Frro Frro Frrozen!

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Since Yule, we have had a lot of snow. Probably a foot all total, maybe a little more. We’ve also had really LOW temperatures. One night was -27C. Brrrr! Most nights have been -15C. On New Year’s Eve, the truck door froze, and Dan broke the handle trying to open the door.

Our pipes have been freezing every night, and today Dan ran an errand and left the tap open. He came back to find the Wendy House bathroom flooding out into the front porch area. Luckily, it was only about 25-30 gallons of water. I just laughed, and Brandy kept running up to me and barking as if to say, “Dad messed up! Dad made a mess!”

It’s also been cold enough that we’ve had both RedTom and Brandy in at night. We’ve had a furbaby detente,  with minimum growling and hissing. What made this really “fun” was that the first morning, we woke with about 8 inches between the dog and cat. Dan was the separator. This morning, Brandy had her head over Dan’s leg, so they were about 4 inches apart. Gaaah!

At least heat has not been an issue in the main part of the Wendy House. We replaced the two tin can lids with three brand new mica windows. The stove works so much better.

In the mean time, we’ve been catching up on reports for work, and a few other projects. I finished a pair of socks and on New Years Eve, we watched Longmire until the clock turned.

Plus, 2015 so far has been the year of meetings! I have 6 in the next week. Aieee! The pictures below are of the two snow storms, RedTom, and Brandy.

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Okay, it’s been like FOREVER since I last posted.

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It’s been busy. Never Ever let anyone tell you that taking care of your elderly parents is easier than babies. Nope. Not even gonna believe that. It’s been three months of adjustment and reorganizing. Between shopping, drives, housecleaning and just everyday things, my life has been HECTIC.

Plus, it’s been busy. Usually our lives slow down around the end of the Celtic Music Festival. Not this year! Our one client in Denver moved, and we’ve been doing a lot of work getting their new home tech ready. On top of that, having new admin in the school district has been interesting. We’ve gotten more done in the last few months than we have in the last few years. Oh, and Morgan goes off to College in January.

So, now for some highlights.

Sunday Drives. In trying to meld my parent’s schedule in with ours means that we try to take Sunday drives. We saw some brilliant aspen in October. November and December brought sunny but cold days with snow. We also try and have breakfast at this little diner in Trinidad, called Bob and Earl’s. It’s the kind of place you walk into and everyone knows each other. Good food too.

Along with this is the Wednesday shopping in Pueblo which has been fun and yet eaten my life!

The Spanish Peaks Community Foundation Gala.  A night to dress up and honor people in the community. It was a very nice evening and lovely to dress up!

Skunked! We were woken up out of a dead sleep around 3am. Our dog Brandy got skunked on the front porch of the Wendy House. We had to open all the doors and windows, and I sat up until nearly 6am, trying to breathe. Ugh…

So, instead of working on some of our various projects, we will be washing Brandy and her area along with bedding, curtains, etc. I hate skunks.

Halloween. Dan and I handed out candy on my parent’s front porch. We must have seen over 300 kids. It was a lot of fun, and the weather was so nice!

Outlander Yes, I’m a fan. The series was fantastic. And… All the costume work. So much of it that a group formed on Facebook with all sorts of knitting, sewing, crocheting, etc. I have knitted two shawls and a cowl. 🙂 One man put out a survivor’s guide.

School stuff Our new superintendent is great. We’ve worked out a lot of the issues that the district has had problems with in the last 6 months. We have a lot of new staff as well, and it seems to be going well. Plus, we took a big chance. We bought iPads for every student in the district. It’s been interesting. We’ve also started a clothing bank. Too many kids without coats or basics. We are running out of a class room. 🙂 I went to the CASB Winter Conference at the beginning of December as well. It was a really good conference. Lots of info, ideas and connections.

We’ve had a Veteran’s Day celebration which honored Vets from our community, and local nursing home, and some creative literary nights. Night at the Museum was a lot of fun. The One Room Schoolhouse was great too. We also had a holiday dinner at La Plaza. More dressing up. 🙂

Weather November had some bitter cold and snow. Brrr! December has had it’s surprises as well. We are having a white Christmas as there was about 6 inches of snow on the 22nd. Oh, and it’s going to snow on Boxing Day as well. (26th) Lots of deer in the yard too, eating everything.

The Wendy House. We painted! We trimmed! We built another raised bed and oh have we gathered, chopped, split and burned firewood! We got permission to trim up two dead trees and were given two loads of wood. Wow. Morgan teased us that we love Halloween so much that we live in a pumpkin. Oh, and we got a bathtub and on demand water heater for the bathroom! 

