Snow Day...

It started snowing around 7:00 this morning. It was a really dry snow so it didn't stick to anything but collected on the ground. Around noon, it warmed up a little so the snow turned wet and started to stay in the trees. It was so pretty. I just kept walking around the TT, looking out the windows, watching it. It was so nice, sitting at the table, eating lunch and looking out into the woods with the snow coming down. It made the walk to the mail box special.....as it crunched under your feet.

Cold and getting colder....

That is ICE on the INSIDE of the kitchen window of the TT this morning. The rest of the rooms were warm because of our heaters. It has only been above freezing for two hours for over a week now. We have learned to dress in layers and have bought clothes that the locals wear to keep warm. Yep, that's my
"farmer Chuck" in his quilted,lined overalls. He was getting layered up to go work in the barn and maybe trench for water this afternoon. After we put on about six layers and go outside to walk to the mail box, we say to each other...." it's really not so bad out here"...lol. Well, we will see if we are still saying that after this weekend. It's suppose to snow up to 3 inches, tomorrow and then on Sat and Sunday nights it's suppose to be 6 degrees! burrrrrrr.

Don't ever take it for granted

After two months of having to buy ice every third day for two coolers and having floating food to deal with, we FINALLY have a refrigerator. Next to having power, this is the best thing that we could have at this time in our lives. It still surprises me when I get up in the morning and go to get the coffee creamer out of the cooler and there is a refrigerator standing there. ...lol. I LOVE IT! Now we can go back to going to the grocery store once a week instead of every three days because the meat would spoil in the coolers after that. We laughed because now we have to get to used to taking something out to thaw for dinner now. I cleaned the oven that I was afraid to even open, yesterday and I even baked us some " apple crisp" in it last night. Oh! it was soooo good. We both said, it tasted like something that someone would make up here. Life is so different here......and we are loving it.

Garden Lean to

We bought the other two pieces of lattice work for the garden lean to the last trip we made to Home Depot. Chuck carried them down to the garden...which wasn't easy since it's in the middle of the land. He nailed them up and then used his battery operated saw to cut them. He's going to build me a little work bench for the inside, next. It will all be ready for our Spring planting of our gardens. It will be here before we know it.

Animals of Alabama

We were driving home from town the other day and when we passed the big lake on the Beltline, we saw all of the Canadian Geese that usually make the lake their winter home there. They were all out "sunning themselves" but as I tried to get close to them to take pictures, they all waddled back into the water. Chuck is always taking a new road home to see where it comes out and this time we took " Mud Tavern Road". A new friend of ours, lives on this road and we wanted to see if we could find his house. ( we did) It's a beautiful drive over looking valleys and a winding road with lots of gorgeous houses on it. We pasted this one pasture and I told Chuck it looked like emus where out there. He turned the explorer around and we went back to get a closer look. Come to find out, they were llamas. When I got out and walked up to the fence, they started to come see who I was and if I had anything good to eat. They were so cute! They also had donkeys in the field with them. Ya just never know what you are going to see when you set out for a drive around here. Charlotte says that llama poop is the best thing ever for your garden so we are going to go visit the man that owns the llamas on Mud Tavern road and see if he wants us to scoop llama poop for him...lol. This will be another adventure and post on the blog come Spring.

Frozen muddy drive ways.......

These pictures were taken a few days ago. Any water that is standing in the drive ways now, is frozen almost solid. We might take an advantage of the freezing weather and drive the explorer on the land again. Don't think there is a chance of it thawing out any time soon. Suppose to be 6 degrees at night this weekend. Never been in that cold of weather before....so will be another "first" for us. Thank goodness we have power for all of this. Just hope we don't lose it....lol. We decided we would fair better than most folks up here if everyone loses power.....at least we have had plenty of experience without it. Would just take a couple trips to the barn and we would be all set up again. Keeping our cold fingers crossed that we don't have to make those trips to the barn.

Trenching for water

Now that the power is in and we are living a completely different life, it's time to work on the water. Our drive ways are so messed up from them digging a four foot trench down the middle of them, we can't use them since all the rain has turned them to mud! Chuck could use the tractor on them for a couple of days but now the ground is frozen and the mud is like cement. Jason brought out a hand held trencher and they have started the long 12 hundred foot trench for the water pipes. They have worked 1 1/2 days at it and still have another day of work before we will have water to the TT, the barn and the garden area. We " might" have running water in a week or so. Depends on the weather. ...which is fore casted " colder than it has been since 1940".........I'm beginning to think " winter" was NOT the best time to move up here. .....lol.... I'd still do it all over again....just to be here.