Happy New Years's Eve!   This morning I am transitioning from using a PC to a Mac.  So far it's a slow process, especially the typing.  My fingers are not used to the small keyboard.  There may be typos!

  My photos are of the sunrise Wednesday morning. 

Wednesday was my day to head to Sandpoint for our final preparations to celebrate the new year.  Our family will be getting together for a couple of days and we look forward to it despite the bitter cold temperatures.

   

As I was driving down the hill on West Spring Creek Road I thought of New Year's Day in 1976.  The county did not plow the roads on holidays and back then we were lucky if  the rural roads were plowed on weekdays.  We had a lot of snow that winter, just like this one including NYE.

In 1976 I think there were twelve residences on "the hill".  Since there was so little traffic on NY Day, we organized a sledding party to sled from about right where I took this photo, to the bottom of West Spring Creek.  Jon drove our pickup to the bottom of the hill to stop anyone from driving up the road while the kids (and adults) were sledding down. There really was no traffic that day. 

 

Towards the bottom of the "sled run" are a couple of nasty curves and I don't remember anyone making it past them without crashing into a snowbank. You just had too much speed when you reached the curves.  What an incredibly fun day that was.  Not a chance that it could happen nowadays.

Over the years we have adjusted and moved the sled run to our driveway.  There's usually a bonfire and lanterns so that we can sled at night.  It may be very cold tonight but everyone will want to make at least one run down the driveway to properly bring in the new year. 

Here are a couple of photos of this morning's sunrise. 

Last night's sunset.  

Happy New Year!

 Yes Virginia, we have snow.

 

 

This one is an old photo from Jon's game camera. (Correction:  Not from game camera, but near driveway in front of our house.)  The snowfall looks similar and I couldn't resist posting it today.  

We used to have a moose or two hang around here during the winter.  We haven't seen one here since 2015.

We just think we have a lot of snow.  This photo is of my grandma Reineke somewhere near their ranch in Nebraska in 1948.  The year I was born. It's the only photo I have of her. 

                                    

 Yesterday began better than expected.  We didn't have as much snowfall as predicted, but there was enough to run the snowblower to open up our trails again.  I was just finishing when I noticed Jon on the front porch with a 5 gallon bucket of water that he proceeded to dump over the railing onto the snow in the yard.  He signaled to cut off my engine to the snowblower and I knew that a, "Houston, we have a problem", was in progress.

The problem:  Our 30 gallon fish tank was leaking and had already leaked about 5 gallons of water onto the floor.  I grabbed another bucker and we both started dipping water out of the tank as fast as we could.  We removed all of the plants and rocks and all of gravel in the bottom so the tank was light enough to move outside to the front porch. 

We had used our hutch for the base of the fish tank as we found out the anything you buy in the store for a fish tank base is really not stable or sturdy enough when the tank is on carpet. 

After we had finished taking everything apart and sorting out what was wet, we also discovered that the water on the floor had leaked across the floor/ceiling of the basement approximately 14 feet to just above the door into the woodroom.  There was a electrical junction box directly above the door and water was dripping into the box onto the concrete floor in the woodroom.  We grabbed our bag of old towels (since this is not the first time we've dealt with water in the basement where we don't really want water) and started sopping it up.

I believe that this is the end of our fish tank days, especially since Covid-19 began the fish supply has dwindled down to nothing.  We've bought a few but for the most part they all die.  Possibly too much stress during shipping which is taking too long.  

 What a mess!

It took a couple of hours to cleanup and sort out what was wet and/or what could be salvaged.  I used my carpet shampooer to suck up the water in the carpet and it's drying.  

We inherited the hutch from Jon's parents many years ago.  The top half of the hutch is removeable and in 2015, when we fist setup our tank, I refinished another cabinet and placed the hutch top on it.  Today I will move the top part of my hutch back to it's original place.

Willie report:  He saw his first deer in the yard.  We thought he would be afraid of them, but he wasn't and took off after them.  He didn't respond to our recall, so we have more training to do.  He has to learn to chase the deer out of the yard/pasture and then return to the house.   

A plus is that he seems to have learned about the snowblower and did not try to herd it at all yesterday.  

Our snowfall overnight was about three inches and it's snowing as I am writing this so it looks like I will be running the machine again today.   There's a good 15 inches on the deck rail which means there's at least 18 inches out there on the lawn.  It's beginning to get deep and Willie is up to his neck in the deep snow.  

I think I might be tipping over the edge here, but the snow in these tree branches look like dogs to me.  The top one, Snoopy, and the bottom one, a mopsy/floppsy dog.  I might have "puppy on the brain" syndrome.  

My original plan for yesterday was snow removal and then to bake some cookies.  Maybe it will happen today, but there sure is a lot of snow on our deck.  It might be time to get it off of there.  That is a big project, even for two people.

Happy Monday!

Welcome to Winter Wonderland.  

The real one. 