Family. My Great Uncle Richard Ridge passed away on Halloween. He was 91. My Great Aunt Ann Sudar had her 100th birthday on December 13th. That was a wonderful party with 75 friends and family present. I got to see a lot of Sudars I hadn’t seen in years.

The Great Experiment Dan and I have been looking into hydroponics and aquaponics. So, we tried a small inside experiment. There will be more on that on this blog. We learned some lessons and will be trying it again in the spring.

Thanksgiving. My sister and her family, my aunt and her family, my parents and my family all got together for Thanksgiving dinner. Eleven people for three days. Wow! It was really nice.

And now for some pictures. 🙂

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Rain, rain, rain, oh, and More Rain.

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It started yesterday. Just a wee mist of rain. My mom and I were running errands, and I swear that every time we got out of the car, it rained harder. By the time I got home around 4pm, it was cold, wet and miserable. The alley was dumping mud out onto the street like it did this summer. Our front porch leaked more and my sewing area was getting soaked. The wind did more damage to the roof than we’d realized. All the rain also meant that Dan and our friend Mark were not going to cut firewood.

So, today between taking my parents to the library and for a drive, I started moving my sewing room into the living room. I had to change how the room worked. I knew where I wanted my sewing stuff. That was the easy part. The difficulty started when I wanted to move my white cutting table in and place the tubbies of fabric. Keep in mind that all of the stuff which I’d been storing in Morgan’s room is now in the living room. Once I got to a certain point, I asked Dan for help.

Do you know what happens when you get one person with great spatial relations and an engineer in the same room trying to rearrange it? Chaos. 🙂 At one point, he tried to put a coffee table, a cedar chest, a lamp table and the rocking chair in the same 6 x 8ft space. It took a few hours, me landing on my arse at one point and a lot of furniture shuffling, but we figured it out.

As I was trying to figure out what to do with all the little knick knacks, I realized that Halloween/Samhain and my birthday were less than a month away. So, I had Dan get out the box of decorations and I decorated. 🙂 This is my favourite time of year.

Now we only have a small pile of stuff in front of the fireplace to find a new home before it gets too cold. (oh wait… it nearly is!) That and figure out what to do with the dining room table which is still living on the front porch.

Oh, there was one family member who wasn’t happy with the new arrangement. RedTom. He keeps waiting for the stuffed cat to jump him, and he just can’t get comfy.

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Oh the Chaos…

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Since last I had a chance to write, life has been just a little chaotic. First we had the Mountain Miners Day on September 20th. While I didn’t watch the parade or go to some of the events downtown, I was involved with a play written by Barbara Yule. It’s called “For Tomorrow We May Die”, the story of Mary Thomas. It was about a woman who survived the Ludlow Massacre. Originally it was a 3-4 person play, but turned into a one woman dramatic reading by Tanya Perkins. I made an apron and scarf for part of her costume and was the school connection as we were holding it at Washington School. It was lightly attended, but Oh My! It was beautiful.

The next week was a surgery for my dad, a school board meeting, a field trip with the school STEM class, a CASB (Colorado Association of School Boards) conference and the Celtic Music Festival. Yes, just a little jam packed. Dan drove my parents up to Colorado Springs for Dad’s surgery. I stayed home and attended the school board meeting.

On Wednesday, I went with Mark Thompson and his students to the Wings over the Rockies flight museum in Denver. That was a lot of fun.

Thursday was crazy. Once again, lots of stuff to get done. Dan was gone doing Celtic music festival stuff while I got things done around the house and prepared for the concert in Gardner. A Taste of Things to Come is always fun. The Gardner community center was packed.

Friday, 5:30am. Up, dressed and out the door to the CASB conference in Pueblo. Dan was out the door an hour later to work the festival. Lots of good info at the CASB event, and then home just in time to help at the first concert at the Fox. Full Set played. It was heavenly. Got home and got a phone call… My Dad was in hospital with an infection.

Saturday, 5:30am. Up, dressed off to Pueblo. Legislative delegate day at the CASB conference. I finished up by 2pm. Took Mom out to the hospital to see Dad. Then off to the evening concert and the 10th Anniversary concert afterwards. We got home around 1am.

Sunday. We got to sleep in until 7am! Wow! Off to La Veta for the final day of the Celtic music festival and the final performance of “For Tomorrow We May Die.” Oh was it grand. Packed house. Not a dry eye either. Oh… Oh my.

Afterwards, we went to see my Dad again. He was not doing well. Confused, etc. Monday thru Thursday was a mix of hospital trips, running errands, meetings, and playing catch up with work. Oh, and lots of planning. Friday, we got to bring Dad home. It was also the day that the doctors told him no more driving. So, Dan and I are now “Driving Mr. Sudar.” Luckily, Dad took it well after an initial bit of shock.

