Or is that midget digits? Anyway, what the mercury is again, and dropping. Heading down to about 3F or -15C again tonight, not that it was really that warm during the day, either.

Gary's brother and family came for lunch and then took his mom back to their place. We dashed over to our neighbor Toni's, because she was having an "anti-football" sale today in her yarn and spinning shop and I wouldn't think of missing something that is "anti-football." Picked up two books at a nice discount, and got to chat a bit with some friends who were there, as well as Toni and Al who looked like they'd had enough of a day and were ready to shoo us all out (only they're too nice to actually do it usually.)

Back home to do the barn work, bed down ponies and sheep and ducks and prepare hay for the morning while Gary brought in a barrow full of firewood to the garage. Stove has been going for 24 hours continuously now, which is what really gets the draft running right and warms the brick hearth and backstop, so it's nice inside despite the cold outside. In fact, it got so warm indoors (75F) this afternoon that we opened a window briefly and shut down the thermostat on the stove.

Now the holidays are officially over, and we have a whole weekend to recover in before I go back to work and Gary goes back to graduate school. Two whole days! Gosh, what are we gonna do with that?

Tags: holidays, weather
Current Location: Frozen oak grove
Mood: tired

Some of you are already in 2010, but it's still 2009 here. It's also cold, very cold.

Gary's mom is here for the night, so this will be brief. I wish all my friends the best year ever (not that it would take much to be better than 2009 was for most of us.) This is a blue moon, lunar eclipse, and new year all at once. Supposedly the three fall together only once a century or so, and we should all appreciate the rarity of it. ;p

I made orange chicken, with rice, and squash cooked with apples for dinner. Not utterly rare, but a bit fussy. It was good, though. We killed a bottle of wine and haven't opened the champagne yet, but probably won't last until midnight. Have fun everyone, I'll see you on the other side.

Tags: cooking, food, holidays, weather
Current Location: Frozen oak grove
Mood: happy

We had rain for Christmas, just enough that we worried about flooding where the runoff was being held back by collapsed snow, so we ended up out cutting drainage routes through snow and ice around the barn. The temperature dropped right after that, and around sunset it began to snow. Tentative at first, we thought it might amount to an inch or so by morning.

Well, it picked up overnight and we got to three inches of fluffy powder by dawn. It's still coming down and has added another inch, with no sign yet of stopping. This has to be an edge effect of the major blizzard that is affecting Nebraska and the Dakotas, hundreds of miles west of us.

Here it's just pretty. The power is back on since yesterday, the predicted temperatures will hover in a manageable range of 15 to 28°F. over the next few days, and nothing is urgent until at least Monday. I suppose I could clean house but I'm more likely to read one of several books I got for Christmas.


[EDIT: As of sunset, we had accumulated somewhere between nine and ten inches of new powder over the top of the old hard frozen snow from two weeks back. It looks beautiful, but is so deep it goes above the top of my rubber boots in some places. Gary discovered that the fields out back have a lot of standing water under the blanket of snow. Once again, we are being damaged by the ruined drainage the subdivision idiots created to the north of us. And the snow is still falling here.]

Tags: farm, holidays, snow, weather
Current Location: Snowy oak grove
Mood: peaceful

Happy Christmas to all my friends. I hope you are safe and warm, with friends or loved ones, and able to enjoy this special time of the year at least a little.

Our power did come on this morning just before seven. I had put a teakettle on top of the woodstove to boil so I could make coffee by dripping it through the coffee maker. It boiled, I carried it to the kitchen, and the lights came on. The outage was over 30 hours, probably the longest we've had at this address. (We once had a 48 hour outage at our house in Chicago, many years ago.)

I can't tell you how good it feels to have running water again. Especially hot water in the shower. With the generator hooked up and running, we do get running water but only cold. This time of year you have to be desperate to take a shower in that.

Today we stayed home, though it wasn't just rest. Chores had to be done, of course, and we feared a flood in the small barn again if all the predicted rain materialized. So we had to clear drainage channels in the snow to let water drain off even if the remaining snow freezes hard where it is. The rain didn't happen much, though. Now it's snowing, and they say we'll get up to three inches before it ends tomorrow.

Supper today was a bit too classy for this kind of lazy day, but it was good (so far, haven't cut the pie yet.) Cornish game hen stuffed with oranges and baked in a clay covered pot with orange juice as liquid. Mashed sweet potatoes; Brussels sprouts; Home baked bread; red wine; tea and home made mince pie.

