Snow Days ...Gods When Will it End...?

Firstly.. Sorry to not have written anything in a while. Life in general has been hectic here.

Now about Snow days... the first year we were hear we had sooo much fun with them. Seemed like every other week the school would cancel days on end. Well in the last 2 months aside from the normal time off they have had an additional 2 and a half weeks off. ...and last week it got ridiculous. The last couple days they had off there was no snow on the ground and one of them was a day it rained all day. I jokingly said on Facebook that it wasn't a snow day it was a “rain day”.

It was so bad that back on Monday I joked about the fact they'll call school off on account of heat... as it was in the 50's in January. The intense cold did give us a minor problem. Our pipes froze, just one segment and it was the important one. The outside pipe leading to the house from the well. So instead of waiting for thaw we just went out and bought some PEX pipe and re ran it.

On the pigs we were going to get... Seems they died in the cold we had along with the goats these people owned. Now my only problem with this is that we own 1 goat. She lives in a shelter made of tarps, concrete board and some rolled roofing. Theirs had a post beam structure and 3 goats in total. I'd think the three goats would be able to keep each other warm. While the only help my goat had was hock deep straw and my daughter's blanket. Shrugs

We got our van which was out of commission working again. Spent over $300 on the repairs till we replaced the right thing. Funny thing is everything we replaced needed it, but wasn't the problem till we got to the final one. It was the MAP sensor something that costs $40. Well at least we now have a new...

Fuel pump

Fuel filter

Distributor cap

ECM

Spark Plugs

Spark Plug Cables

..so we know if something else happens they won't be those.

My son gets to go on his first maneuvers with the National Guard next weekend, hope he enjoys it. Right now all we are currently doing is making plans for the building we are going to do. The house is low on the list, have so many other things we need doing first. Well house, outdoor kitchen, layer house/yard, goat house/yard, pig pen (as we are planning on trying for some other pot bellied s).

Well That's it for Now.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Snow Day version 2

As in yesterday the kids had a snow day.  We had a reasonable amount of snow finally for this winter, and due to the rain that fell before the snow...
  As you can now see the pond is now full!  YEAH!  Now if it just stays full we'll be doing very well.  The fun part we had yesterday was that the top was all slush. so just to see we were tossing snow balls onto the top of the pond and it would hit the slush leaving a dent in the slush which under it would fill with liquid water.
Do you see all that wonderful snow??    It was a fun storm that is for sure as it had started us off with rain Monday afternoon.  Then in the evening, and I was watching it happen.  We got large fluffy snow flakes that as I watched were "sticking" to the ground.
 ...and as for my comment about watching it.  I was standing at the door making sure the dogs didn't run off while they went out to go do their business; which took less than five minutes.  So I saw the snow starting to fall and "stick" in that time frame.
 At 4 am yesterday morning we got the message that the kids would be off of school for the day.  Which after I opened the door yesterday morning I understood why buses here wouldn't be able to pick up the kids.  As I know the buses here do not use chains they would not have done the dirt roads here yesterday.
 So this morning looking at all the school closings lists the kids were semi disappointed that they were going to school today.  I guess the school determined that the roads were used enough so their would be grooves in the snow on the dirt roads.  I am not sure how much the school bus the kids are on traverse the dirt roads around here.
 This morning the weather person told us due to what the storm is doing we may have snow for the next few days, on and off.  Well I know this will help our "rainfall totals" so that's good.  Though we may wind up with a bit of flooding when it all melts.  Good thing we live on a hill.
 We lost our internet for a portion of yesterday as after the snow storm the dish was coated with snow.  So Silver had to go out and clean it off carefully, and that did it.  Though  for some reason at some point last night it went out again.  Maybe one of these days I'll get to pintrist and put in all the pics I have to put in there.
 Well I have to run the kids around to get them moving a bit more this morning.  Have a great day.

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Snow Day

..well not really, but the kids thought that it would be. It was so funny when the news people even said on the news after the kids got up, “Alright everyone time to get up and get ready for school”. The kids just groaned about that.
We had a bit of good news at about noon today...
  Our delivery of rebar was going to show up today! It was nice to see the work on it didn't take too long to get done with. Oddly, we were the only delivery, so I'm guessing we had the only one that required the flat bed today.      

     I think this loading, unloading device is really cool it's a forklift that latches into the truck.
                           
 Here's Silver setting some wood down for the rebar to set on until we can use it.      

           After the truck left Silver rushed to get out a cutting tool to start cutting some of the rebar for the “stakes” he needs to start the framework of the dome.
                 
