couldn't get the camera to see what I was seeing.  The heavy, wet snow we had dumped a heavy layer of wet ice first, and then snow on top of it.  When things started to melt, the snow went first and left these crystal jewels glittering everywhere on the trees. It was just joyous. No other word for it than that.  Except for the one day when it got to -28! (WTHECK!!) it has really been quite beautiful and we've had some sun which just lights up the woods and wowzers!

Try and imagine this with EXTREME sparkle, and the sound of water dripping and little icy bits tinkling to the ground.

This is where, in the summer when we first came out, there was actually a ho made landfill, with bags of garbage and all sorts of crap.  We got is partly cleaned up into a clearing where we could probably make a picnic table and little private garden of flowers.

The storm came from the north.

It really is a winter wonderland

Dogs loved the snow for sure

Yesterday I went for my MRI and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.  I didn't know there would be a dye injected into my arm and a doctor had to do that using an xray machine to guide thin tube in and inject the dye in.  The freezing that was supposed to numb the pain was way worse - it was like hot lava heh.  Anyway, then I went into the MRI machine and was expecting it to be extremely loud.  The technician asked if I would like music in the head set so I said sure, as long as it's not country. 

There was some banging and screeching as the machine set itself up and a country tune came on and she said to nevermind, that it would switch soon.  Suddenly there was a heckova racket and I thought oh dear Lord, she's given me some loud techno dance music, but it was actually the MRI machine haha. Anyway that went on for 20 minutes and then I had to get out and get readjusted and do another one for like 8 minutes or something.  No idea what the results are of course, but should know something in about 10 days she says.



When we got home, I had to hurry and do my Wednesday work and then took the dogs out for a wander before it was dark.  When they both bolted toward the trees I thought it was a bunny.  Oh yes.. a black and white bunny.  Awesome.  Up went that white tail and two dogs stopped dead in their  tracks and immediately rolling in the snow trying to get that terrible burning out of their eyes and off their skin.  Gawd.

So into the house, sore arm and all, and mixed up a batch of de-skunker.  I sponged them both down with the stuff, waited the 10 minutes and then bathed them both.  Luckily it worked quite well considering I couldn't find the dog shampoo.  I ended up using Dawn dish soap and they were grease free and had no food stuck to them so I considered that a success.

Then I washed the bathroom, put teh rags and towels in the machine and had a shower.  After that I made us supper and finished up some work but by 9 I was ready to call it a day, and I did.

Ok that is probably enough for a first installment.  I am trying to order the second last Christmas flyer YAY!!! and it is a bit hard as I hung a bird feeder out teh window where the hummingbird feeder was, and the chickadees have just found it.  So cute!

Ok ttfn !