Retired Mountain Lady

 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!