After All, There's Only 5 More Sleeps Til Christmas

So, Holiday season is upon us.  It has been pretty busy since I last posted...party, party, party.

J came home for Thanksgiving, and we also hosted JP's sister, brother-in-law, and niece.  I decided to make use of the wood stove to bake the sweet potatoes.  The remainder of our feast was prepared in the customary way.

While J was home we had a quiet, little birthday party for her - # 23.

That weekend, L and I went up to the city to see "Les Miserables."  This was part of her birthday gift.  It was great!

Several days later, at my office, I was finishing with my last patient when the fire alarms went off.  We evacuated the remaining patients and staff and waited around for the Fire Department to arrive.  In short order, they determined that a water line had burst in the ceiling of one of the staff offices, and caused an electrical fire in a ceiling light, setting off the alarms.  The water and smoke damage was pretty much limited to that office.  While restoration is ongoing, I am sharing my office with the providers who are currently "homeless."

I attended the retirement party for the Executive Director of the Library last week.  I worked with her for 12 years on the Board of Directors, but have seen her regularly since J was a toddler and we attended Story Time at the library.  L is currently her employee, so she was there as well.

L had her office Christmas party last week and is currently at another Christmas party with her friends.  I had my office Christmas party on Monday.  We did a White Elephant gift exchange, so I made some "Emotional Support Chickens" to exchange.

Last weekend, we got about 7 inches of snow Saturday into Sunday.  It was beautiful but too cold to appreciate!

L and I had tickets to see "The Nutcracker" on Saturday night, but it was postponed to the following evening due to the weather.  JP got our drive cleared, and the Township got our road cleared just in time for us to get there!  It was a very good show.

We decided this year that our old Christmas tree had seen better days and could retire.  We took advantage of a 50% sale at Balsam Hill, and purchased a new pre-lit tree, which arrived this week.  We are waiting to decorate until Monday, when J can come home for the day.

JP has started his new job this month and is enjoying the fact that he can get home in 20 minutes after his shift ends!  He is working his first weekend this weekend.  L and I worked on baking cookies and other Christmas treats today.

I'll leave you with one last picture of a gorgeous sunset that we witnessed this week on Poplar Ridge.  Only 5 days until Christmas, and much to do...

Cleaning House

JP and I have been off work this week.  By that I mean that we are not going in to the office, but JP has been spending about 3 or 4 hours/day on charts, and the rest of the time we have been working our butts off outside.

On Monday morning, I cleaned the house, while he started cutting up the first of 2 timber piles for use in the outdoor wood burner.  After that, I raked/shoveled gravel in the chicken yard, that the hens had managed to scratch about 15 feet out from under the concrete slab that the chicken house is built on.  By that time, JP had enough wood cut for me to start hauling it and stacking it under the barn lean-to.

On Tuesday, JP finished cutting the first timber pile, and moved to the second.  I finished hauling and stacking that, and then cleaned up the bark and sawdust.  It made these nice stacks of wood under the lean-to.



You can see the split wood stacked along the back - that
is for the woodstoves indoors.

We were side-lined for a couple of hours on Tuesday when the tractor got a flat tire.  JP & Dad were able to fix it, so we could get back to work.

Yesterday morning, Mom & Dad helped us butcher and clean the old hens.  We are now down to an even 2 dozen young hens, and we got 18 small eggs yesterday.  That afternoon, JP continued cutting wood, while I canned chicken (8 quarts) and cooked the backs for broth (4 quarts), and hauled 2 loads of water for the cistern.  He also "stacked" what he had cut, and now says he is done for the season.



My piles are prettier than his!

We all went out for dinner to celebrate JP's birthday last night.  It was lovely to not have dinner to cook and dishes to wash!

Dad has been busy too.  He built a permanent compost bin down where our temporary packing crate bins have been.  He will rebuild the other side next year after we use the compost out of it.

This morning, JP had an appointment with his Ophthalmologist, who gave him the bad news that he will need surgery.  It is tentatively scheduled for the end of October.  I had a Parent/Teacher conference with L's teacher, who was SO impressed with her reading!  I stopped for an oil change for the Subaru on the way home.

