January 2022

 

January 10, 2022, location: SSUVFL

Even the deer don't look happy about it.

This morning it is a minus 18 degrees below zero. 50 degrees below freezing. It is early January, which means we still have a lot of winter left. That brings me to the question I often ask myself this time of year when we used to live here. Why??????

Believe it or not, but it has already been colder than that. I'm talking 20 to 30 below. Then if you factor in the wind chills, we are talking about 40 to 50 below. At these temperatures, exposed skin will freeze in a matter of minutes. We have already gotten more snow than we did last year. The snow piles around the house are many and quite large. Why?????

You may be asking yourselves this. "Do they live in the Arctic?" "Do they not know that there are warmer places?" "Have they forgotten how to drive?" "Have thier brains frozen over?" "Why?"

In 2014, 6 years pre-covid, we sold everything and hit the open road to find warmer winters. It was nice. We always went home for Christmas to spend time with family though. In 2019 we did not go home for the holidays and it was tough on us. Rather it was very tough on Lisa. The reason being is that we have 2 grandkids now.

We sure do love all of the time we get to spend with them and we are glad that we can be here for them when they need us. The kids are in daycare and that seems to be closing all of the time due to Covid. So we are glad we can help out whenever they need us.

Jan. 18th, 2022

We have gotten a reprive in the winter temps the last couple of days. As I am writing this early this morning, it is a blistering 28 degrees above zero outside. We will have to get outside to enjoy it before the wearther slaps us in the face with reality again. Tomorrows temps are going to be -4 degrees for a high! -25 for a low.

What do we do in the winter when it is so cold out you ask? Good question. We don't ice fish or snowmobile. Yet. Each of those activities require a cash investment to enjoy and maybe after we are done working on the cabin, we will have time to persue such activities. Or I should say I will have the time. Lisa won't get out there to do that because when it is cold out there, she becomes less outdoorsey. We have been thinking about the fun we plan on having next summer. So we went out and bought ourselves a pontoon to fish and swim from.

Work on the cabin continues. Lisa installed sliding drawers in her pantry making it much more user friendly.

I have been working on our bedroom walls. We have been using what is left of the wood that we bought for the rest of the house before we go out to buy more. Especially since wood products have skyrocketed. I first put up 1/4 inch plywood to have a base to screw into. Then on the bottom I installed a couple of sheets if tin.

The picture is kind of hard to see due to the brilliant white snow outside. Next I decided to put up the left over cedar we had to use it up.

I just had enough cedar for that wall and to trim the window with it. The color gives it some warmth.

Continueing with the work in the bedroom, Lisa wanted a top to the closet. Lisa's wish is my command.

I expect some day I will have to put door on it at some point. We will have to think on it. After that I was able to finish that wall. Lisa stained some trim for me also so things are getting finished.

Again I wanted to use what we had left over. It came out good. Then we put up some trim on the door and window.

Once that was done we figured out how much wood we will need for the other two walls. We ordered that and picked it up. Now Lisa has a lot of staining to do. We don't have a lot of room to do that inside but next week we will have our barn heated so she can do that out there. It was only logical, sounding like Spock, to heat the barn since we insulated it last year.

So that is it in a nutshell. We just spend our time working and watching the wildlife out side. We feed the birds and squirrls and enjoy thier antics. We also bought alfalfa for the deer. We put out a couple of bales for them and I put the extras in the back of one of my trailers. Well they found those and now we often go outside to see this.

I took that picture from the window and when I stepped outside to get a better shot, 5 deer jumped out of the trailer. They are fun to watch.

That's it for this funfilled installment. Stay warm and virus free.