Our Week . . . So Far

Once again, the long, slow winter has not yet begun.  We have no snow on the ground yet, all that we see is the barren, colorless November landscape.  And more items on our lists than seem possible.  (Just who adds all those tasks??  And would somebody please stop it?)

 

Our week started off with a trip to the big city for overdue eye appointments for both of us.  In our usual attempt to kill two birds with one stone, we each drove a vehicle an hour down the road in order to leave our pick-with a body shop to get the tailgate which no longer opened without the use of a sledge hammer (not quite, but almost) fixed.

 

It was not a pleasant first hour of our day.  The highway was covered with a glaze of ice (good gawd, where were the salt and sanding trucks?!) which caused a white-knuckled trip and a speed which never exceeded 35 mph.  Thankfully, the other traffic was also driving sensibly, and we saw only one car in the ditch. 

 

Fast forward through the day.  We didn't get out of our eye appointments until 4 p.m. which meant nearly all of the 2-1/2 hour trip home was in the dark.  We drove together again until we picked up the truck an hour from home.  Although this last hour of traveling in the two vehicles wasn't as bad as the morning, there were still slippery areas to navigate.  Couple that with the night driving (with four still slightly dilated eyes from the eye exams) and we were both very, very thankful to pull into our own driveway and have Monday's travels over and done.  (I'm not leaving home until next May.)

 

Since I missed my usual wash day of the week, yesterday was spent on laundry.  And hours of painting in the heated garage.  (Another project that I won't spend time explaining in this post.)  No time for ironing although several of Papa Pea's wool and heavy flannel shirts had been laundered and need a good press job.  I'll get that done today.

 

I should have taken our Thanksgiving turkey out of the freezer to begin thawing on Monday morning, but completely forgot about it until yesterday.  Whew, hope I thought of it in time for it to be thawed enough for the oven tomorrow.

 

Speaking of birds, a hawk is wreaking havoc on our poultry population.  We've lost two hens and a duck in the last several days.  On Monday morning as we were leaving for the big city, we saw a hawk fly up and out of the poultry yard.  The birds were still locked up for the night, but when our daughter stopped by later to open up the birds for the day, she found a hawk entangled in the electric fencing.  She went into the house to get a means of "taking care" of the hawk but in the couple of minutes it took her to return to the area, the hawk had gotten loose and was gone.  She made the wise decision to leave our birds locked up for the day.

 

I've recently spent some time organizing all the miscellaneous recipes I've come across and saved (for how long?) and now have them filed under the appropriate headings in a three-ring binder.  I am so tired of my own cooking that either I'm going to give up eating (fat chance) or find some new taste-tempting dishes to add to our menus.  So far, I've had one success, a wonderful fish chowder, and one I'll-not-be-keeping-that-one, a "different" recipe for sloppy joes.  Lots more to try so I'll keep at it.

 

Our high-sided trailer has two axles, one of which had to be replaced five years ago.  If we had known then what we know now, we would have had them both done at the same time.  Now the second one is in sad need of replacement, but it's been a tremendous stress producing ordeal getting the proper parts.  Someone really should have had a video of Papa Pea and me underneath the trailer yesterday with camera trying to get a picture of the information on tags on the replaced axle in order to replicate (which is necessary) the first axle.  I can only say I had a much easier time getting under the trailer than back out again.  Ouch, bang, crash, I'm stuck!, owie, owie, owie.

 

 Never a dull moment around here.  When does that long, slow winter start?