Once we were changed, we masked up and cleared a year's worth of litter from the chicken house, then cleaned and closed down the other side where the peeps grew up.  It smells fresh and clean out there now, since we used shavings from Dad's wood shop.  The young hens seem to enjoy it too.

Now I am headed out to clean all of the minions (aka stink bugs) out of the tree house, so that the girls and I can have a tea party out there this afternoon.

It will be clean houses all around on Poplar Ridge!

Windy Saturday

It is a quiet morning up on the hill.  JP is off on a mission in Ole Bessie, yogurt is incubating in the kitchen, the dogs are dozing in a sunbeam, and the girls are in the tree house, plotting who knows what.  The wind is howling through the bare trees at times, but the sun is shining brightly, and the sky is clear and blue.

The sheets are whipping around wildly out on the clothesline.  While I struggled to get them pinned securely to the line, the dogs were out and running about in a manic manner.  They haven't had a good romp since last week, when they took off after deer while I was bringing fresh water to the chickens.  They loped back 30 minutes later, quite pleased with themselves, and smelling of 2 month old deer parts that they rolled in while in the woods.

Although the night temperatures have dipped below freezing the last couple of nights, it has been cozy and warm in our house...even in the bedrooms, where the heat from the wood stoves does not typically penetrate.  We bundled up and went out last night to look at the moon with our Christmas telescope.  It was a bit breezy, which made the telescope (and therefore the image) sway, but it was impressive, none the less.

The new wood burner is truly making all the nooks and crannies of our home warm!  For the past 24 hours,  I have not built a fire or carried wood.  The wood stack on the veranda is low, but we will not haul wood to fill it this weekend.  All the hot water we are currently using is being heated outside.  There are some down sides though:  1) The unit itself lacks any charming curb appeal.  Let's face it...the thing is Ugly (with a capital U)  2)  Although it only needs to be stoked with wood (or coal) every 12 hours or so, the stoker inevitably gets a snoot-full of smoke, and comes back in smelling that way.  These are things we will have to experiment with, in order to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives.

This is the view from my kitchen window now

As I mentioned previously, JP is off in Ole Bessie to the next county to buy coal.  Ironically, although the coal mine is the largest employer in our little town, there is no place to buy the stuff locally.  Since our burner is built to burn either wood or coal, we thought we'd try the coal option to see if the benefits are overwhelming.

I am currently procrastinating.  It is time to put away the rest of the Christmas decorations this weekend, I guess.  It always seems to take longer to stash all the things back away than to take them out each season.  Sigh...I need to get going if I am to accomplish anything today.  Tonight, my girlfriends and I are going out for dinner and a movie, I am SO looking forward to it!

All's Well That Ends Well

It has been an incredibly chaotic day!

Some how the Sears repair man got rescheduled on the same day that the folks from Somerset decided to come and install the outdoor wood burner.  It is also the day that L and I don't have other pressing matters, such as work or Speech Therapy or errands, so sometimes we get together with friends.  I invited people out to Poplar Ridge today, since I had to be here to let repair men and installers in.

Everyone arrived one after the other this morning.  The men got stuck in the mud out past the barn while trying to unload the wood burner.  Dad and I cleared out everything from under the barn lean-to, so they could off load from that un-muddy direction.  They finally finished up around 8 PM tonight, so I suppose I will now have to learn how to build fires out there now!

I put a path of rugs from the french doors downstairs, leading into the storage area where they were working.  These are still brown from mud, although I've vacuumed them several times...I'm just glad they were down, so I will not have to steam clean the light carpets down there!

My washer is finally repaired.  I tried the dreaded "Rinse and Spin" cycle this evening, to rinse out towels that I used to sop up puddles around the water heater down stairs.  This is the cycle, the ONLY cycle, that had been leaking.  No puddles under the washer afterward, so it is really and truly fixed!  Dad helped me re-stack the dryer, which has been sitting in the craft room for the past 3 weeks.

I really needed to get out of the house this evening, so as the sun began to go down, I checked the tree house (which had been a bit wet after the rain storm earlier in the week).  It is nice and dry now.  I filled the bird feeders and gave the cats food and water.  As I was finally coming in, with a load of firewood, the sunset was gorgeous.

