Well now...

Seems winter has hit hard for most the country. Here, it's running typical rainfall...lots of rainfall.

The news this morning was practically screaming about the inhumanity of this years' winter season hitting as it has been.

Am I the only one who realizes what 'winter' really is for most folks in the US? Granted, it's rough in most of the Northern states right now, and they haven't had anything of a serious winter in many years, but this is winter...it's what winter means. Some years you have great amounts of snow, and some years you have that and deep frigid cold temps.

I'm just goofy I suppose. I miss that. I miss the waist-deep snow drifts having to be shoveled just to get to the barn to do morning chores. I miss the cold temps, the bone-numbing temps even, where I felt that much more blessed to be heading back from the barn and into the warmth of the house, all cozy with the woodburner going, a kettle steaming all day for cups of tea and hot cocoa.

Winter is winter. It's not out of the ordinary, harsh or otherwise. The weather of the past handful of years is what's out of the ordinary. Lack of snowfall amounts, a distinct lack of typical cold temps. I am sad at the numbers of people caught unprepared for this year's winter hit, but it's even more sad that the cities themselves didn't prepare for what they have always dealt with.

Dewey doesn't miss any of it at all. He spent most of his life working outside in that bone-numbing weather, plowing parking lots and such, getting power back up and running for folks, etc. He doesn't miss one single flake of it. I'd trade the breath-taking heat of the southern summer in a heartbeat :o)


Our wood cookstove is ready to go. I'm still no carpenter, so it sits waiting on Dewey to get home next week for a visit. If he feels up to it. He's been battling illness there same as we have here. Finally talked him into getting to a doctor. Good thing -- he has bronchial pneumonia. Not into his lungs or bloodstream, thankfully, but still bad enough. And his blood pressure is outrageously high. Could be in part due to the illness, but still...not a good range on that at all. So, maybe we won't deal with the wood cookstove at all next week and it will wait again.

With a cookstove...it has a couple of dampers already on the stove, do I still need one for the stovepipe itself? I haven't gotten one yet...I have everything else we need, but the cement board and will get it this week in town. It's been such a mess here with the rain lately.

Time to rework the schooling routine again. My sewing machine is set up full time in the living room/dining room to allow easier access to teaching and such, but also to allow me the ability to get some very much needed sewing done. Still, we are lagging in schooling and it needs to be looked at differently. No one is completing tasks without my holding their hand and that's getting rather old. I could understand it with the youngers, but my olders have no need for a babysitter with schooling. They are more than capable -- it's not a matter or can't, but a matter of won't with them.

Worst part is, we deal with this periodically. It's hardly a first-time thing with us. So, back to rigid and strict routine again I guess. I've allowed too much freedom with it lately and as usual, its come back to bite me. Ugh, why do I do this? I know what will be sown when I reap, and still I reap away thinking maybe, just maybe, this time it will be different. Never is. And I write the same set of words in my blog. Might as well just cut and paste this paragraph or two here...I'll be needing it again later on down the road.

Goodness...to live and learn without repeating history so much!