GOOD-BYE TOPSY TURVY JANUARY

Woke to another 13 degree early morning. I decided not to go to market today because I figured there wouldn't be any customers out on this cold day.
I took RL to pre-school and came home to have my breakfast and get chores done. While I was outside doing chores Connie and Tommy, IR's other grandparents picked her up to spend the day with them.
After they left hubbie came up and helped me finish so we could get up to #2 son's house as he had just called hubbie and said Tif was off today and said their water was frozen. He needed us to go up and help Tif find where it was frozen and try to get it thawed out as son was at work in another part of the county.
We stopped at the dump and dropped off our trash and recyclables on the way there.
Thankfully the frozen place wasn't hard to find as the pipe insulation that son had wrapped the pipes in had fallen off part of the pipe that was close to an outside wall. We left the lights on and close to the pipe for a few minutes and then when hubbie turned the water back on the pressure thawed the lines and the water worked again.
We had a nice visit with Tif who we don't get to see very often because she usually works on Sundays.
We left there and ran our banking, PO and Sam's Club shopping errands on the way home.
We got things put away just in time for daughter to get here with IR . Daughter had late basketball practice so IR was staying with us until she finished.

She wanted to go outside and play with Rosie as today was the first time we have allowed Rosie to run around off her leash. She loves IR and stayed right with us as we walked and got chores done.

The only thing Rosie did wrong all evening was chase the flying guinea hens across the yard but when I yelled stop she stopped and came to me and sat down.

We got all the chores done and then came inside to have supper. IR was very hungry and ate an entire serving of mac and cheese along with some crackers. And then we had a dance party with the TV songs that she loves.

Her mom picked her up and headed home just out the road but IR didn't make it after all the activity here.

She plays hard and when she sleeps she is out like a light.

Hubbie and I relaxed for the evening. D-in-love called and said RL wasn't feeling well this afternoon so she might not be coming in the morning if she has a rough night. There has been some kids in her class at pre-school with the flu so I sure hope she hasn't picked that up.

We say good-bye to the first month of this new year tonight and January 2019 has been a topsy turvy weather month beginning with warmth and rain and ending with extreme cold with a major ice storm, some snow and lots of rain mixed in plus a few extra nice park play days in the mix and school was only closed for 2 days because of bad weather. My market sales have really been slow and I am curious to see what my month end figures are going to look like. We held our annual stock holders meeting on the last Saturday of the month and I was re-elected to the board with the second highest vote total and then switched from secretary to treasurer on the new board.

G-son finished up his first year of middle school wrestling and enjoyed it very much. We celebrated BB's 4th birthday on the 15th . We welcomed a new member to our family when we picked up a dog that a friend of daughter's couldn't keep any longer and made Rosie the 6th Australian Shepherd we have had here on the farm and after only 3 days with us she has proven how smart and adaptive to change she is as she settles in very nicely.

Thankful for the blessings of this day.

God Bless and Good Night

COLD DAY AND 2009 MEMORIES

Brrr, 14 degrees this morning to get things started. I decided to take RL to pre-school and then come home and get the chores done.
The water pans were all frozen solid and it took almost twice as long to get things done when I got home.
I came inside and had my breakfast later than usual.
IR was sleepy early today from an early wake up so she took a nap around 10:30 and hubbie went outside to get the garbage loaded while I changed out the bed covers and got out clean furniture covers for the living room . I had to wait until IR woke up to get all the furniture vacuumed and get the clean covers on.
I did a load of laundry and then had a late lunch since my late breakfast didn't make me hungry until later in the afternoon. I baked a pan of brownies to take to market along with a pan of cubed sweet potatoes and cinnamon for lunch.
I don't know if I will go to market tomorrow or not if it gets down near the single digits in temperature again I will have to follow the same schedule as this morning and will be very late getting to market at best so I will wait until morning to see what the temperature really is.
The snow storm that "wasn't" yesterday did actually have a name , it was Jayden and it did  effect a lot of folks in the northeast with snow ,wind and ice.

There was some sad news in the area today that may be connected to the slick roads yesterday as 2 young boys were found dead inside their car at the bottom of lake Summit .

So sad for the parents of these young men and son-in-love knows one of them and said he was really a good boy who was going to the local community college and had attended the Boys and Girls Club.

Hubbie and I took turns getting the chores done this afternoon as IR took another much needed nap.

I walked Rosie and am so impressed with the routine she has fallen into and does things ahead of being told to do them.  She's still on a lease but maybe this weekend we will try her off the leash and she if she will stay with us.

Son-in-love picked up IR around 6:45 tonight and took her out to get something to eat since she had just woke up.