 He even pointed them to make them easier to go into the ground.              
 30 minutes later this is what is left of the 4, 20fter's he was cutting up.
  Now he's disappointed as we have to wait till after the track hoe is here and done, so he's practically crawling the walls wanting to get the work done. It only took 2 days for the delivery to get here from 25 miles away. It was the truck's fault.. granted I imagine a horse drawn wagon would have gotten them here faster.    

           Hope everyone has had a good day, and is staying warm!

 Be Well, BE Safe, and Blessed Be...

Chilly, but a nice morning

Such a nice morning out there even though it's still a tad chilly outside.  We have one more day before the house guest/farmhand moves on to their new home.  They just didn't work out here, I do hope their new place does work out well for them.
 Any who.. I finally got the pictures from the first snowfall from this year onto the computer.  These are a couple weeks old so please remember this.
  Doesn't it look soooooooo.... pretty?  I always like watching snow fall and these were the big fluffy ones.  The funniest thing through was the two pups, neither of them wanted to go out into it.  Like they were afraid to touch the strange "white stuff" on the ground. We have not had anything measurable since this  snowfall, though Arkansas did get some a day or so ago.  I wish we had gotten it, we could really use the precip.  Though we are ahead on the precip for this new year ... so far, things can change and I do know it.
   Now for a really cute snowfall picture:
  That is Merlin enjoying his first snowfall, mind you when we saw him there he was jumping each step trying to not get his paws wet.  His sister handled the snowfall much better than him... or at least she didn't do anything silly in front of us.  
 Well so far I can tell you that putting the chickens onto wild bird food does have a downturn in egg production.  It seems by at least half what we were getting before.  Live and learn is my opinion on it, and while I was hoping they would do good on it; I need the eggs.  I think we're going to have to really 'fiddle' with the feed portions when I start making my own.
 Wood stove update:
 It is still working very well, the only thing that I have seen as a problem so far has been one... we needed to do some better sealing around the chimney with the cement.  We are also having an issue with the handle for the door not wanting to move, but I think that's just a simple mechanical issue with the nuts.  It is still putting out a very good amount of heat, and we can simmer food on the surface, which next time I make my stew I may try putting it on the wood burner after the initial cooking.  The beef stew, my lentil stew already simmers on it.
 I have also discovered a side benefit for me anyway.  We have all those cinder blocks around the outside of the burner.  It makes a lovely spot to proof and rise bread dough.  Since having it here my breads have risen beautifully.

 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

sNOw FUN...

Well, today was a snowy day; supposedly a blizzard. So far I've seen heavy snow, after we got lots of freezing rain. Due to when Silver gets his checks every month we needed to run to the store.. that was so much fun... The ride there wasn't bad a couple of slides due to icy roads, we had only had a little bit of snow at this point. We decided so we could be quick we went to Wal-mart, and I saw the funniest thing, they were out of ; eggs, butter (I got the last 2 lbs), water (which I expected). Now they were almost out of toilet paper, cereal, flour, and sugar. Mind you the canned meat isle was still half full. I know if you have propane or a wood burner you can cook without power... but if the power did go out the non-perishables would be a better choice.

This is what it looked like when we left Wal-mart at about 10:30, it had started snowing heavily and the parking lot was a sloppy mess. Not to mention the ride home... We took it slow, but still about 50% of the time we were sliding on the road. Then on the dirt road before our dirt road we almost didn't get past the turn onto it. Our wheels kept spinning and we'd get about half up the first little hill and get stuck. Took us ten minutes to get moving up that little hill then down the road. Once we got moving though we were fine. Speaking of the fun driving, Silver in his infinite wisdom knowing I am an anxious person in the car. Before we left this morning asked me if I was going to being a cup of tea with to drink, now granted my cup is an insulated cup that once had a lid. It no longer does, so i spent the ride out worrying about spilling hot tea on myself instead of the road.

they have already called off school for tomorrow and considering our "Slip Sliding Away" ride home from the store, I would not want to drive a school bus down these roads either. I did have a minor scare, my mother who lives up by Chicago has MS; I have spent a day and a half trying to call her to see if she's OK with this lovely storm. She just returned my phone call and let me know she is fine and does not plan on going anywhere tomorrow.

So for the next day at least we are going to tuck in and watch some movies and do nothing until the weather decides to co-operate with us and be nice again. I do hope where ever everyone lives they are warm and safe tonight.

Be Well and Blessed Be...