Tags: baking, cooking, holidays, pies, weather
Current Location: Snowy oak grove
Mood: sleepy

Weather or not. Our Holiday Greetings are completely edited and assembled, and the first copies were printed and bound tonight. I regret that I just can't afford to send physical copies to all my friends here. A few of you that I've met in person will receive a printed copy, but for everyone else, I've prepared a PDF. If you're interested, feel free to download and print. These are meant to be printed on US letter size paper, landscape, 2 up, and then cut apart and spiral bound. I couldn't make the PDF file come out that way, so if you want to print it, just put it on A4 or letter size and put the pages into a binder or staple them.

'Tivo's and Gary's 2009 Holiday Recipes and Photos

Due to the size of the PDF files, I can't leave these online forever, but this will be available for at least a month. If anyone comes across this later and the link doesn't work any more, let me know and I'll send you a copy one way or another.

"Oh, the weather outside is frightful.." And it is. Freezing rain is coming down on top of the five or so inches of snow we still had on the ground. It seems entirely possible that we will be postponing our trip into Chicago to Gary's mom's house, which is going to cause bad feelings all around but can't be helped if conditions remain as bad as they are right now (or even as bad as there were at sunset when I drove home from work.) We'll get in there before the weekend is over, I'm sure. Stay warm, everyone.

Tags: baking, cooking, holidays, weather
Current Location: Rainy oak grove
Mood: accomplished

For any bird fans out here, two fuzzy pictures of a mystery bird that was outside our dining room window this morning. My best guess is that it was a Carolina wren. See discussion in photo captions.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=157367&id=1577055232&l=6960f5e969

We might have a white Christmas or we might be rained out. A major storm is apparently headed this way, but just like the one two weeks ago, the NWS seems to have no idea exactly where it's going or what it's going to do. The forecast for the next 48 hours or so reads like a catalog of possible precipitation, starting with snow, moving into sleet, freezing drizzle, freezing rain, heavy rain, and then backward through all of those to snow by Christmas morning. We are under heavy obligation to drive to Chicago and back on the 24th, and are hoping and praying that it will either be rain or snow at that time and not an ice storm.

We're already half-expecting to close the library early tomorrow. If it's as dead as it was this afternoon, no one is going to complain. I am relieved of having to work the evening shift, in any case, because of the weather. I'll go in at 8:30 and work until 5 unless we close earlier than that. Judging by the conditions of roads coming and going today, that will be a good thing.

I just thought I had wrapped all my gifts, then put all the paper and tags away, came back in here and found another box under the desk that I'd forgotten. Must be getting old. Wait, no, this happens just about every year.

The kitchen and dining room are awash with cookies at the moment, as Gary cranks them out for gift boxes to his family and nearby friends. Frankly, I'm tired of it all now and wish it was Friday when we get to just be home with the critters and relax.

Tags: baking, birds, holidays, work
Current Location: Frozen oak grove

That's it, the shortest day of the year (or longest for you folks on the other side of the equator.) Even though it's called the "first day of winter" we've been having winter for a while now and tomorrow we start back up the hill toward spring. I think the older name, "Midwinter," is more fitting. More snow expected tonight and tomorrow, and then a huge storm possible on Christmas Eve, according to the weather service. Or at least maybe. Or not. They don't seem to be able to make up their minds what it will be. Rain, snow, sleet, freezing rain, or maybe nothing. Talk about hedging your bets.

Went to the Evil Empire of W tonight to get some baking ingredients and stuff to finish preparing for Christmas Eve with Gary's family. We were both overwhelmed by the aura of desperation, guilt, and depression that seemed to fill the store, even with carols blaring and holiday decorations dangling everywhere. Shoppers looked burned out and unhappy, and the staff looked even worse. I had to ask why we continue to put up with this stuff year after year. The huge political and social guilt trip that is laid on each and every one of us if we don't spend every last penny of our credit lines on holiday glitz and gifts that will be forgotten by Boxing Day, or New Year's Day at the latest.

On the other paw, there is some real cheer. A little package in the mail from a friend who lives not too far off, a box of home made cookies. Now that's something I can value, an actual personal effort. We will treasure every crumb. ;D

At work today we had a genuine reference question, too. One that took some research to find the answer. It involved finding the source of a single phrase in an unknown poem by Carl Sandburg. It was a fairly tough one, but I did find it, buried in the middle of the book-length poem about Abraham Lincoln, The People, Yes (published in 1936.) The caller was so pleased she rushed to the library with a plate full of cookies for us. Now that's something that doesn't happen every day and left everyone smiling.

