Winter Fun

Definitely a "WHITE CHRISTMAS"   Even though clean up was a pain in the butt......ALL three days.....It was/is beautiful!   

Christmas Day Sanj and the boys came out to help shovel and play with the girls.  I cannot tell you how much the girls LOVE those two boys!!!!  AND them coming out made "MY CHRISTMAS"  ♪  Merry and Bright! ♬

  Tom had plowed the day before thank goodness.  The plow can only push so much so far.  After yesterday I think we reached our limits and have to now call in the county to help us out.

I don't know the inches we got total but I DO know it was a lot!  And the last batch was HEAVY!  We are still getting a dusting.

 

















Yesterday I cranked up the snow blower while Tom was plowing.  My shovel had run out of gas.  ; )  I was making paths for the girls all over the yard.

The girls were following me thinking it was pretty nifty neat, BUT than I got shut down by the "big guy"!  He said the snow blower needs a break and I don't know when to quit?

I translated that to....You need to go pick up the house and make me something to eat.  SOMETIMES he's right.  : (    Guess I was having way too much fun and the  time got away on me.


The little one you see in the pics is Sarah..... New addition to our family.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!
 Christmas is here.   I think we have way to much fun,    out here,     in the woods.......   The days go by like the wind)))))>>>>>swoooosh>>>>>>>>)))))))))) and there went another day!

I have to admit it's different not being out in the hustle and bustles of the rest of the world.  I surely don't miss the crowded stores, stressing over what to buy, for whom and with what.

I personally have a hard time accepting and receiving gifts as I know each thing that was purchased for me came with the statement I just made above.  BUT I also DO realize it was given to me "with love"......... AND I am humbly grateful.

We got our share and than some of Holiday Baked Goods and Treats..... We'll be needing to dust off the tread mill after the Holidays for sure. 

The Grandkids stopped by to hang some homemade christmas decorations, which we treasure.  I don't decorate any more except for our tree outside.

One Grand-daughter asks every year if she should spend the night Christmas Eve with us so Santa will stop at our house.  She says he always stops where there is a kid.   I tell her it's okay because Santa already has way too many places to stop at now.  AND her Mom and Dad would be sad if she wasn't there with them Christmas morning.

So as so many people are this christmas... we are watching it snow....Our girls think it's great as they LOVE playing in the snow......... It is absolutely a beautiful WINTER WONDERLAND out here in the woods. 

From our family to yours we wish you all Blessed Christmas!



XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


Work of Christmas  Begins

"When the song of the angels is stilled,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with the flocks,
then the work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal those broken in spirit,
to feed the hungry,
to release the oppressed,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among all peoples,
to make a little music with the heart…

And to radiate the Light of Christ,
every day, in every way, in all that we do and in all that we say.
Then the work of Christmas begins.

-- Howard Thurman

Quick Update

Just a quick update..... December is flying by.  Tom has been staying close to home as the temps have been mighty nippy.  I found him a forum on the internet about trapping.  Maybe he will do his trapping in his mind there and stay safe and warm this winter?

He sits and reads for hours....If nothing else he ought to have some good stories to tell with all that material to work with.  ; )

The loggers should be down our road soon....than he can go check on them everyday......... For now we are just staying in and staying warm.......

Tom and I celebrated our 18th anniversary the other day...... ( when we met.)  He said "has it been that long already?  Seems like we just met."   AWWWW!  Gotta love him  : )

♬"Famous Last Words".......♫

Once again Tom came through....(no pun intended).  With a story that is. 

This morning Tom put layers and layers of cloths on....extra gas, chain saw and a hot thermos of coffee.  He was headed out to scout out beaver ponds.  I thought he did that while bird hunting last fall?  His last words were "Now I don't know when I'll be home so don't worry"

He left around 9:30 AM..... PROMISING not to be stupid as there are a lot of water holes not counting the beaver ponds that MAY NOT be froze solid yet.......
"No I'm not stupid...I'm not going to take chances.  I'll be careful!" blah blah blah

The song "FAMOUS LAST WORDS OF A FOOL" came to mind as I write this......hummm hummm  : )

Around noon he came through the door..."MOM...MMMMMOM!!! Something really bad happened to me"!!!!!!!  sounding frantic....

I came running around the corner looking for blood (I'm thinking chain saw) but instead what stood before me is a FROZEN FORM OF A PERSON with Tom inside.  Like those mid evil suits of armor!  Only it was frozen clothing from the waist down.

The legs of his pants were frozen in a sitting position but he was standing up straight.  I banged on his cloths and yup!!! they were froze solid.  I bursted out laughing as I asked what happened.

"I almost started crying MOM because you weren't there.  That's not funny" he said with a very serious voice.  NOT to be mean but I could not stop laughing.  

I had to get the hair dryer out to thaw his boot ties and pant legs so I could get him out of his wet cloths.

Apparently he went through ice  on the trails, getting stuck, sinking the machine, one hole after another.... using the winch to get out and managing to stay pretty dry himself.......TILL he got to the beaver pond.   There was a big spruce fallen on the pond so he decides to walk onto the pond hanging on to the limbs of the spruce.

THATS when he got wet.  The ice broke, he went down and he said you should have seen me scramble than...... That's when he got scared and almost cried because I wasn't there.

