December 27, 2009

The temperature dipped below 20° during the night - yes, the outside temp! I was up around 7:30 and Carlo already had started a fire going. It snowed several inches during the night and the snow was still lightly falling as the birds got started on breakfast. Wonder how many will body slam themselves into the door today! The colors surrounding O'Wich are pretty muted for the most part...at this time of year there are brown trees, dusted with and standing amidst white snow. There is rarely any movement except for the feather filled sky of the cluster of birds. And of course the crazy squirrels - one of which leaps as though he can fly!

We trampled a path from the wood pile to the cribs and I am now Paulette Bunyan - without the axe and ox - however we have sleds! Carlo and I froze our butts, hands and feet while bending and stretching and slipping and sliding while we moved the wood. In 4 1/2 hours, we moved lots and lots of wood. We filled both cribs, put wood on the deck of the outhouse, put two piles on the front porch and barely took a break during this time. We were sore and exhausted and had all we could do to muster up energy to have lunch.

We have barely a few hours to rest, get ready and prep some snacks before Steve and Cathy arrive for our evening get-together. As we waited, the bird vs window count is up to 2 and there were several deer that ran across the property closer to the river.

Carlo ran for bird seed and suet and I started cooking. When he got back he hung up the driveway alert that Rick and Katie gave me for Christmas. To check that it was working, he pretended to drive in and out of the drive - he wasn't in the truck - but it was funny. It will be great to hear people arrive prior to their knocking on the door.

Steve and Cathy arrived promptly at 4:00. We had appetizers, visited, ate sloppy hoes and then played Apples to Apples. By 8:45 they were gone, the kitchen was clean and we watched TV to end our very busy, laborious, achy day. Ahhhh!