Merry Christmas 2024

Grandma and one of her puppies

Grandma came down and had Christmas lunch/dinner with us and watched a few Christmas shows.  Mark made a beef roast with rice and potatoes and sides and cinnamon stewed pears that I made in the toaster oven.  Mark and Esme gave Grandma a huge bag of fudge that they had made three flavors of.

Esme sitting down near the goat's feed dish trying to tell the puppies they don't have to bark at the goat.

The white one (Patches) wanted to eat her hair.  The black one (Tippy) still wanted to bark at the goat.

 

 

Merry Christmas 2024

 

and 12 years ago

So now dark has fallen, I've fed the rest of the animals and it is really still too early to go to bed.  I have the laundry done, and did cleaning yesterday (yay), and I don't want to get quite into that book (but I had time to think about it, bonus!)... so I put a pot of pea soup (snert) on the stove and made a coffee pot full of very strong chai tea which was the last of the chai mix I had made last year.  Mark got me a weighted blanket for Christmas - so it is tempting to go try to take a nap under it... or to sit and play a game for two hours... but as I was laying down for a minute I thought you know what would be really good right now?  Some very savory spicy soup that does NOT come in a can that way.  So, soup it is.  And I went ahead and did some extra language lessons - bite-sized ones. I've done Japanese and French today.

 

Snow 2024 : Episode Three

 

 

The crochet floor rug I'm working on, the other one is still a big hit downstairs but there isn't enough of it.

 

Today was Too Much Adventure, as I call it.  I was called in yesterday to do the full city walking postal route, and I did, get it done, and got home with only some fishtailing and 'hold your hat' over the hill, but I did not enjoy it.  And today, they called me and told me that kid was calling out again, and so I came in - delivered the packages, and it was only two and a half hours, but it had begun to rain and then it was due to freeze again.  

 

I tried three times to make it back up the hill to my house (after the highways were clear, but our side road is NOT.. and it was 29 degrees and people were sliding all over town even on clear highways, I saw the reports).. and the truck was smoking, and I decided to call it 'it could be worse - let's not have it worse' and park it in a neighbor's turnaround with a SORRY note sticking out the window with my phone number on it.  It didn't block their drive - but I'm sure it was 'what, why?'... but the other option was keep trying as it kept getting icier and maybe end up upside-down in the ditch.  The second and third time I tried to get up that hill I was sliding on the return towards the ditch also... and it wasn't fun at all.  

 

So, I threw on the emergency gear I had put in my seat each day this week for walking in this weather- big rubber boots (which, I actually wore on the route today as well as my good shoes got soaked yesterday) and an oversized parka over my normal parka jacket - and walked the mile and a half home.  I'm hoping to go out there (also dressed like this) in a few days when it is close to water temperatures again and take my plastic sled and a bin of salt with me and see if that will make the difference to get me the rest of the way home for the melt on Monday (when I'm scheduled again though, before the melt) **sigh**

 

A self-portrait of me walking in my big orange parka and rubber boots today

 

 

 

Melody, our mostly blind goat, enjoying some time inside (tied to the desk, because she singes herself) next to the propane heater

 

The heater is popular, here is Melody (nose showing only), Minion (cat), and Charlotte and Daphne (dogs) before they realized I had a camera and was taking a picture of them.

  

Chickens asking: Where is dinner? 

 

Charlotte going out with me to check on and feed the chickens.

Snow 2024

 

Mark says at least four inches - maybe as much as 6 in some places

I went into work in the post office this morning - fraught drive in, fraught drive back - they sent us home with a bit of pay for making the trip.  I was glad to be home and safe.  There's more snow in the forecast, and Esme is off school for much of the week now... we'll see how the rest of the week goes, but we might be in through the next weekend.

 

Esme brought a few things up to Grandma for her birthday yesterday, before the snow started in.  I've been knitting some since we got home, and doing French.  When it's this cold outside, I've been 'counting noses' every few hours and definitely every time I get up in the night, making sure no one is left outside.  The chickens are even being smart enough to use their house outside - they usually roost on top of it under the canopy, which makes me roll my eyes - but they're chickens... after this snow, they split between the house and the little igloo next to it (two roosters) and I hope that is better because last year the ones that insisted on staying on the roof anyway frostbit their combs and it took a good while for the tissue to get better.