Sunday, January 29, 2012

Last Weekend in January





Saturday dawned bright and clear, and cold. Everybody had spent the night inside, too cold and windy to be out all night. The manure spreader is full, too.

He finally got in touch with the woman in Bloomsburg who sells specialty items for minis. It's a 3 1/2 hour drive, one way, to her place. We didn't leave the house until almost noon.

Road Trip!
We traveled from our weather system into their weather system, which was calling for isolated showers. I love Pennsylvania architecture, so my head was swiveling left and right and back again. Bank barns, stone houses, my favorites! We were definitely in Amish country.

We stopped for lunch at the 'General Store' in Chapman, which it was, including a grocery, home decor, clothes and hardware store. I looked at Carthart jackets but didn't purchase anything but lunch; $4.99 a pound for great fried chicken and the best baked beans, the real deal. The Amish carriages were parked out back.

We got the cart, in a box un-assembled, two halters, a buggy whip, and a bio-thane harness with bright neon-green pads. I would have chosen blaze-orange but didn't have that. He was not happy that the cart was made in China. He had wanted to get two, but got one. We can only train one at a time, right?

On the way home it did shower, and got to see rainbows! Home after dark, a little past feeding time. They must have given up on us, they were in the shed.

Spent most all Sunday in the house - he put the cart together and winterized, finally, the LQ trailer. That trailer needs to have the heat off; not only save us $$$ but kill off the Stink Bugs that have invaded and are doing all too well.

I cleaned the bathroom, washed and waxed the shower, straightened up the kitchen, changed the sheets, caught up on laundry - moved furniture upstairs, sorted paper/cardboard recycle - we need a bonfire, but too windy this weekend. When we have one, it's going to be BIG!

Snow expected overnight - winds at 17mph, gusting upwards to 28mph, they all will be coming in for the night.

Been windy all day, but nice in the sun, out of the wind. Put the new halters on the little guys - Sprite was easy, Lil Fred he chased, around and around, before he would finally allow the new halter to be put on him. Sprite's is bright pink, Lil Fred's is Hunter green, both have Native American embellishments.

Skip is without a halter, again. KC keeps breaking it, playing halter, and that was a $35 Weaver halter - maroon, very classy. Broken at the buckle, here in the house. To bring him in and out I throw a rope over his head. He's easy to manage, not an issue.

While looking out the front window, across the road into the cornfield, I noticed something moving on the next hill right of the stand of trees near the grain elevator. I couldn't really see what it, looking through the binoculars I thought I saw a deer, but on second look I realized it was a Bald Eagle, eating something bloody, couldn't really make it out.

He tried taking pictures with his tele-photo lens but it magnified grainy. Most definitely a Bald Eagle! I know he wasn't eating carrion because the family of Buzzards would have already discovered the carcass. Eventually he moved on.

A lot milder this morning than last night - wOw - the wind sounded like an F-16 - the trees by the house were really going at it! Snowing at 10:05 p.m. - horizontally. When I got out there the boys were cowering in the shed. I asked them if they wanted in and KC ran to me! It was horrid, really. They both were glad to get inside, I closed the big doors, so the little guys were in the barn but not locked in their stalls, leaving their stalls open.

When I went to bed April was still on the living room floor - I woke up at 1:15 and she was on the bed, with Irene curled up between her front and back legs. So cute! I had trouble staying asleep because my shins ached (too much going up and down the stairs yesterday) and I was hot. The room is very 'cozy' and warm - not like the living room that was so open.

And yesterday while we were moving furniture upstairs - he says something about all the work it's going to take to fix the walls and the ceiling in that big room - and change the light out because a too-much-wattage bulb had been put into the fixture and burnt it up. One of these days we'll move upstairs? Plus, I'm not moving upstairs until that bathroom is demolished and re-built. It's all small steps.

In his spare time he emptied the manure spreader, I then cleaned up the stalls.

He got the cart together last night - its not as heavy-duty as he had hoped, but it will be great (70 lbs.) to teach these guys to drive. He's talking about taking 2 days off in a row to do that, at which time he'll also take Irene to the vet to get spayed. We think she might be going into heat now, she's about due but it's not full-blown just yet.

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