Hubbie and I had a quiet evening and it seemed strange to not be getting ready for market. Depends on which weatherman you listen to what the temperature will be in the morning. The spread is from 10 to 15 but that is still very cold. 

We had an unwanted visitor on the porch helping himself to the cat food tonight and even with hubbie prodding him with a broom he was reluctant to leave his newly found meal.

Hubbie set the trap for him so hopefully we can relocate him tomorrow. He was a very big opossum .

To finish up the decade pics for this morning I found these from January 2009.

That is the month we drove to Granite Falls ,NC to buy Annie our red Australian Shepherd and her sister for d-in-love named Ginger.

This is a picture of Bernie and Dolly at that time ,both healthy and happy.

Daughter worked for the local TV station then as a news producer and this is her and one of the meteorologist named Julie. Both these girls were single at that time and now both are married and mothers.

This picture brings back a lot of memories as this old maple tree stood in the bottom pasture all my life until a couple years ago when it fell in a wind storm. This tree survived many floods in it's lifetime and was struck by lightening more than once. Once it was a deadly strike for some kids who were swimming in the farm pond that was next to it and when the storm came up they took shelter under it. They were all killed by the strike but the tree lived on.

Thankful for the blessings of this day and praying tonight for the families of both these young boys who lost their lives in a tragic way yesterday.

God Bless and Good Night.

"NO" SNOW SCHOOL CLOSED DAY and 1969 , 1979 and 1989 Memories

Got to sleep in once again as schools were closed today in anticipation of the snow that is coming. Daughter called at 5:45 to tell us that schools were closed so we went back to sleep.
I surely didn't expect to wake up a couple hours later to sun shining through the bedroom windows.
However when the morning sky looks like this you can expect some kind of falling weather in the near future.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find the morning temperature at 45 degrees and no ice on any water pans.

After chores I came inside to get IR some breakfast as daughter had just dropped her off. It is an optional workday so daughter is going in until the weather starts to get bad. D-in-love decided to take the day off .

D-in-love brought RL and g-son up here to play with IR about mid morning so she could do some school work on my computer .

These three were a joy to watch together this morning.

Daughter left school at lunch when the temperature started to drop quickly and it started to rain and sleet. She brought lunch in from Cook Out and the kids loved it.

Snow for our area never materialized and the sun came back out but some nearby areas got quite a bit of heavy we snow.

Shortly after they ate everyone went home and hubbie and I got the upstairs woodstove cleaned up, checked the stove pipe and got it ready to build fires in the next couple of cold nights.

Since I had to take down all the decorations around it I went ahead and changed the January snowmen out for February's Valentine décor.

I didn't get all the changes made before I went out to walk Rosie as she has been in her lot since earlier this morning when hubbie took her for a walk after taking her out of the basement.

Rosie has adapted very well in just a couple days and acts like she really likes us and being on our farm.

Just as we finished our walk Re dropped EL and BB off to stay while she attended a nursing class and a staff meeting before she begins working again this weekend.

BB helped hubbie outside for a while and then they came in for snacks and to get warm as the temperature is now in the 20's with wind blowing.

These 2 love to watch movies here.

Hubbie and I took turns getting the chores done this evening. I had to move the older rooster that I returned to the big hen lot from the small tractor last night because the younger rooster that was already in there beat him up pretty badly this morning. I found him crouched and bloody in a crack between the nesting boxes. Poor guy !!

I moved him into the empty Silkie lot for the day by himself to heal and this evening I put 3 of the older hens that had been in the small tractor with him back in the lot with him. I nailed the covering back over the opening in the box and put the last bag of paper shredding in there for them to help keep the warm .

While I was doing all this it took about 45 minutes and my face was hurting from the cold wind by the time I got back inside.

Aa came after EL and BB and then hubbie and I walked the dogs again and put them in the basement for the night.

We watched a NC State / Virginia basketball game which Virginia won in overtime by 2 points.

Hubbie built the first fire of the season in the upstairs stove tonight as the temperatures are supposed to get in the lower teens tonight and it is already 22 at 10:30.

Thankfully the temperature swings continue and we will be back to more early spring temps by next week.

To continue the decade pics for January back in 1969 I was a freshmen in high school and was a starter on the varsity basketball team. We were not very good back then but we surely redeemed ourselves in later years. This is some of my point totals that month as  Pryor.

Also I found a neat comparison as we just had our market annual meeting I found these treasurer reports from January 1979 and 1989 . My mom had saved all these reports from when she went to these meetings each year.

It is interesting to note that both the income and expense columns have more than doubled on this years report.

Thankful for the blessings of this day and for the love of Jesus Christ.