SO he drove home as fast as he could hoping he wouldn't break through any more ice with the 4-wheeler.  He didn't.  WHEW!

NOW he has his machine over at the neighbors trying to dry it out.

DO you think he learned his lesson?   Unfortunately not.... That part of his brain is broke. 

December Lead-In

We went from bare ground to LOT'S of snow.....A wonderful way to lead in December... I was beginning to wonder if we were going to get snow this year

Tom is doing what he always does when we get our first big dump of snow for the season....YEP!  He's plowing and blowing the yard........."Gotta have some place to put the snow!"

Tom's been catching varmints in his traps.... He should as he had been scouting and preparing places all fall.  But with this snow he has lost interest in any more trapping.   Today he pulled all but a few of his traps.  He only needs one more to fill his limit.
 

Guess who is skinning them?  I believe he called me an "OLD MULE SKINNER"   I wasn't impressed!    

Last night I asked Tom how many traps he had out.  He must have forgotten we counted traps the other night when we counted 30......  Last night we counted 15.  lol

 Tom has a sister (Peggy) in Texas.... She says the first thing she does when she gets home from work is make a cup of coffee and than go see if I wrote anything new.

I told her that Tom had to do something to give me something to write about..... When I don't write, it's just because our days have been uneventful aside from the "norm" of living with this disease.  Which most days leaves me pretty exhausted.

SO Peggy here is a story for you!  Tom's lucky I didn't skin him alive over this one.

A while back I spoke of this LURE for trapping that Tom HAD to have... "it was the real deal, all the T V shows talk about it and all the trapping magazines and "JIM " even uses it."   G O T T A   H A V E     I T!!!!!!   WAH!  WAAAAH!

So I bought him his "LURE" but found it smelled so bad you could smell it through the glass bottle.  The store kept it outside.  SO Tom was told to KEEP IT OUTSIDE!!!!!  It smells like SKUNK!

Today he came in all wet from snow blowing and plowing and wasn't finished.  He took his wet cloths off and asked if  I would throw them in the dryer.  LATER I went to get his cloths and..................... "OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!! " 

That bottle was in his jacket pocket and it had opened up...........AND your not going to believe what he had the BALLS to say.........."Now you have something to write about on your blog MOM!"  followed by a cocky smile as his eyes searched mine to see if I was going to laugh or hurt him.......

I Laughed!

WHO'S On First........

We had a nice Thanksgiving.... We stayed home and spent the day by our selves.  I cooked a turkey and a few of Toms favorite fixings to go with it.....We watched part of the parade on T V and of coarse there is always the football games..........

Tom was getting antsy about Martin and Fisher trapping season to open so Jason took him to the woods for a couple of days to run skidder.... I don't know how well he functioned but I did have a talk with Jason before I'd let him go......

After the second day I seen the sparkle in his eyes for logging was gone......He was tired and didn't have any stories to tell...... That's a first!

But the long awaited trapping season is open now.....Tom's happy and set a bunch of traps ........  He claims he set around 30 traps.... lol  He doesn't own that many traps?

As they say...the mice will play when the cat's away....... SO I called my daughter to bring out the grandsons to help me get some much needed things done..... OF coarse Maggie, Lilly and Emily had the time of there lives..... tearing around with the boys.

The boys were FUN and a LOT of help......Sanj helped me cut up a bunch of lumber to make a few more useful tables... Tom steals "my one" I built for "my use" and yells at me for having "my stuff" on it.  Grrrrrr......

Yesterday I put two tables together while Tom was out checking traps.... I was trying to hurry as I didn't want his help if he got home before I finished.... In hurrying I managed to drop a board on my big toe, spraining it and smashing my thumb with the hammer.  O U C H!!!*#*&+%#

When he got home he was smiling as he had caught two Pine Marten......... He proudly brought them in and put them on the table???? in the laundry room.

"So what did you do today?"  he asked.  "Oh just monkey-ed around" I replied.  "You did something... I can tell!"  "I smashed my toe and my thumb"  I blurted without thinking   : 0

Okay..... NOW I  DID IT!   I just broke all the rules of talking to someone with Alzheimers..... He had a confused look on his face.......I pretended not to notice.........I went on to explained that I made some tables while he was gone... He said "don't do that stuff anymore when I'm not here to help"

"So do you like your tables?  The one in the laundry room is taller so you don't have to bend over and strain your back when your skinning......... I explained.

"Oh you put longer legs on "THE" table? " he asked.    "Longer legs yes but NEW table"... I replied thinking he got it.  Than I pointed out the other table explaining it had shorter legs as he uses that one to roll cigarettes while watching T V sitting in his rocking chair.

"OH you put shorter legs on THE table...how did you do that?"  OH BOY!!!!  I really have him messed up now and in the same small room sits the original...."MY TABLE"

SO I took him back to the laundry room pointing out this was a new table built taller just for using in that room.   Than I took him back to the other room and pointed out I made that table to fit up to his chair AND the third table was the original and IT WAS MINE!!!!!!

So he looked at the original table and asked where that one came from......ARG!
I finally got him to understand that there was a total of THREE tables and two were new...... "sigh!                                    

                                            THE END

OH----- HE LOVES HIS TABLES......... He says they are perfect!  : )