A whole week's gone by

I can't believe it's been a week since I last posted!

Today is my grandson's birthday - 13. I don't know him well since he lives in Texas and I in Oregon. It is hard for either family to travel, so I have to rely on my daughter to tell me what he's jup to and to send pictures of all the kids (which she can be bad doing! - Love you Hon!!!!) In most of the pictures that I have of him, he looks like he is up to no good as soon as the picture has been taken! He is a very nice looking young man and has a charming smile. He is the youngest of the grandkids behind two sisters, ages almost 21 and almost 19!

I had my daughter when I was very, very, very young! Don't even go there!!!

It has been cold here, no I mean COLD! Like last night is was -6. Today got up to 16, I think. I have had the faucets trickilin for the last 3 days and I still froze up. Get out the little heater, check the pressure in the tank (off the well). Hmmm, I used the bathroom, flushed, and no trickle from either the bathroom faucet or the one in the kitchen. I called Dale to see what the first thing I should do - take heater to pump house, check pressure - OK, I'm on track. He also said to leave a faucet open - ok - Iwent todo that after I put on the boots, hat, scarf, coat and gloves. Hmmm, water !?!?!?!? I still took the heater down to the pump house, plugged it in for a while. Turned up the trickle at the faucets while I ran to the post office (1 bill - blahhh). Everything worked just fine when I got back.

I had also noticed that the bottom metal piece on my house skirting had big gaps in being attached to the wood part of the skirting. This is a major contributor in my pipes freezing! The wind and the cold just flies right under there and does the freeze thing. My battery charged drill had 2 dead batteries. Oh, fun. I'm out there in 9 degree weather with a manual screw driver, balancing on the balls of my feet trying to attach frozen metal! I had some left over hard insulation from the pump house, that I leaned and packed against the gaps that were remaining. I sure hope it works because I don't want to go through that again! I almost lost my balance and would have landed right on my butt right in the snow. And I only had sweat pants on - no jeans, no long johns, no bib coveralls....... just a quick job - sweat pants! My hind end was sooo cold when I got back in the house it hurt.

I traipse down to the pump house to turn off the heater, but left it there since tonight is also suppose to be very cold.
This is a view from my back door looking up into the trees. COLD.


The next one is still looking out the back door but on the ground and to the right of the one above. You can see the icicles hanging off the roof, and those are after I knocked down the really, really big ones. The kennel is in the corner of the picture, but I could no more put the dog out there in this cold, than I could live there myself. There is only about 5 inches on the ground, but it is crusty.



Joey will only use the cat box if he's in the house and I'm gone. Otherwise, he wants out. Well, sort of. Let's say he needs to go out, but really doesn't want to. I have to coax him to come to the door. He will hem and haw about leaving the top step, and then when he can't stand it any more, he will charge out there amonst the trees. Do his thing, and then he will charge back to the steps, and if I didn't see him coming and forget to open the inner door, he would be flattened against it! He is not happy out there when it is this cold, and don't forget he sinks. He will look for previous foot prints to step in rather than make new ones (unless he's charging!)

If he's slow, and I go in before he decides to come back, he will go around the house to the front, and the following picture shows you how he lets me know he wants in . . . you cannot ignore a cat that will keep that up indefinitely! Thank goodness for aluminum screens - can you imagine what the fiberglass ones would look like? Even these have holes and small tears. Ahhh, Joey, one of the loves of my life.



When the temperature is in the twenties, he's not quite so bad about going out, but will always let me know like this that he wants in - even in summer.

Oh goodie, the Weather Channel just told me it was 3 degrees outside here in our area. I'm going to let you go so I can throw some more wood on the fire!

I can't even think of any thing profound to leave you with except:

STAY WARM!!!!!!!!

(((Hugs)))