God Bless and Good Night

ROSIE PLAYMATES AND 1949 and 1959 DECADE PICS

A teacher workday today made for a later morning for hubbie and I .
Daughter brought IR by about 8:00 and d-in-love dropped g-son and RL off around 8:30.
Hubbie fed them breakfast while I got chores done. It is another mid 20's morning but I'm not complaining because in a couple days I will be wishing for mid 20's !!!
I came back inside and had my breakfast and then got laundry started before both girls got their hats on and wanted to go outside to play with Rosie.

"Meow Meow" wanted to get some loving from the girls also.

Rosie could not have been happier about having 2 little playmates around and stuck with the girls everywhere they went .

I'm glad the weather was nice enough for us to get outside and enjoy it for a while today but the wind kicked up this afternoon and made us come inside.

They played inside the rest of the afternoon. G-son was lazy today and spent most of the time on the couch or in the kitchen eating . I got 3 loads of weekly laundry done.

D-in-love came in and stayed with the kids while hubbie and I got the big chicken tractor moved into a rest of the winter spot out from under the power lines and trees.

I moved all the other hens and rooster back into the big lot out of the small chicken tractor as they have eaten all the greens and they will be warmer in the big house with all the other hens.

We finished chores and d-in-love left .

Son-in-love came after IR at 6:45 and then I spent the evening going through my pictures for January decade pics. Since I am so late getting these on this month I will have to double up. 

Tonight the earliest ones I found was in January 1949. The first pic is my mom's sister, Mary Ruff with one of her calves.

 A post card from my cousin Winnie and her husband to our grandfather in January 1949.

In 1959 this is a picture of me and my brother standing out in the snow with our old woodshed in the background. I would have been 4 and my brother 2 on this date.

Thankful for the blessings of this day.

God Bless and Good Night

WELCOME ROSIE ANN

Dragging out of bed on lazy Sunday mornings is harder sometimes than others and this morning was a hard one. #1 son was having to go to the emergency room with an abcessed tooth this morning so g-son and RL were dropped off here at 9:00 by d-in-love on her way to church.
Hubbie got them breakfast while I got chores done. It is 24 degrees this morning so more ice breaking.
I came back inside and had my breakfast and then we put corn on the cob on to cook to go with the beef stew that was cooking in the crockpot.
We got ready and we all headed to church.
Hubbie and I have nursery duty today so g-son went on into church and we dropped RL off in the 3 year old class which she apparently loves as she did not want to go to the nursery with us.
We had 4 toddlers and 2 babies under 1 year so Re came in and helped along with another one of the mothers. Babies are one on one projects when they are at these babies age so we had to have some help.
We came home to have our lunch with #1 son's family and Re and the kids. #1 son had gotten some antibiotics and pain meds for his badly abcessed tooth so he was feeling better.
After everyone left daughter called and said there was some folks she knew that needed to find a good home for one of their Australian Shepherd dogs. When they had a litter of puppies born about 1 year ago we expressed interest in a puppy but couldn't afford the price they were asking.
This was one of those puppies that they had kept from that litter. We met them at their house at 4:00 and the dog was a beautiful calm female red and white Aussie. She acted very smart and reminded me a lot of some of the aussie we have had in the past. She was a cross between my Annie and Sadie that both recently passed away. She was smart and had very intelligent eyes like Sadie but  had the calm personality like my Annie did.
The young couple that had her were really sad to see her go and I thought they were going to change their mind about letting her go. They had just gotten back from letting someone else look at her and they were surprised when we said we would take her today.
There were some tears and I told them not to give her up if she meant that much to them but they said they needed to let her go because they just had too many animals and no time to spend with her.
Rosie Ann is her name and she is now a member of our family and acts like she is right at home with IR and all the animals that are running around. Her birthday is January 9 so she just turned 1 year old.

We played with her awhile then put her in our empty dog lot for the evening. Daughter and IR went home and hubbie and I got chores done.
The entire sky was orange tonight casting an orange glow on everything.

When we came inside and had a snack for supper we went out to Walmart to get Rosie a new bed for the crate downstairs so she can come inside overnight on these cold nights. She has a very thick coat and has been outside all her life but she has had a couple other bigger dogs to cuddle with and here she would be all alone so on these cold nights she will come inside. She acted like she enjoyed her soft bed and didn't raise any fuss about being in the crate.

I had a headache tonight and rested with a heating pad on my temple for a couple hours before the pain went away.

Thankfully I am feeling better and headed to bed early tonight.

Thankful for the blessings of this day and praying that Rosie makes a smooth transition to our home.

God Bless and Good Night