Tags: baking, holidays, work
Current Location: Frozen oak grove
Mood: busy
Music: Not Christmas carols

Spent the whole morning at the dentist's. As I expected, the 45 mile drive to get there in rush hour traffic was decidedly not fun. I really dislike being abused for holding my speed down close to the posted speed limit.

New high tech stuff at the dental offices, though. Since two years ago, they've converted to digital x-rays. She said the radiation level is half what was required for conventional film, and the image is instantly available on the computer screen. Sure enough, the four shots they took appeared on the overhead monitor as well (the one they usually have Cartoon Network or Oprah showing on to keep bored patients amused.) She replaced an old silver amalgam filling that was getting loose with a new composite epoxy resin stuff. It smelled weird and they used tiny ultraviolet lights to cure it, but it's invisible on the tooth when done. Seems odd that there is no longer a metal filling in that tooth when I look in the mirror.

Also a new anesthetic technique. This, I gather, was the same drug but a different injection site. She used less of it, the effect took hold more quickly, and wore off faster. I can't complain about that. Normally they had to use so much that half my face would be dead for hours.

On the whole, I'd rather go to work than have the day off and go to the dentist, but compared with what it was like when I was a foal, things are much easier and certainly less uncomfortable.

Usual chores otherwise. Boxes are arriving by mail with the various gifts I've ordered for people. Still need some things for Gary's family members, though. Looks like Sunday is the last good chance to settle that. I went out for about an hour this afternoon, but didn't find much. It's easier if I have him along to advise.

Tags: dentist, holidays
Current Location: Frozen oak grove
Mood: sleepy

After freezing all afternoon. I've mentioned before, I'm sure, the fact that the heating and cooling system in the library is about as reliable as if it had been designed by Helmut Jahn himself. It breaks down constantly, and our annual repair and maintenance bills run to thousands and thousands of dollars. Well, the heat has been out in the staff work area for several days. Now this isn't as extreme as it sounds, because the other zones are working so they keep it from getting much below 67 or 68F in there, but with the dry air circulating that still feels more like 58 to me. I dress as warmly as possible, and still get shivers. Supposedly it's fixed now, we'll see how it is on Friday. I won't be there tomorrow because I'm going to the dentist.

I don't really mind going to see the dentist but I hate the drive to get there. I really should switch to someone out here, but I like my dentist and have been going to her for at least 18 years now. She's not right in Chicago, but just on the western edge, about 45 miles from here.

Still have some Christmas shopping to do, mainly for Gary's family, his two brothers and their wives and sons, and his mom. Shouldn't be too hard, I just have to get it done. The two kids get cash because I have no idea what to buy for 21 year olds, so that's easy enough.

We had leftovers from the birthday feast tonight, and it was all just as good the second time around. Tomorrow Gary will be at his mom's so I'll be on my own. At least it's supposed to warm up a bit.

Tags: holidays, weather, work
Current Location: Frozen oak grove
Mood: sleepy

At least it was warmer today. Stuff is melting now.

Up early because an actual customer is coming to look and an hopefully buy fleeces. She said ten o'clock, so I made a point of getting all the barn stuff done before that. I even swept down the steps and de-cobwebbed the tack room and part of the loft where the fleeces are stored.

She showed up right on time with her husband, looked at what I had, and [gasp] bought all the remaining fleeces from this year, though she declined the ones from last year. Paid cash, too. This year's shearing costs are now canceled out.

We put up our tree. Setting it up is a minor task, as we keep the same artificial tree from year to year, and leave the lights and decorations on it. It just gets covered up and stuck up in the barn loft. The big task is decluttering the end table it goes on, which is where I sit all the rest of the year to read and/or write, so it always has a pile of books, notes, and a portable computer or two on it. (I hesitate to call them "laptops" because that will give the wrong impression. These are the old one piece Tandy/Radio Shack portable types, Model 100 and WP-3 machines. Good for just plain writing with no distractions, and I like that.)

Was going to make pizza or meat loaf for dinner, but Gary asked for chili so did that instead. We had lots of home baked bread left from his pot-luck cooking for yesterday, and I made salad with romaine, fresh apple slices, and a little shredded cheese. Dinner was good.

Should have got some spinning in today, but so far haven't done so. May still squeeze it in.

Tags: cooking, farm, holidays
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: busy
Music: Garth Brooks - Wild Horses