Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas

Well, this is just a quick little posta say Merry Christmas to everyone. Also I'm doing this by voice on my new tablet. Yes I'm happy. Merry Christmas everyone a Happy New Year!

Saturday, December 21, 2013

a slight reflection .............

Time for the year in review post.   The year isn't *quite* over, but it close enough to start reflecting on it.  It wasn't a horrible year. But it definitely had it moments.  We literally  started this year with the traumatic event of our new Dexter  heifer  going into labor with a full term bulldog calf ....  Plus side is we had wonderful fresh milks for 10 months.  We got goats, and Tamworth pigs, we had a beautiful dun calf..... which we lost severely month later heartbreakingly. The garden was..... Underwhelming at best.  I lost a very dear friend, (Still getting use to that one.  It's funny how small thing will remind you of someone when they are gone).   I got to meet some new friends, and got to meet the team from TheOneRing.net  (THAT was fun!) this year.  We had the strangest Spring weather wise I've ever seen .

Still, looking back, the theme this year was hectic, barely keeping up.  We'd finish one thing, and then plow in to another with barely any time in between to catch our breath.  It was exhausting, and frankly I feel like I've aged a lot this year mentally (and physically).  Dear gods, please let the next year be less...hectic.  

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Rock falls, everyone dies!

I should have know last night when I couldn't sleep that today would be shitty.  And that thud wasn't ice falling off the roof, cuse the cat never flew off my bed at the sound of ice falling before. Well, life is never boring around here, that's for sure.  Let's see... last time I posted here, I was worried we'd lose power. Thank goodness that never happened, but we did get an inch of sleet and 7 inch of snow. And it been COLD.  No melting all week. and no getting of the Mountain either. At least, not with the vehicles we have.  Yesterday dad and bro attempted to meet the FedEX man to drop off some pagajest...And promptly went in to the ditch half way down the Mountain which then took all day and the bulldozer to get out of. Yeah, that sucked. But today was even better!  
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That is the chimney. Chimney aren't suppose to go like.  That is bad. VERY bad. 
And there was 5 inchs of frozen ice on the roof (It use to be snow, but due to some rain we got yesterday it all froze into one big sheet of ice) 
All that ice had to come off for us to get up there and fix it. That  took most of the morning.  It was slow, it was dangerous, and nerves were shot by the time it was over.
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Thankfully, there was a quite fix at hand, or we'd be VERY cold in the house tonight.

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Yay, quick chimney! The chimney also dented the roof coming down. That's a problem we haven't dealt with yet. >.>

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So, the is liek a ton of ice and rubble sitting on the front door that has to be dealt with at some point, a dent in the roof and a temprory chimney rigged up out of the discarded corpses of other chimneys.

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Thursday, December 05, 2013

Sheeter buri ashchhe dheye

Well,  winter just can't wait to get here it seems. As I'm typing this, we are in the middle of a nice winter storm that is currently sleet, but might turn to ice or snow depending on just how the front  move through. We have an inch of sleet on the ground right now. Sleet and snow, I can handle. Freezing rain, and it all goes to hell in a handbasket. 
The weather blew in rather dramatically this morning. It was cold when we got up, then it got colder, then it started raining. thankfully that only lasted a short spell, and turn over to sleet.  
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Thankfully we had a weeks warning that it was going to get bad.  So we scrambled to shore up our meager firewood pile and secure the animals to where they were comfortable.  We were working so hard, I was so tired for the last few days, I couldn't even get to my usual bed time of 10, I was asleep by 8:30! 
And the cold, so cold. It is 19F (-7C ) right now, but thankfull no howling wind.  There is talk of getting to -4 F  (-20 C)  tomorrow night. Ech.  This will go on for at least a week.  Not much to do but stay indoor and sit tight.  I'm really hoping we still have electric in the morning. 
It really blew in some dramatic sunrises and sun sets the last few days.  That was nice. 
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One other little treat. This morning a dozen  Double crested Cormorant blew in and settled on the pond all day.  I could see them swimming back and forth through the shop window.  Didn't want to scare them off, so I didn't get too close, but got some pic and a video.  I rather hope they stick around for a few days. 
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(Video will have to come later)