The tip-toe

 Is it time to get off the bench? 

Yesterday was my first day of doing something "normal" since September of 2019.  For me, the quarantine began that month since it was when my hip replacement took place which was then followed by another hip surgery after I broke my femur in my hip replacement leg in November.  I was finally returning to a normal routine when the pandemic hit in 2020.  

I would say fast-forward to the present day, but it has been more of a very slow walk.

Yesterday, March 9, 2021:

I went to my first exercise class at the Community Center in Hope and met the new instructor, Jenny.  Plus, three of my friends were also in the class, Susan Howard, Judy Butler and Michelle Brooks.  

The pure joy of meeting friends in person, is just hard to describe.  

The class follows the CDC guidelines and everyone wears a mask although some remove them when exercise starts.  The windows are opened for air circulation and we stay at least six feet apart during the class.  Afterwards we each wipe down our chair with sanitizing wipes.  While many of us have been fully vaccinated, there were some people who haven't received theirs yet. 

I felt safe and will do my part to keep others safe.  The class exercises were perfect for someone who has spent almost a year and a half without any organized exercise.  

Afterwards, three of us went to the Davis Cafe in Hope for lunch.  Again, my first since September of 2019.  It seems like it has been ten years instead of just a couple. 

Retired Mountain Man and I have been fully vaccinated for more than a month, but we are tip-toeing back into normal.  We still wear masks, social distance and wash our hands often.  There's still hand sanitizer in our car along with dozens of masks.  I also have a mask in every coat pocket - just in case.

There are now lots of "to-do" things on our list.  Dentist and eye doctor appointments and also an audiologist appointment at the Spokane VA hospital for Jon.  

The same goes for Maggie.  

I'm posting some photos of Maggie from March 2014.  She's scheduled for her early spring, mud season, grooming tomorrow.  

There's a lot of good news starting to filter in and after so much bad news for so long, it's hard to actually FEEL good things.  

The vaccine rollout is improving every day.  We will finally have a Covid Relief Plan that is going to help us get out of this mess. 

I truly appreciate that both the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are a miracle as there has never been a mRNA vaccine prior to this.  Science is incredible. 

Gonzaga won last night. Both the women's and men's teams.  We will have March Madness this year!

Retired Mountain Man has had a successful shoulder surgery and is really getting back into his usual routine.  He loves spending time outdoors, making firewood, cleaning up his forest and splitting firewood.  Thank you, Dr. Cipriano.

Coming up this weekend we will spring forward with DST.  It's always an adjustment, but so wonderful to have finally reached spring on the calendar.

I have planted my begonia tubers and they are beginning to sprout underneath my gro-lights.  Although I am not certain I will grow tomatoes and peppers in my garden this year - due to allergies - I think I will start a few just in case it turns out I am not allergic to them.  

Have you seen our forecast for the weekend?  A high of 56 on Sunday!  

It's time to check the electric fence and get it turned on.  Prune fruit trees and get outdoors.  Maggie will be the supervisor.  She is also hopeful that someone will toss that ball for her.

 

February Blues

 It's February and it's pretty quiet around here.  That's okay with us.  We got our 2nd shot and prepared for the cold weather.  Fortunately, it didn't last too long here, but zero is cold enough for us.  

Now we're in the February blues days.  Foggy, snowy, rainy, back to foggy, etc.  The big excitement for today was discovering water on the floor in the basement.  That's never a good sign.  We started searching for the source.  Nothing appeared to be leaking, but I had just run a load of clothes in the washer.  

A drain problem?  

We decided to check the cleanout on the sewer line and sure enough, there was standing water.  We were hoping it was only plugged up.  Retired Mountain Man decided that we could use our chimney cleaner tool for a snake to unplug the drain.

It's called a Wohler Viper and to clean the chimney we attach a brush.  It seemed like it would work as a Roto-rooter for this job.  He was right.  It worked!  What a relief because we had both been trying to picture in our minds about how to get a septic tank truck here on the snowy roads, plus add digging up the lawn over tank in the middle of winter.  

Whew!

I'm posting a few videos of our February life.   We have a spare game camera in our yard as we have been trying to catch the elk on our camera.  They have been in the yard a couple of times, but we didn't have the camera set up. (You can get a better look if you choose to view the video full screen)

It takes some nice video and most of the photos are of the deer who are trying to get at the grass in the lawn.  It's also near the satellite dishes, one for the TV and another for Internet.  Too much snow and they have to be brushed off.    

Here I am in my bag lady outfit headed back from cleaning off the dishes early in the morning. 

Later in the day I am blazing a trail to said satellite dishes with my snow machine.  

Let's end this post with a bit of Keb Mo Blues.  

 

Cold!

 Brrr.  Cold.  0.4  this morning.  The temperature reports from our sons are JP in Kalispell at -10 and David in Missoula at -6.  Grandson Dylan in Lolo at -4 plus wind chill.  JP also says that he remembers the day it was -26 in Kalispell, not counting the wind chill.  I guess that means this is balmy.  

Mardi Gras is next week so I am posting some photos from years past.  We've had all kinds of weather for the parade from 3 feet of snow to no snow at  all and/or mud in the driveway.

It's something to cheer me up on this bitter cold day.  It was also a very cold day in the photo below.  We were decorating the float and our friend, Mike, brought a barrel wood stove so we could warm up once in awhile as we decorated. Mike was the creator of the mermaid on the front of our float.  It was constructed of plywood and designed to attach to the front of the truck by bolting it underneath.

