Living without a garage is proving difficult in this cold weather. This morning, even with the benefit of J going out to warm the van before our departure time, the vehicle was frozen shut. I couldn't get either back sliding doors or the rear hatch to open. Frozen, like everything else outside. So... the children had to crawl through the front, drivers door to get to their car seats. Once we got to school (a 15 minute car ride), I was certain we could all get out. I was wrong. Now, I couldn't even open my driver's side door. So... we all crawled out of the van via the front, passenger door. We looked like a bunch of clowns. I parked the van in a sunny spot in our driveway in hopes of thawing out the doors. We will see if my plan is successful when we go to pick up JJ from school this afternoon.
We came home to a warm home with the wood burning stove hot from J keeping it going through the night. But the fire was not as hot as it needed to be to keep the upstairs warm and toasty. Only three logs left in the house. I peeked out onto the mudroom porch to find no wood stacked out there or in the wheelbarrow. Bad news for me. This meant a cold trip to the barn. I bundled up and made my trek to the barn. Armed with J's warm gloves, his big lumberjack- like hat and my down coat, I pushed the empty wheelbarrow through the 3-4 inches of snow. I filled up the wheelbarrow, after noticing we are running dangerously low on cut wood. After saying a little prayer (to assist me in pushing this precious wood back to the house without dumping it on the frozen ground), I stared to push. I made it. It only took four trips (from mudroom porch to inside the house) to stack my load by the wood burning stove. I am set for the day. I let J do the next trip later tonight, in the dark :) We are going to need to have another cord of wood delivered this weekend. Warming this farm house is pretty easy but not cheap! The combination of warmth via a wood burning stove, electric baseboard heaters and gas propane is working but expensive. Here's looking to summer and very cheap utility bills.
The chickens are doing OK. When they hear us walking towards the coop, via the sounds of crunching snow beneath our winter boots, they start clucking away. Once we get in the coop, they are already at the inner coop screen door, madly trying to push their way through. We have to gently push them away as we try to get into their area to collect eggs, feed them and fill their water. When they are really thirsty, they peck at the snow covering our boots. The chickens are definitely feeling 'cooped up. I feel for them but know they would not be willing to walk on the snow. Sorry ladies but we have to wait for a bit of a warm spell.
I leave you with some pictures from a recent "Downton Abbey" party (thank you Miss Inga for hosting). I was asked to bring a tart. Like most British food I've had, the tart looked better than it tasted. The last picture is my attempt to look pre- WWII (it was a costume party).
No comments:
Post a Comment