After -25, 30 degrees F seems like summer

After -25, 30 degrees F seems like summer

We sure had a cold snap last week. Our high was -14 and that was actual temperature, not wind chill. Will kept busy hauling in wood and I kept busy stuffing the stove at night, as well as during the day. We’re not burning the best of wood. Much is older poplar, not rotten but not the best wood. (We burn everything that makes smoke, taken out of our dead wood in the woods. With 200 acres, we’ll never run out of wood!

But now it’s warmed up and we’re only burning one stove, the living room stove, letting the kitchen range rest until it gets cold again or I need it for extra Christmas baking.

I got the Christmas tree decorated finally. Will brought it in two days ago. But it needed thawing out as there was snow clinging to its branches. Now it’s seeming a lot more like Christmas. I am having a hard time as I recently learned that our neighbor, Ervin Dahlen, back in Sturgeon Lake, had just passed away. His family and ours worked together for years, haying and other farming projects like working cattle, plowing, and planting. He was 97 and passed with his family around him. But it is still hard to have my “big brother” gone from this earth.

This week, I’ll begin the big holiday baking project: cookies, fruitcake, and other Christmas goodies. So I’m busy clearing the deck for that. (My kitchen is never “clean,” but littered with canning supplies, pots, pans, and ingredients.) I am looking forward to all that baking! Meanwhile, our dogs, Hondo and Sarge, contentedly snooze on the couch, resting up from their watchdog status.

— Jackie