 Go James Webb telescope!  

When I was in junior high school way back in time - the early sixties, I got up very early every morning to watch John Glenn's launch into space.  The flight was cancelled many times due to weather and other problems. My parents thought I was a bit crazy, but I didn't want to miss it. 

Since then I have been lucky enough to watch many more.  I have to say that the coolest part of this launch was watching the final stage separation and the live video of the array unfolding.  What an incredible moment that must have been for all of those scientists who made it happen.

What a wonderful gift to the world on Christmas morning.  

Go science!

                                                                                                                                                     

 Yes, we're ready for Christmas.  The tree is up and decorated after several major adjustments.  Willie managed to stay out of it even though he would have liked to chew on it a bit.   I love our tree as it has 4 top stems plus there's a really nice bird's nest in it. 

This year we have some new ornaments created by grandson Ben.

The question is, are we ready for the weather forecast?  Ten to twenty-two inches of snowfall between now and Monday.  Then highs in the teens and lows below zero.  Hmm.  We have no choice but to get ready and that means hauling in more loads of firewood and shoveling off the north deck before everything freezes solid.  

A lot of snow has come off the roof on that side of the house and it's better to get it off the deck now so we hired our friend, Bill Harris, to shovel the snow off of the deck and to use the snowrake to get it off our roof in the valleys on the south side of the house.   

Once Bill had finished raking off the southside, the bottom three steps of the porch were buried with a combination of three feet of snow and ice.  No one will be walking up that side of the porch for awhile.

Jon made a trip to Clark Fork to refill our gasoline cans for both the snowblower and the generator.  Wind is also in the forecast which means a combination of heavy snow and wind could mean another power outage. 

We experienced that on Christmas morning about four years ago.  The power was out all day and we finally opened our gifts around 6:00 p.m. that night.  

Willie report:  On Monday he made a trip to the vet and we have some improvement in the "excited puppy" issue.  Yes, it was still all I could do to hang onto him while we waited in the lobby.  There were kids and other dogs and the excitement was just too much for him.  

Once we moved into the exam room he started to calm down except whenever anyone entered the room.  His improvement was that after a couple of minutes with the vet, he did respond to my "sit" command and also to "lie down", which gave the vet enough time to do his exam.  All of this was accomplished by rewarding him with his favorite training food, ham.  

Willie is now the proud owner of three homes/crates plus his mat that is "his place".  He is about to grow out of the crate he sleeps in at night in our bedroom, but we're still using it.  I bought a larger one and it's in the livingroom area.  He moves his toys in and out of the new crate and he doesn't mind spending some time in there with the door closed when mom and dad need to do something without puppy assistance.  

His Christmas present is a Treibball. It's a heavy ball that is meant to stay on the ground and to be moved using his nose.  We have done one training session on how to do that.  The rest of the time he just gets to play with it and it keeps him really occupied.

When we first introduced him to the ball, he wanted nothing to do with it.  He barked at it and hid next to Jon.  I put some treats on the floor around it and then he was brave enough to get close to eat the treats and check out the new ball.  After that he was all over it.

I started this post early this morning and had a lot of interruptions as it's now 5:30 p.m.  The first one was to learn that we had a package at the Hope post office and they were closing at noon.  That meant getting the car thawed out and driving down the hill to Hope.

After I got back from the trip to Hope it was time to prepare the scalloped potato dish and the fruit salad for tomorrow's dinner.   

Next Jon and I with Willie's assistance (standing on the pieces of firewood that we are trying to pick up)  hauled in three loads of firewood to the wood room in the basement.  It needs to be filled up with wood for those cold temperatures next week.

Willie spent a lot of time outside and we played the "chase the  tennis ball game" while we moved the firewood.  When we finally came back inside, he was a worn out pup.  A good thing.

The scalloped potatoes are baking in the oven and there's a football game on right now.  The stockings are hung, the house is warm, the food is prepared, and the puppy is sleeping. 

Merry Christmas!

 Today will be the last of my to-do Christmas errands and also the last of my appointments before Christmas Eve.  It is snowing lightly and our forecast is for 2-4 inches today.  

Willie has an appointment for his final round of puppy vaccinations this afternoon.  After that I will pickup the groceries for Christmas Eve and send off my last packages.  The upcoming days are my favorite time when the shopping is done and there's time to just relax and enjoy the season.  The snow will get shoveled and plowed and life will slow down a bit. It's more time for family and friends and less other "stuff".

Jon is working on a small but very important project, which is breaking in his new red crusher hat.   He's always worn one and he wore the last one for at least 30 years?  Maybe more.  It was definitely time to replace it several years ago, but we couldn't find one in a size small.  Daughter-in-law Julie found him a size medium and we tried to shrink it, but nothing worked.

Then last spring I found a website that had them for sale, but sadly, size small was out of stock.  I waited and checked again a couple of months ago and they were back in stock.  Hooray!