The girls went right to sleep tonight.  All the messes are cleaned up as much as possible for the time being, and I am ready to collapse on the sofa with a cuppa tea and some shortbread to watch Downton Abbey.  I feel very deserving of that tonight, after this day that passed in a flurry.  Some how, this week is nearly over.  I'm not sure how it happened, but thankfully it sped through gracefully and not as clumsily as it has been known to in the past.

Naughty or Nice?

Miss L has been extremely unpleasant lately.  JP and I are trying to figure out if she is 1) overly tired, 2) coming down with something, 3)  otherwise stressed in some way, or 4) other.  It has gone on long enough now that we have ruled out the first 2 options, and while having some Mommy/Daughter bonding time this afternoon, she assured me that she was not sad or worried about anything.  That leaves the all-encompassing "other" option, which means we just hope she grows out of it SOON!

She may be weary, at this point, of JP and I telling her that she is acting like a 3 year old.  I know I'm tired of telling her!  In any case, she is turning 7 in just a few days.

When we haven't been dealing with L's issues, we have whiled away our commitment free days. 

We played in the snow Saturday, before it melted back into mud. 

Kali

Both dogs...

Stella the Snow Dog

...and girls enjoyed themselves.

Watching from the tree house...

We had home made tacos with friends on Sunday.

Today we actually worked.  We hauled fire wood to fill our wood rack on the veranda.  JP and I also organized under the lean to by the barn and stacked 2 more truck loads of fire wood underneath.  We also cleaned out the chicken house and gave them a thick, fresh layer of wood shavings to scratch around in.

In our extra moments, we finished baking cookies, and have been slowly working our way through our Christmas movies.  "Polar Express" is currently airing.

This evening we tried out the Christmas present from my Dad:  a beautiful pizza peel and pizza cutter.  I used some of the venison Italian sausage that I made with my parents a few weeks ago.

Tonight, the night before Christmas, when all through the house, we are tired and cozy with our wood fire burning, and are acting extrememly nice for the last few moments before the Big Guy comes through our french doors to fill our stockings (he can't get down our chimney...too narrow and tortuous!)  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Wierd, Wild Schtuff

I sort of remember an SNL skit of Johnny Carson saying over and over again, "That's some weird, wild schtuff!"  Those are really the only appropriate words that I can find to describe the past couple of days!

Yesterday, J took her first sick day from school.  L was actually fevered and vomiting the night before.  Miss J was merely warmish and complaining of headache and stomachache.  She did lay low until the afternoon, when she seemed to revive.

This morning the excavator was delivered...again.  After it sat, missing one tread, in our back field for an entire weekend, we planned to have it brought back last weekend.  When we were advised of a forecast calling for 4 inches of rain over last weekend, we rescheduled for yesterday AM, and then at the threat of snow yesterday, for this morning.  It did indeed rain at least 4 inches, beginning Thursday night, and ending briefly for a small spot of sunshine Monday afternoon before it started again, and turned to snow yesterday morning.

It was interesting to slip and slide on frozen mud out to the chicken run this morning!

Our internet was out most of the day.  We discovered the issue when we were trying to start school work this morning.  It is rather difficult to do Cyber School when the cyber part is not in existence.  L and I packed up and drove to town.  After her  Speech Therapy, we went to the Library and made use of their free wireless for awhile.  When L got too hungry, we drove across town and made use of the free wireless at McDonald's to finish up school.

Yesterday morning I received an email from L's school stating that there would be a Holiday Bowling party in Canonsburg this afternoon.  I was excited 1) because this is first school function that they have scheduled closer than a 60 minute drive away, and 2) the girls have never been bowling.  So I made arrangements to pick J up in town, and drive the 40 minutes to the Bowling Alley right after school.  Of course, on the way to pick up J, we had to turn around and re-route because of the road being closed for pipe line work.  (Grrrr!!)  When we arrived at the Bowling Alley, there was no one from the school in attendance, and I was told that there were no reservations for today under the name of our school. 

