Earl and I hit Deer Park for groceries (mostly chocolate) and chicken food. The roads were bare.
I've been reading and puttering instead of posting, so here is a recap of recent events.
First, my mom is doing well after surgery. :)
Just before the temps plummeted, I insulated the pipes in the pump house.
Here's the before shot. The pump and pipes are in a big (10x10x10 feet), loosely insulated room inside the cinderblock building. We run a small heater in there, but it's still frozen three times in the last five years, generally at the elbow in the upper left foreground. Last year's busted pipes sent spray cutting through the fiberglass and foam insulation around the room. What a mess. I planned to build an insulated plywood box just big enough for the pipes, and run a little milk house heater in there, but did some research online and decided to make better use of the heat tape and add the recommended inch-and-a-half of fiberglass insulation. I think I'll wrap the whole thing in plastic before it gets really cold. Fingers crossed!
Granddaughter Ciri celebrated her first birthday with a gathering at the restaurant where her parents work. Her friends Eloise and Landon helped open the packages when she got tired. We had fun!
Here's a gratuitous shot of Smokey, our angora house rabbit, with amaranth. He's a very cool fellow.
I'll be posting a final tally of the preserves in the pantry soon. The last of the tomatoes are still ripening in the other kitchen, but I think we're done with canning. Huzzah!
One egg today.
Ciri looks like she's having a great time! We've got a foot of snow and it's -23C. I've had enough already!!
ReplyDeleteA foot of snow already? Aaaargh.
DeleteWell (trying real hard to be positive)... um... at least the garden workload is lighter.
Ciri looks like she is having a lovely time. Presumably she ate some of the cake, but had a lot of fun messing about with it!
ReplyDeleteAs for winter snow, we don't usually get any here, but the nearby Pyrenees mountains do but not much has fallen on them at the moment.
Those pipes look snuggly and warm so hopefully they will stay unfrozen. And canning? I have also finished the vegetable canning, but still have to work my way through the meat in the freezer. We need to be harvesting the lambs born earlier on in the year if we are to have enough grazing for the flock this winter. It is not our most favourite job to do, but it needs to be done.
Hope your mother continues to do well.
She wore far more than she ate, and painted her daddy's face with it, too.
DeleteI think I'd miss it if we had no snow. But I'd confine it to January! And expand spring and fall.