January 12, 2015 Rime & Fog & MAX

Oooops!!

Rime on the dry grass.

Friday 1/9.  Fog clung to the canyons and valleys all day.  Just another reason why I love being Up Here.

Speaking of being Up Here, the first few years were filled with projects inside and out, new discoveries, and a whole new learning curve.  Now that we are into our seventh year, we have settled into a mountain way of life.  I don't wake up with the same kind of excitement as I did in the beginning, but more of a contentment.  Still have projects.  Still making discoveries.  And it may not be as interesting to read about, even though I still seem to have a lot to write about.

Talked to our son and it seems that our daughter-in-law refuses to cook him squirrel brains from the recipe in the Duck Dynasty Cookbook we gave her for Christmas.  Just don't understand it. . .  He wears his Duck Dynasty boxers.

No sun today except for the few times it was able to peek through the clouds before noon.  Our high for the day was 35.  I defrosted the fridge and freezer this morning.  JB drove MAX down our road in hopes of packing down a couple problem corners.  It didn't work out like he had hoped, as MAX is much lighter than Miss Kitty and its weight is more evenly distributed along the tracks.  Having ridden in Miss Kitty's enclosed cab all winter, he forgot how cold it can be in MAX.  He did dress more warmly, but obviously not enough.  I fixed us some hot chocolate when he returned and he drank it standing by the wood stove.

We finally made pizza for dinner tonight.  I went out to turn on the generator so JB could use the big mixer, then we let it run til after dinner.

Watched The Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again and laughed til our stomachs hurt.  The tour is made of of Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, Ron White, and Larry the Cable Guy.

Saturday 1/10. It was 25 and foggy this morning.  A good day for attacking inside projects I've been putting off.  Like filing.  Or, more accurately, organizing all the articles I cut out of magazines and newspapers.  I will have to live to be 100 in order to read all the books about which I have cut out information.  Or use all the products that sound interesting.

As with so many other things, the weather also determines what time of day we wash the dishes.  Normally, when we have clean water and do our laundry at home, we do them while the generator is running for the washing machine.  Now that we are doing the laundry Down There, we wash the dishes in the morning if there is enough solar power, or in the evening when we need the generator to charge the batteries, as we did today.  With one low battery in the bank, the main problem is keeping the charge.  Where as before we could go for a few cloudy days without using the generator, now it needs to be done every cloudy/foggy day.

The fog engulfed us all day today, and our high was 27.  The snow is gone from the trees, and now they are being rimed in white, along with all the bushes and tall grass.  Rime so delicate with its tiny, crystal webs.

Note to self: Next time the pathways melt into slush, shovel them off so they do not turn into skating rinks when it freezes again.

We started watching the third season of Warehouse 13, from the Sci-Fi channel.  One of the DVDs our son gave us for Christmas.  Very entertaining.

Sunday 1/11. It was 29 and overcast this morning.  We received a dusting of snow at about 6:30 am and it looks like more is on the way.  That 29 degrees was actually our high for the day.

I plan to go Down There on Tuesday to do laundry and some grocery shopping.  Now that we have Miss Kitty, I don't feel the need to stay Up Here for four to five months during the winter.  I can drive her down just fine, thank you very much.

Every day after she eats breakfast, Ding goes outside for her morning bark.  We think she is telling all the critters to stay away.  We rarely look to see if there is actually anything out there.  However, should Jesse also bark, we know for sure that there is something close by.  He doesn't bark at deer, he simply chases them off "his" property.  This morning they were both outside and both barking.  Shortly after Jesse started, Dinga wanted in and was acting very nervous about whatever it was.  Coyote? Cat?

There are deer tracks near the tipi and chicken coup.  I can just see them out there at night going, "Neener, neener, neener!" to the dogs. . .

With all the ice on the paths, I let the fire wood sled go on its own about halfway to the house.  Today it followed the path almost all the way to the chicken coup!  (See photo above.)

The girls sure love the thick layer of straw on the floor of their hen house.  It is about 10" deep and they dig around in it, making little nests.  Sometimes when I go inside, there is a wall almost 2' high against the door!

It kept trying to snow til about 1:00 pm, but just couldn't manage more than a few flakes at a time.  We were on the very southeast side of the front and never did receive more than a dusting.  A more serious snow began to fall about 6:00 pm, but we didn't get more than 1/4".

Monday 1/12. It is 25 this morning and a partial overcast has sliced off the mountains at the foothills.

Thought for the day: Forgiveness is not an occasional act.  It is a constant attitude.  Martin Luther King, Jr.