Since we drove all that way, we went ahead and bowled a couple of games.  L got a strike in her second game.  Two frames in to game number 2, J got her attitude on and began stomping and pouting and informing anyone who would listen what a stupid, dumb sport bowling is.  Yay!

We arrived home to find that the excavator is apparently working just fine.  Dad had dug a 3 foot deep ditch running the entire way across our driveway, so we had to park outside.  There is a small foot bridge in place so that we don't have to jump across to get to the main door of the house.  That was interesting to maneuver carrying the groceries!  By tomorrow afternoon, it should mostly be filled back in.  This is phase 2 of our outdoor wood burner project (the pouring of concrete the day after Thanksgiving was phase 1.)

The Moat

Do you see what I mean?  Weird, wild schtuff...all day!  Hope tomorrow is of the boring variety, after a sick day yesterday, and the W.W.S. today, I could use a bit of monotony and quiet!

Turkey and Concrete

The sky was blue and bright this morning at 8 AM when the concrete truck rolled up our hill.  An hour and a half later, it was raining and cold.  We managed to get the pad poured in the lean-to, and still have time to eat two ENORMOUS meals today.

For brunch:  sausage patties, scrambled eggs, bagels, shoe fly pie and coffee.

For dinner:  turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, corn, applesauce, roasted butternut squash soup, and rolls

Later tonight we'll break out the pumpkin and pecan pies!

The forms that JP built yesterday



Starting to pour



After we screened the pad



JP floating the pad



 I'm thankful that the concrete project worked out, and so did dinner.  Were there ever any doubts? 

JP's left over turkey castle

They are calling for snow flurries tonight, so we finished in the nick of time.  I'll post pics of the finished product tomorrow.

Revenge

I have spent the past several days ruminating on a string of unfortunate things that have happened lately to my friends. Over the weekend, I told one of them that it felt like Sept. 11th all over again: I was apprehensive to see what/who would get hit next.

In the past 2 weeks, two of my good friends have been dismissed from the local University. (This is making the situations sound far less complex than they truly are.) The resulting reality to me is that JP & I will not only lose our friends, as they will likely travel to some other town with another University to start over, but our children will lose their friends that they have known for most of their lives.

The twisted thing is that I have been more conscious over the past month of the incredible riches I have been blessed with in this town as far as friendships are concerned. I feel like I have been robbed!

So, for 4 or 5 days, I have been very sad.

Today, I got mad.

Add that to the fact that by 3:30 this afternoon, J had only completed 2 of 4 lessons for the day, and L was being obstinate about her final lesson, in Art. I announced that school was over for me for the day and they could finish up on their own, and I marched out of the house with a hatchet.

I spent the next 30 minutes chopping kindling for the wood stove. It was good therapy. I'm feeling much better, although I still had to take a break to wipe my eyes and blow my nose in the middle of posting this.

L is still sitting downstairs staring at her crayons. Maybe a little "therapy" with the toilet brush would work wonders?

Hodge Podge

While I had the step ladder out to water the plants this weekend (yes, I have to use a ladder to water my plants weekly!), I decided that it was high time to dust up there. Nasty. After everything was sparkling clean, I got inspired to dig out my Fall decorations. Yee haw!



This morning, J needed a quiet place to read while L and I were working on Math class. I set up this little reading nook in a sunny corner of their play room, which they both fell in love with. By the way, this morning L finally earned that blue feather boa by getting dressed and upstairs in 15 minutes for 5 days in a row.



This weekend, JP built a cover for the 5 foot deep window well by our main door. Since we are almost ready to install the woodstove in the downstairs family room, this hole will be a storage place for firewood that can be accessed from downstairs.



Finally, just a couple of pictures of my new flower bed.



The morning glories have only been blooming for the past week. They look like they are trying to escape out of the flower bed..."Feed me, Seymour!"



It's been a long day: school for 2, took the dog to be groomed, attended Monday Music in the Park, soccer practice for J, and Library Board meeting. I'm signing off...

Home Fires

It has been cold this winter. Below freezing cold for days on end, with a respite of 35 degrees thrown in here and there. It has been lovely to keep a fire burning in the wood stove in order to keep the house in the 70 degree range, and know that my electric bill won't suffer because of it. I can usually start a new fire in the morning with the embers left from the night before, using the previous day's junk mail as tinder.

