first snow

Tristan standing on one of the fallen trees. this one is an american elm this is near impossible to split (without a mechanical splitter) so we are just burning it over our garden and stumps for nutrients and stump ridding potential.

Tabitha and the kids look like spacemen. the flash makes the reflective material on the winter coats glow.

here is our snowy chicken coop.

this is the upper walk through gate for our pasture

we had our first snow yester morn early. we were so excited that we got up and dressed before sunrise. the kids loved it. the roads were tragically awful. to make matters worse we had to travel the roads to bradleyville. about 55 miles of very curvy icy snowy roads on the first bad road day is one of the more stressful things i can imagine doing. the other day i had a tooth-filling crack and partly fall out. Tabitha miraculously found a dentist that has a low income sliding scale that accepted me on an emergency visit. we also needed to pick up our bulk organic flour and pasta from hodson mill. they are just a mile or so from the dentist.

the dentist was great (cheaper than my last co-pay while insured). she had very tiny hands and skillfully worked fast and with purpose. i'd go to her again even if she weren't sliding scale. i hate dental work--it is my personal-torture. i can take most any other physical pain much more easily then drilling in my teeth. what information do you want to know?

oh driving after Novocain injection was, if possible, even more stressful. the only thing i can imagine that would be even more dangerous and stressful would be to have tabitha drive home. she is an infrequent, at best, driver and never never in the snow.

we arrived home without incident--and i passed out on the rug in front of the wood stove. i can never sleep during the day unless very ill. either the shot or the stress overcame my physical inability to sleep during the day. dental work ruins your day.

one of the bonfire locations is still smoking from the stump this morning 5 days later. the other fire location still has coals glowing but that is just two days since the flames went out.

my parents and sister sent a package for christmas. OH the kids love LOVE the gifts. there were hand-made and so wonderful. Kassiopeia got a doll collection, Tristan a wagon/cart and tractor. we got some lovely ornaments (german bells, i think they are called) for our tree. the tractor hasn't left a 15 foot radius from tristan since it's arrival. the kids were there when we opened the large box and keeping the gifts from them until christmas wasn't possible for their little minds to accept.

work on the homestead has ground to a halt but should pick back up the pace tomorrow. today is for design/web work. besides it's a mere (8 degrees F) outside right now.