Written on Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Confusing?  I hope not.  During my month of December's hiatus from blogging, I did write a couple of posts as a continuing record of what was going on in our little homestead.  I'll post them within the next several days to give an idea of some happenings during last month.

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Got the first ground cover of snow in almost a month.  With the snow came strong winds and a drop in temp.  A reading of 14 degrees now at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, December 5th.

Up until last night, (well, outside of a nasty ice build-up on side roads and our driveway) driving has been easy and we've taken advantage of it by gathering another bunch of wood we've been given.  (It's good to know folks with harvested trees they've no use for!)  We didn't have to move this last batch until this coming spring, but given the mild day time temps and the lack of snow, it seemed the prudent thing to do.

Papa Pea and Gilligan were the main workers on this project cutting and hauling as Chicken Mama has been getting in more (paying) work hours than usual lately, and I was delegated to keeping home and hearth in good shape and running smoothly.  (I think that meant, mainly, making sure there's good food on the table three times a day!)

This is what our back wood working area looks like now.  We sure didn't expect to have so much wood to be worked up at this point in time.  Not that we're complaining. 

Last Sunday Chicken Mama and I spent the day together baking Christmas cookies.

This was the last batch of dishes done (I think we did about four loads like this during the day).  The goodies we turned out have been much appreciated by any and all cookie eaters in the near vicinity, so I can only assume the whole project was a success. 

I got a little fancier than usual (very unusual for me) spending some extra time when frosting my sugar cookies.  (And, yes, sad to say, that IS fancy for me!)

This morning and the high winds brought another challenge for Papa Pea in dealing with our solar panels on the tracker pole out in the field.  I won't go into the details but after having one problem after another with wind damage, we're beginning to be sorry we didn't install them on a stationery platform on the ground.  (Current aside:  Oh, if only we had know what would happen on December 23rd!!)  Back some twenty years ago when we first put in our system, we were advised that to gain maximum solar energy, a rotating system (that would follow the sun from sunrise to sunset) was the wisest way to go.  But if we had it to do over again . . .

What have I been doing with my "time off?"  So far, I've not had as much "free" time as I'd like.  (Greedy bugger, aren't I?)  However, I do currently have three projects spread out in my quilt room.

I'm making a holiday (dark green and red) crocheted rag rug to go on the floor in front of the kitchen sink,

I finally decided on the fabrics for a "summer" couch quilt,

and am using up not-my-favorite colors of heavy rug yarn in making two rugs I'll donate to our second-hand resale store.  (Their profits are distributed among non-profit organizations in our county.)  I thought they might make nice rugs for a little girl's room, maybe as a Christmas present?

Besides these projects, the second sock of the pair I've been knitting for Papa Pea (just call him Big Foot) has been started,

as well as the first sock of a pair for myself which is getting close to the heel turning time.

That's the update for December 5, 2017.