Friday, November 28, 2008

Winter Epiphany and other tales

So Wednesday marked our first official snow. Of course i had to go into town, but i have all wheel drive. By the time we were on our way home, 10:00 ish it was really coming down hard. I could tell the roads were starting to get slippery. The kids were so excited! We got home, brought the groceries inside and put the snow clothes on. Harland would honestly stay out all day if you let him. They came in for lunch soaking wet and freezing. I now know exactly whose coats are water proof and whose are not. In the mean time I called Mike to let him know it was getting bad. He was up on sugarloaf. The snow was so bad there he actually had to leave his van down at the entrance and get a ride to where he was working. Guess we are buying 4 studded snow tires this week. He left right away. It took him over two hours to get home! He did take the longer, less hilly way and there was a minivan flipped over. The kids went back to play in the snow around 2-3:30. By this time it had started to turn to rain. Only one child minded...guess which one. So here is what we know. We aren't prepared! we only have one snow shovel and no salt or sand. Mike's van sucks in the snow. Waterproof boots aren't always totally waterproof. Mike fixed the leak in our bed room! We have a new leak in the play room. no big deal except the roof is too slippery to get up there. We have a wonderful neighbor who is going to plow for us. Yay! Our driveway is huge! 6+ inches of snow + frozen solid ground + heavy heavy rains all night long = big giant muddy then icey mess!
That is not the epiphany. Here it is. For the first time, since mike and i have lived together, i can still heat my house when the power goes out. no more power outage panic! Not only that, I can also cook! On monday our power was out for almost 3 hours. it was like 15 degrees outside! we were toasty and i made dahl and rice for dinner. no problems! how awesome is that! I Love that wood stove! no worries!
We got some amazing news this week. Anna, our land lord said we can farm some of the land this spring. just 1/2 acre but that is plenty to get us started. we probably won't do a greenhouse yet but maybe before the season is up. i am so excited! so are the boys. At the absolute least we can cut our grocery bill way down. we are planning to sell at the farmer's market as well. we have some big ideas, we will see if we can pull them off.
Thanksgiving was great. we had dinner at home, just the family. i made tofurkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, Tssimes( sweet potatoes, potatoes, carrots, prunes and sweet cinnamon broth) gravy, cranberry orange sauce, collard greens, and rolls. lots of work but lots of yum! We were all very much stuffed in true thanksgiving spirit. The boys also did the oral ("oro") presentations. Very impressive. Gaynor's was for Maine studies/History. He did the Abanake Indians. Forrest for history did Leaf Erickson and the true discovery of the Americas. He chose to do a power point presentation. Harland did Dinosaurs. It is too funny how he does everything just like his brothers. Their next assignment will be due Christmas day and will be on three different celebrations. The rules are, no computer, must be 3 minutes long and contain 3 visual aides. should be good.

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