Over the weekend, we’ve tried to get ready for winter. We chopped firewood, cleaned up the yard a bit, brought plants in and have driven Mom and Dad wherever they needed to go. Somewhere in here we got our bathtub for the Wendy House. We hope to plumb it soon.New tub2 On Sunday we took a drive up Cordova Pass to see the aspen. Ahhhh… it was beautiful.

This week has been yet another rush of work, driving and meetings, and it is only Tuesday. Ah Chaos, thy name is normality around here…

Bits and Bobs

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At least that’s what it feels like we’ve accomplished since we came home from Battlemoor. Lots of little jobs. Clean this area, cook dinners, work on the gardens or the Wendy House. One big improvement was storage. We ‘floored’ the loft over the kitchen and rearranged the storage. No more tubbies on the ground. Plus, we added coat hooks, hooks for the iron, etc. It makes life just a little more livable. I even had a Western Scrub Jay come check out RedTom’s food dish.

Some of the time has been spent with Morgan. Her 18th birthday was on the 10th. Wow has time passed. I made green chile and a carob mayonnaise cake. The recipe uses may instead of oil and eggs. Our friend Mark and his daughter Catherine came over for dinner and cake. It was a good evening. Thursday night we went to their house. Friday was chaos.  It was Cold! I think we got to 41F! Fire in the wood stove and heavier clothes than I’ve worn in months. Brrrr!

Inside there was packing, laundry and trash. Morgan was getting ready to move out. Dan took her to do laundry and a few errands. Morgan left for Fowler, a room mate and a job on Friday night.

Yesterday, Dan worked on organizing his office (an ongoing project) and concealing the network wiring. We no longer look like we live in an IT closet!

While he did that, I cleaned Morgan’s room, moved sewing storage tubbies in and made the last loaf of Artisan’s bread. This is the first time I’ve tried it. Very nice. I’ll be playing with the recipe over the next few months.

Then it was time to tackle the Wendy House. Threw all the scatter rugs outside, and emptied the bathroom and Brandy’s area. Swept, mopped, dusted, etc. I wiped down everything in the bathroom as I replaced and reorganized it. I hosed down the rugs and Brandy’s bedding. Most of them were too doggied to throw in a washer. While I was doing that, I got bit by red ants. Ugh… It burns! It swells! It makes me feel horrid! I slathered on Benadryl and kept going. Vacuumed the bedroom and swept the main living area. It was so nice for it to be clean.

Plus, while we were waiting for things to dry, I had a thought. Brandy would be warmer if her bed wasn’t on the floor. While trying to engineer this in my head, I was cruising Off Grid Quest, a website I visit. I came across one of the pallet stories and *POOF*! An idea was born. Dan went down to our local feed store which gives away pallets, and grabbed a load. A bit of circular saw work and Brandy had a bed platform. She was a bit uncertain at first, but it looks pretty good. We might fancy it up a bit, but for now, it works. We also have pallets for future projects and/or firewood.

Today is going to be low-key. I still feel like dreck from the ant bites and all the dust I ejected from the Wendy House. Dan mowed my parents yard and is finishing up the last of the office work. I’m going to make another batch of artisan’s bread and dinner with all of the veggies from the garden.

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Battlemoor V… Last Photos and a tale

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Yes, a tale. You made it through all those photos… So you deserve a giggle.

The porta potties are placed in various spots around camp. Those closest to us were on a bit of an incline. Enough that you worried about falling out…

Dan got up in the middle of the night over the weekend after consuming about a gallon of liquid. He’d not drunk enough, so ‘stocked up’ during dinner and just before bed. Predictable results… He had to visit the porta potties. It was late at night. He was Very Sleepy.

As luck would have it, he climbed into the most tilted one. He thought he locked the door. As he relaxed and relieved himself, he rested his head against the door. He hadn’t locked the door, and rolled out of the porta pottie and into the “street”. As luck would have it, no one was around. No one saw him hit the dirt.

So, he got up, dusted off his butt, pulled up his trews, finished the ‘job’, and came back to bed. He didn’t tell me until morning. Moral of this story… Always lock the loo door!

 

 

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Battlemoor V… another Album. :)

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Pictures are wonderful. They show how life has changed, and reminds us of the fun we had. These are pictures of the two Courts and the many fighters. Dan also wrote a ditty as one court was so long.

The Tale of Battlemoor V

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful tent
That started from Walsenburg
To attend a fun event.

The king was a mighty knighted man,
The Queen was brave and pure.
The populace were in attendance
For a three hour court, a three hour court.

The weather started getting rough,
The tiny camp was tossed.
If not for the actions of the fearless bard,
The pavilion would be lost, the pavilion would be lost…

Anyone care to continue?

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