Since we were out all day, and there was no fire, the stove was cold and dead tonight. I tried unsuccessfully for at least an hour to get one started, but it would only smolder and smoke. Finally JP did his thing, and it is roaring again...but not in time for me to bask in the warmth before climbing into my cold bed.

Instead, I am warming my brain by munching Godiva dark chocolate in tiny bites, and feeling warmth in my heart thinking of the wonderful people at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh that we encountered today.

J returned to see her Rheumatologist this afternoon for joint injections in her knees. She was dreading this procedure, which is the common reaction when you inform someone that they are going to have needles stuck in their knees. The procedure was planned down to the last dot on the consent form. The nurses gave J a stuffed puppy to hug during the injections. The Music Therapist had even been scheduled to help with diversion. She sang songs with J, including "Stinky, Stinky Diaper Change" (sung to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star"), "Jimmy Picks Boogers" (sung to the tune of "Jimmy Cracked Corn"), and an original composition about our dog and cats.

It is incredibly difficult to watch your child suffering and be unable to help. I am reminded often these days of my brother and sister-in-law, who spent many months in and out of the Children's Hospital several years ago when my nephew was ill. I asked my brother once, "How do you do it? How do you take him to all of these appointments and know that they won't all be pleasant, that he will still have a terminal illness? How do you go on?" He told me "I just do it. He's my son, and I do what I have to do for him."

No child should have to experience what so many of the patients at Children's do. No parent should have to watch their child suffer. But it happens. Life is not fair, as I tell my girls so often. The wonderful thing is that there are those special people who make the hard things just a little easier, with a stuffed toy, a silly song, a joke or even a hug. I feel extremely lucky that our situation is one of the better ones that walk through those doors in Pittsburgh, and I admire my brother and sister-in-law even more for their walk, which was incredibly more painful than ours.

So, with the powers of dark chocolate working their magic on my brain, and the cockles of my heart glowing, I will go warm my toes by the fire before dashing off to bed.

Firewood

JP, being finally cleared of his 10# lifting limit following surgery, decided to spend the weekend bringing in firewood. I started the first fire of the season in the wood stove on Friday. After nearly smoking out our guests for Tea, the warmth became contagious, and JP has kept a fire burning ever since.



He purchased pallet fork attachments for the tractor, then used them to carry 6 trees up beside the garage and cut them into 18 inch lengths with the chainsaw. I even tried out the chainsaw for the first time ever. I'm surprised JP trusted me with that, when I'm clearly a menace with kitchen knives and other sharp objects!



After that, we used the splitter to get about 4 trees worth of logs split and stacked. It's a good start, but not enough yet for 2 households for the entire winter! I vastly recommend doing this on a sunny November afternoon, rather than in the midst of 2 feet of snow while feeling desperate to provide heat in the house!

L came up to me with a sad look in her eyes. "I don't care about winter," she said. "What I care about is nature. You and Daddy should NOT be hurting those trees!"

It took me a long time to convince her that we did not cut any trees down, that these trees were already dead and lying on the ground.

Eventually, she and J got busy building a Mega-Super-Fantastic-Polly Pocket-Play-Land, and all was forgiven.



We were invited to my parent's house last night for desert and to watch part one of the Great Migration series on the National Geographic channel. I expect it will be the first of many such visits...they are planning to move into their house this week. I've been quite remiss in posting pictures of their progress. I will try to get a few up soon! It will seem quite quiet and empty here for a while, but I'm sure my kids can manage to fill up any empty spaces and quiet times!

Toasty Warm

JP and I visited with the Loan Officer today to refinance our home loan. We were able to decrease our mortgage by 1.3%, take 5 years off, and decrease our monthly payments by about $100. All good news!

My Dad finally got the stove pipe needed to get our little squirrel wood stove up and running. We have been using it for the past 2 days, and things are staying toasty around here.



Dad got the trim and fixtures in the guest bath, and I managed to get the trim painted this afternoon, so I figure that it's done enough to showcase. Ta da!