We now have the new one and it requires breaking in.  It must be shaped exactly right which means wetting the brim and weighting it down so that it stays flat.  The other adjustments are the tie on the band of red ribbon must be glued down and the crown of the hat must be shaped "just right".  

This is just the initial breaking in.  It must be exposed to the proper amounts of wood smoke, rain, snow and general debris to be considered fully broken-in as in the old hat pictured below.  You should take note of the shape.  That's perfect.

One must also have a buffalo plaid wool jacket to wear with the red hat.  I must tell you that he wore the jacket until there was hardly anything left of it. It had to be buttoned-up with a safety pin and had numerous burn holes in it from getting to close to the burn pile.  Plus there were holes in both of the elbows. 

This is how you break-in both the hat and the coat.

These are photos after I bought him a new jacket but I had not found the hat.

Some photos of past adventures while wearing his red hat and jacket.  This is my brother Roy and Jon on Seagull Charters back in the days when we used to fish during the derby. 

We hiked into Lake Estelle for an overnight trip with our friends Ann and Neil Wimberley.  Jon packed in the cast iron skillet for frying the trout.  Notice the sleeping pad.  It was definitely not enough cushion when one is sleeping on the ground.  Think rocks and tree roots. 

This was a mega blowdown, cottonwood tree in the swamp.

I couldn't resist posting the photo with Maggie.  2015

My Aunt Shirley called this one "Connie's Norman Rockwell" photo.  It does kind of look like one.  Maggie is in this photo too. We still need to get our tree.  Maybe tomorrow.  

 What a beautiful day we had yesterday.  The snowblowing was a quick and easy one with the fuffy snow.  We received another half inch overnight and the temperature has moderated a bit.  That works for me. 

Willie had a blast in the snow and responded correctly to the "leave it" command every time he started to bark at the snowblower and me.  It's possible he is learning that the snowblower is not meant to be herded.  

Instead of baking another batch of cookies yesterday I made peanut brittle.  I cannot eat anything made from corn which means no corn syrup. If you read labels, you will notice that corn syrup is in thousands of products, but most of all, most candies have corn syrup as an ingredient.  

I had searched for recipes for a substitute, but learned that other syrups, such as agave or maple, will not work in candy making because they don't stop crystallization.  Then one day I came across a blog discussing the problem and the recommendation was to use Lyle's Golden Syrup.  

Lyle's Golden Syrup is made in the UK.  It's a bit on the pricey side, but so is everything else that is gluten free or grain free.  I decided I would give it a try because I would really like to make some peppermint candy or even butterscotch. 

Yesterday, peanut brittle seemed a good one to try.  I haven't made peanut brittle for years so I was a bit rusty.  The recipe is from my very old, but trusted Better Homes and Gardens cookbook.  Buttery Peanut Brittle.  The buttery part is right on.  I told Jon that I needed to hide the candy container from myself or I was going to eat all of it. 

 Later last night I was watching a movie in the bedroom, enjoying some of the peanut brittle.  Jon came into the room and I asked him to move the container somewhere else.  He said, "You mean you hid it in the same room you were going to be in?" He laughed and walked back out of the room.   

Willie Report:

He had what might be a turning point day yesterday and I have no idea why.  Everything seemed to come together for him.  He stopped jumping up on us and he went willingly into his crate many times during the day, even taking a nap there. 

We have a set routine throughout the day and he now knows what his role is.   When either of us say to him, "I need to go check the fire", he knows we are going downstairs to the basement to check the fire in the wood furnace and of course, he's right there with us.  Jon has a game that he plays with him using a tennis ball while they are waiting for the fire to heat up. 

He still spent a lot of time chewing on his leash even though I am trying to train him to stop.  We'll see how it goes today.  He doesn't chew on it while he's outside, but I don't allow him a lot of free run with the leash on outside because even though our yard is pretty big, it is surrounded by forest and other things in the yard that the dragging leash could get caught on. 

Today's agenda still includes making another wreathe and also a trip to the Hope Marketplace Art Co-op.  They are open Thursdays through the weekend with local artist's arts and crafts.  

They have many beautiful and unique pieces for sale.  A great place to shop for Christmas gifts.   This is Deva of Wastelands, by my friend, Linda Heisel. 

Tables by Mike Evans, Steve Adam’s hand blown glass, stained glass lamps, paintings by many artists.

Art Glass by Sara McTavish (in the window) and Sara Gallagher’s Ceramics

Paintings and books by Hope artist Shelby Young

Denny Gorup’s hand turned wood bowls, Bill Percy’s Monastery Valley book series, including his latest—The Fury Before the Fire!

Also on Tuesday they will be hosting a Winter Solstice Open House from 3-6:00 p.m.  Celebrate the beauty of the the shortest day and the return to the light.  

Enjoy your weekend.  

The photo below was taken on December 20, 2011.  Almost the solstice.