In between

 Christams Day at sunset - our walk in the woods.

You can see where the trees fell.  Sawdust from Joe, Jer and Jens cutting up the wood.  Jon now has more piles of limbs to burn.  That makes him happy because he has a reason to be out there with his trees.

We received a dusting of snow that night and the temperature has been right around the freezing mark so it's staying for now.

That pesky squirrel has been running across the deck rail all day long looking for sunflower seeds.   Poor Lady is frustrated since she just can't seem to catch it.  

The Kalispell, Lolo and Missoula Burkhart's will all be here tomorrow.  We will be celebrating our Christmas with them and exchanging white elephant gifts.  It's always chaotic and fun.  Jon and I are looking forward to it. 

Today Lady is going to the groomer which she will not like, since she has to get in the car.  Wish me luck.

Christmas Blessings to you

Happiness. 2023

Merry Christmas from our house to yours

 These are photos taken yesterday.  It seems really strange to be walking out in the woods on December 23rd and there's no snow on the ground.  Plus, it doesn't look like there's going to be any snow on the ground in the near future.  

This is new.  

We've had a couple of years when there wasn't a lot of snow, but nothing like this one.  I had a reason to be out in Jon's woods.

Jon has quite a few dead trees that needed to be cut up into firewood and Joe Heisel and Jer Lizotte were here  to work on the project.  

These are big chunks.  It makes my back hurt just looking at them, and I'm pretty sure I couldn't lift them into a truck.  These two guys just toss them in there like it's no big deal.

Joe and Jon posing for the photo and taking a break.

Of course, Jon had a pile of brush to burn.  Later in the day he told me that this one was too green and wouldn't burn, but another larger one did.  That kept him busy all day.

I spent a couple of hours frosting sugar cookies.  I'm finished with the baking and today I will make an oyster stew for Christmas Eve.   I also stopped by Bruce's to hear the final mix of the Spring Creek Band tunes.  Bruce has worked his magic and the mix is great.

Merry Christmas to all!  

(I can't help myself.  I have to post pictures of snow.)

Happy Solstice 2023!

 All of the snowy photos were taken from December 19, 2015 through December 24th, 2015.  The green ones were taken this morning.  I had to document our 2023 Christmas weather.

I don't mind at all that we don't have to shovel snow this year. 

Now the daylight hours slowly become longer, but in the meantime, the night has the advantage. 

So, I had this idea...

 ,,, and I need to be careful when I get ideas. 

There's now a table just outside the window where my chair sits.  It's actually the planter that I received for Mother's Day, but we covered it with a piece of plywood for the winter.  Last week I covered it with some boughs and added some Christmas lights.  

Then I had the idea.

Since the chickadees have a feeder on the deck, I decided it would be a good idea to buy some birdhouses and set them on the table for a Christmas display.  Later on we could place them around the yard for actual birdhouses.  

I found these at Michael's online, but they had to be painted first and then sprayed with a protective coating from the rain and snow.   That was a two-day project. 

Here they are.  .

They look the best after dark since the light strings don't show up then.  

( I kept a chunk of the Christmas tree trunk for a "log" in the display)

Anyway, my version of a Christmas village.   I hope our chickadees like it.

After I finished working on that I started preparations to bake cookies.  Since I have to bake gluten-free cookies, I had to mix up some gluten-free flours to bake with.  That took more time than I had planned on.  I did manage to make some Fruity Pebbles Krispie Treats with marshmallows.  More cookies tomorrow.

Jon worked on the three-way switch in our stairway.  It was not working right so he bought a couple of new switches.  We looked on Google to find out how to wire the switches correctly, tried  reversing the wires, but that didn't change anything.  He decided to just go ahead and install both of the new switches with the same wiring and try to solve the problem tomorrow.  Lo and behold, just adding the second new switch did the trick.   They both now work.  He gets another Q-tip award.  (Six Days and Seven Nights, reference)  

That's it for today.  Time to enjoy the tree and have a cup of tea. 

This is a fun version of Carol of the Bells.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

 

The tree is decorated.  I haven't decided if the silver garland is just too much.  I might take it off and leave the red ribbon.  

My indecision about the tree garland had me searching for tree photos from years past. 

Years ago I used to move the TV out of the corner so the tree could go there.   That's way too much work now.  The tree goes where it's easiest to decorate.

Next I came across a photo of Wilson.  

I had forgotten about our Wilson ball.  It sat next to the bookshelf for about 5 years and then finally ended up in the white elephant gift exchange.

It was red velvet ribbon - not sure of the year.

I do remember this year when Collin got his first sled.  He was so excited for Christmas but on Christmas Eve he had an ear infection and really didn't feel very good on Christmas morning.

This was a year he was happy and healthy.  Someone got a can of smoked oysters in their stocking and Collin thought it was a camera.  He walked around the house all morning pretending to take pictures with his camera.  

I finally let him have my camera - without the film in it.  Back in those days it was expensive to buy the film and then send it off to be developed.  We were always looking for the best deals to have film developed.  How times have changed. 

I couldn't resist posting this photo of Collin in his Santa suit...

...and this sweet picture of Rylee.

This was the year that I went to the thrift store looking for Christmas decorations and found these for sale.  I had to buy one.  It was an "open early" gift.   

It was an "all hands on deck" kind of project.

Multiple people had to read the assembly instructions.

Finally, it had to be painted.

A rare photo of all of our grandkids together.

The blue angel has been on top of more than 50 Christmas trees.   It's now on top of our 14 year-old Christmas tree.   There were lots of icicles in those days before the garland became popular.  I added some icicles to the tree last year and I'm still finding stray icicles here and there.