Cross-country skiing

Everything gravitates to the woodstove on winter mornings.
Even the boy and the cat!

In the center of the picture, over the trees, a mountain is visible through the clouds.

We decided to go cross-country skiing today...

...but got delayed
taking pictures of each other!
There's Steven!

And there's me!


This looks cool. The snow-covered trees, the stormy sky, and the sun trying to peek through.


Steven led, and the dog raced ahead and back and side-to-side on the trail!


A frozen lake.

Steven and Odie look over the frozen lake.

Odie returning from one of her full-speed circles!
She's like a torpedo going by!

After the lake we skiid on through the woods on an old trail.

We passed a marsh, very still in the cold, quiet air.

It was about 20 degrees.

Just perfect for skiing. The snow isn't too warm and sticky,

yet it's warm enough not to freeze us.

Me.

After about 2 hours of skiing we stopped for a snack.

We left our skis and poles on the trail and climbed up the bank into the woods.

We sat on the pine needles under a tree where there wasn't much snow.

We shared our food with Odie.

See the piece of bread in the air near the top of the picture,

and Odie's intent look as she's about to catch it?

Our trail came out on an old logging road, so we went skiing along it for about a mile.

From the logging road we had to turn back off on the trail we skiid in on. The trail went over a steep hill with some tight turns. We took off our skis and walked over the "pass" on the way back. Of course I was carrying my skis and poles and didn't get pictures of the interesting parts of the walk.

The cat was happy to see us when we got back.

She can't imagine why anyone would volunteer to go out in the snow and cold!

"Aww, how cute, the Steven-person thinks he can do Sudokus!

Silly person! Sudokus are for kitties!"

"Okay, persons, place the cat food and water behind me, the litter box to my left....I'm not leaving the woodstove again until it's over 70 degrees outside!"

All I want for Christmas is....

Steven, this is my Christmas list...

(That's Tim's shadow as he took the picture)

Tim

Tim...or "Timmy" as we keep calling him and keep trying to remember to call him Tim!

He doesn't mind. In fact, Tim is pretty easy-going about everything.

Sometimes I worry he thinks we forget about him, because he's never been a problem.

Never made waves.

Always anticipated what he could do to help, and jumped in and did it.

He has a great sense of humor. Mostly dry humor.

He's pretty much quiet but when he does say something, it means something.

When my mom died, we were in the car after the funeral, leaving the church to go to the cemetery. Tristan piped up and said he'd swiped one of the pens from the church, which is the church we attended when I was a kid. Lots of memories!

Anyway, I said "Well, I'm glad we got something for that $250" (which is what the church charged us to have Mom's funeral there!).
(I know, that was probably a rude thing to say)

But Timmy tuned in right about then, and he said "TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS FOR A PEN??? What, do you work for the government!"

I found the following picture in one of the photo albums from the kids' childhoods, and I

asked Tim how much he would pay me NOT to put this picture on here!

You're probably thinking he didn't pay me and that's why I'm posting it.

But he just laughed and said "Nah, it's okay, I kind of like that picture!"

Tim, age 5

Notice the tools in the waistband too!

I almost missed them, with the distraction of the sunglasses, hat, and flamingos!

Tim, age 22

Leaving for work at 4:45 AM

for his 8-block commute to work.

20 degrees.

Tim

Third week of December

After all that snow, then warm weather and rain, now it's cold again.

This morning it was -3.

On the bright side (literally!) it was sunny, which

means lots of charge from the solar panels!

Steven made his own roof-rake out of PVC pipe and a board.

It does a great job.

This porch roof is not sloped much,

but the other roofs are, and it's easy now to just pull the snow off.

After I took this picture he went and pulled

the snow off the barn roof.

The kitten and dog weren't impressed with the snow.


I hope the cat doesn't catch Steven with it's Sudoku book!


In the bowl is dehydrated eggs. I'm using a wooden pestle to crunch them into smaller bits.
They rehydrate better that way, in addition to using warm or tepid water instead of cold.
We're learning as we go along!


Ron and Burma gave us this terrific coffee pot, which we've enjoyed using for a few
years now. It makes great coffee!

I used some of my cloth scraps to make ornaments for the grandkids to put on their tree.

That's one of my mixing bowls I'm using as a pattern to get a good circle.

I'm a "floor" person and do a lot of my work sitting on the floor.

Now I'm sewing trim on the ornaments.

And here they are, stuffed with fluff and ready to hang!

David and Andrew with theirs.

Cat in the middle.

Notice there are cats everywhere we go! lol

Anna, who has been eating chocolates, holds her ornament toward me for the picture!

Her daddy, Kevin, got the box for Christmas from a friend.

Jonathan with his ornament.

Next I went to visit Barbara.

This is her cat, Bonecrusher (boney for short).

Don't be fooled by the cute fluff...
lol

Barbara was totally fascinated by my visit and the lively conversation!

ROTFL!!!

I left shortly thereafter, before Victor fell asleep too! ha ha!

Earlier in the day I stopped by the grocery store where Barbara and Tim work.

Tim came along, pushing this stuffed toy in a cart!

He was returning the cart out front and putting the toy back out on the shelf, but i

gave him a hard time about it anyway!

Barbara didn't know she was in the picture.

I handed her the donuts and stuff I was going to buy

so I could take the picture of Tim.

Barbara
Dairy Dept. manager

Later I picked Tim up after work.

We met Stephen at Wal-mart, and they discovered the toy dept.

These boys aren't even in their teens any more!

lol

Steven and I helped fill the Christmas bags to be handed out by the food pantry

Me.


On the way home we stopped to fill water jugs.

Our road, not far off of the paved road.

We let Odie go to town with us today.

She wanted to drive!

middle of December

It's the doldrums of winter.

Not much interesting going on. It warmed up the last few days and we got a considerable amount of rain. It beat the snow down and dissolved it some, but we still have quite a bit.

But now, the snow will be crummy and we can't ski or snowshoe on it until we get about

another foot of snow on it.

This is what happened last year, and then winter wasn't much fun any more.

Back by popular demand...the cat!

"If I just had opposable thumbs I could hold a book and a latte!"

"Oh sure, they think this is cute and they're taking pictures,
but who's going to help put my hips back in their sockets?"


We made french toast on the woodstove, using homemade bread and reconstituted
eggs from the ones I dehydrated back in the summer.
It was delicious.
We're learned that the dehydrated eggs soak up the water better when you use warm water instead of cold.



Among the many hot pads I've been making I made a couple of camo ones for a friend.
They seem so big until I round off the corners and sew on the trim.


I also had a friend ask if I could make insulated pan handle pads/grips/whatever you call it.
So I made a "prototype".


I used cotton fabric for the outside, terry cloth for the inside, and sewed the opening with
bias tape trim.
This one is a bit thin in diameter because this pan has a long, slim handle.
The ones I made after this are wider.



"My toes are freezing! Hello, anyone there? I'm ready to come back in now!"

The kitten (yeah, right, something that BIG is a kitten?!) ducked outside when the door opened.
A while later I was in the kitchen and saw the cat sitting on the propane tank
looking in the window!

I've been busy finishing up on the hot pad orders, and doing some writing, along with the normal cooking, cleaning, and laundry, plus some reading.
The snow is slick and icy, so we have to put the boot cleat things on in order to walk around outside. I haven't ventured past our outbuildings in a while, but I do my stair-stepper
machine for exercise.