It was cold, can you tell? This was Sunday, the day Tad abandoned us. Nathalie makes cards, for every occasion. She spends a long time making very special, decorated cards with nice neat handwriting and good spelling. She made sure that Daddy's card was done by Sunday so that, "It will arrive in a timely manner and by that mama, I mean on or before Valentimes." Valentines Nathalie I tell her, but she wont remember though she spells it correctly.
I thought she was so cute in his big coat, covered with bits of hay and straw (not because its my coat while he is gone), her long stretched out nightgown (I made the neck bit too loose and this is it's 3rd winter), dirty, purple snow boots and can you see that she is wearing yellow strawberry covered leggings? She is also wearing aqua colored knee socks on top of them. Like I said, it was cold.
It is supposed to be quite cold tonight and possibly dump some snow on us. I am very strange and opposite about winter, many women get tired of the gray cold and miss spring/summer. Well, I love spring and fall but I hate summer. I get the gray, desolate, this will never end feeling by the 3rd wk of summer. So for me, as the grass is never greener (not that I mean my daughter feels that way about everything), I do NOT Miss summer. Some people genuinely love summer. My friend Nikki and my friend Amanda, thorougly enjoy summer. They miss it, because they LIKE it. I dont mean they love being overheated, but they love to garden and handle the heat better than I. I handle the cold better, because I get heat migraines. I enjoy gardening, but it must be early in the day and late in the day, in the winter, I can work day AND night! Anytime! I love that about it, and I just happen to love cold, snow, blowing wind, even white outs though my preference are sunny days when the ground is covered with deep pretty layers of snow. I dont care if its -15, if its sunny. I do tire of gray dampness sometimes, but love the cold. I will not love the summer, and will find ways to deal with that the best way I can by rising early. I dont enjoy the fact that I am trapped in the house part-time, but its been 31 years this way-I am used to it I guess.
The children and I worked hard today mucking barns and stalls, laying new straw down for clean warmth, fixed a hole in the chicken barn where a skunk was sneaking in to share their dinner (not my pet skunk-she is dead) and we hung blankets in the buck doorways. These blankets are made of 200 wt Polartec fleece, water and wind proof. These bring up the temp in their barn rooms by 20 deg on avg, which they enjoy. We cleaned water buckets and cleaned out feeders, cleaned brooding box and put in new straw, all in all did a good job preparing for any storms or bad weather. We also cleaned and filled 55 gal barrels in the basement, they are filled with water. If we have an electrical outage, I wont have an easy way to water the animals. This was my idea after Amanda and I spoke of generators, I dont have one yet so am making sure to prepare in other ways. Our well has a diaphragm-55 gal holding tank that we can cont using even if the well pump stops, and plenty of bottled water, 2 fireplaces, a kerosene heater and extra kerosene and plenty of food, but the animal's water was hard. With this plan, I can carry or truck down water in a bucket for everyone to drink 3x a day and they will be fine. I positioned the barrels out of the way, but they are near the fireplace and in a very insulated basement.
Thats all for now... sorry for so many words, for those of you who only come for the pictures.
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