Snow Days Just Aren't the Same Anymore

       Looking at Facebook early this morning, I noticed various friends writing about their children's hopes that today would be a snow day.  I  remember back when I was a youngster living in Pennsylvania where it really snowed a lot.  Hoping we would be snowed in.  A snow day was a fun day.  No school.. ergo... no homework.   Ice skating.  Playing in the snow.  Hot cocoa and cookies as we thawed out by the fireplace.
     Fast forward to today.  We are snowed in.  It is bitter cold and the projected weather is for even colder temperatures, with a low of  eight degrees tonight.  That's cold!  Town probably isn't snowed in; they spread salt and gravel "downtown" and on the main highways as soon as a few flakes start to fall.  But out here in the country the snow has accumulated and the rain under it is frozen.  I'm really not complaining,  The snow is beautiful and , despite my former post about Oscar and Felix,  Moshe and I work well as a team. We had our work cut out for us today...

  First we had to feed and water the chickens.  All the waterers were frozen solid.  I filled one of the kitchen sinks with hot water to start the unfreezing process.  Then, one at a time, I took the tops off, soaked the steel tubes until they unfroze, and kept filling the water bottles with hot water.  Fill with hot; empty when cold.  Repeat until each bottle was thawed.  Then, I filled them with warm water for the chickens.  Moshe mixed warm mash for all the chikcens - not just the peeps.  We repeated all of these procedures in the afternoon, trading jobs - Moshe did the waters and I gave them the warm mash.  We also put special heat-reflective pet blankets in the pet carrier for the peeps and in Pretty Face's little coop.  The upstairs of the bigger coops are fairly well protected.  All the coops were then covered with plastic sheeting, weighted down with stones and boards.  Whew.
       Meanwhile, the other major project for the day was the gathering, chopping, carrying, and stacking of wood for the wood stove.  Today it was cold enough that we had to keep adding wood to the fire all day long.  Usually we have a break for at least an hour or two.  Of course, Moshe did most of the wood "duty", but I tried to help my carrying in some of the cut pieces and stacking them.  Finally, at around 3:30 this afternoon, the wood was stocked  and I tackled sweeping and mopping the kitchen and vacuuming the rest of the house.  Wearing my pajamas, plus a big grey hoodie sweatshirt, hair pinned up with a clip,  and  holding the mop,  I told Moshe he should take a picture of me and call it, "The romance never stops."

Skillet corn bread on the wood stove

       We had a delicious lunch today. I warmed up the chicken corn soup  from yesterday.  And, I baked cornbread - in an iron skillet on top of the woodstove.  We both agreed it was some of the best cornbread we'd ever eaten.  Something about  the process of baking it in the skillet... I don't know... but, it was light and fluffy like good cake, but crispy on the bottom.  Wonderful.  I didn't even need butter on mine.  It was just plain good!!!
     I have a pot roast in the oven for supper. We got a Netflix movie in the mail this afternoon (the poor mailman's Jeep was the ONLY vehicle we saw go up our road today.)  So, we are going to have an early supper and snuggle in bed to watch the movie.  Life is good.

             Shalom Y'all - Twyla

Yummy.

Rapunzel Nightshade

   This is one of our last bell peppers for the season. Wow, have we been blessed with a prolific garden.  Every item we planted has provided us with far more than we dreamt.  God is like that - giving us more than we can imagine, if only we allow Him to...  (Take the seed, plant it in good soil, water it with The Word, keep it away from rocky areas, weeds, and varmints....)
     Moshe and I will miss the fresh vegetables. But, once cool weather sets in,  we'll crave soups and stews and hot casseroles.  Then  we will be reminded of our wonderful harvest and rewarded for the many hours of canning, freezing, and drying fruits and vegetables.  We are looking forward to homemade spaghetti sauce, using our own marinara sauce, canned tomatoes, frozen zuchinni, dried onions and garlic - even our own dried hot pepper, basil, and oregano.
     We are blessed, blessed, blessed!
     As you can see from this picture  this little bell pepper didn't form exactly right. Somehow it "folded itself upon itself". It also was much smaller than all the other peppers.  If I were a little runt of a deformed pepper,  someone might not want me, might discard me as useless, imperfect,  not good enough.  I might feel really bad about myself...  But, wait...
   
                                                                          Flip me over...
                                                                     

   

Add a couple of cloves for eyes...

And some shredded carrot for hair... and, I become Rapunzel Nightshade - the happiest bell pepper in town. 

I know... sometimes I'm just goofy... Bet it made you smile, though!

Shalom y'all,     Twyla