This is the float decorating crew,  Jon, Mark, Neil and Mike.  While we were doing this there were many others over at Ann and Neil's decorating the house, setting up tables and making the final food preparations. 

A side note:  I will report that on Day 2 after our second Moderna shot that I am feeling better and the only symptom remaining is some soreness in my arm.  Jon felt okay except for a sore arm.   We are both so happy that we are on the other side of Covid-19.  

Our life can regain some normalcy and we look forward to it.   

In a normal year I would be cooking up a huge batch of Chicken Gumbo.

Our neighbors, Ann and Neil Wimberley, introduced all of us to celebrating Mardi Gras complete with costumes  from a Krewe in Mobile, Moon Pies, beads, and most important, the cuisine.   King Cakes, with the plastic baby hidden inside.  If your piece of cake contained a baby, you  had to bake a King  Cake the next year. 

The costumes are fabulous.  Joe Heisel - our trombone player, looking great in his costume!

The parade and the party couldn't take place without music.  The Cougar Creek Band was always ready to oblige. 

The flambeaus were always an impressive part of the parade.

Lighting the flambeaus. 2014

 As you can see this was a snowy one.  

The morning after the parade - not in 2014 - It was always interesting cleaning up.  There were always beads, coins and Moon Pies left on the ground.  Some years they slowly thawed out of the snow banks.

What fun we had.

Happy Valentine's Day and Let the good times roll!

If the thermometer had been an inch longer we would have frozen to death.  Mark Twain

2nd Dose in the arm

Today the dreaded Polar Vortex has finally reached us.  The temperatures are dropping and the wind is blowing.  Our low last night was 9.1 degrees and it's supposed to go below zero tonight.  

Retired Mountain Man and I are hoping that the power does not go out.  We can manage if it does by using our generator but when it's this cold, keeping it going would not be a fun project.

Yesterday we both received our 2nd Moderna vaccination and it was a strange feeling to be looking forward to getting a shot, knowing that we may have some side effects.  It didn't matter because we are so happy to finally have some protection from the deadly virus.  Soon I will feel comfortable going inside a store to shop although I don't plan to do that often.

I can report that my side effects were pretty immediate as early last evening I could not stay awake.  I had three naps before finally just deciding to go to bed.  This morning my arm is definitely sore, there's still some fatigue and a bit of nausea.  None of it is bad enough to take a pain reliever though.  I'll stick it out and let my immune system do its thing.

We are ready for the cold since we brought in extra firewood a couple of days ago.  Now, we plan to stay indoors as much as possible.  Nothing new there.  

Some good things for us - one year ago today on Feb. 14th Retired Mountain Man was having his surgery to remove the tumor.  We didn't know much about Covid-19 that day and no one was wearing a mask.  There were lots of people in the waiting room.  I was allowed to go with him to pre-op and to be with him in post-op.  

While I was in the waiting room a woman with a small child sat down near me.  She had a really bad cough.  Even back then that was enough to scare me.  I got up and left.

As his treatment went on for the cancer, everything became very concerning.  Would he still get treatment during the shutdown?  Yes, he did.  The pandemic just piled on more stress about the whole situation.  

After a year, he is cancer free and goes for checkups every 4 months.  We're grateful and thank all of the docs and nurses who hung in there with us all that time.

I can add even more gratitude for all of the medical community, the scientists, researchers and also to those who were volunteering yesterday at the vaccination clinic.  Our country owes them a lot.  They're the ones who are going to get us out of this pandemic.  

                                                                                            

Stay safe, Stay warm.  Get your vaccination.  

P.S.  I received my microchip with my 2nd dose.  I think I'm transmitting signals already.  

The frigid cold weather makes me think of this song, Girl From the North Country. 

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

It's a mixed bag here on the weather front.  Our yard doesn't usually look like this in January or February, but here we are.  My photos are from our walk yesterday.

This morning we woke up to a couple of inches of very heavy wet snow that has now turned into rain.  It's a real mess out there.  The big question is, will it thaw enough before the temperatures drop below freezing?  If not, get out your ice skates.

The days of sunshine are unusual so we enjoyed every moment as we headed out for our walk to the newspaper boxes.  

It's an added bonus when we get to talk to someone like Linda Heisel, as she was on her way to our neighbors house.  

There was a disaster site at our neighbors at the top of the hill, Curtis and Kris Kitchen.  During the last windstorm a tree had fallen onto their chicken house.  It hit it squarely in the middle.   I took this photo shortly after it happened.  

Today they are well on their way through the logging job of clearing more trees so that they won't blow down on their house or barn.

Retired Mountain Man has been working on his burn piles.  Picking up tree limbs and branches and sawing them into sizeable pieces for the piles.  He says it's strange to be able to do this project in January or February.  

It's a good thing though because we are basically staying home until our second Moderna shot, which will be next week.  What a relief it will be to know that after a couple of weeks it will be safe for us to do some things such as shopping in a store once again.  

Plus, there's always that trip to the dentist that we've been putting off since last March.  (I can't believe I'm looking forward to a trip to the dentist)  

What will you do when you get your Get Out of Covid Jail Pass?  We would love to visit our sons and their families, but we will wait until the CDC says it's okay to do so.  While we will be safe, we want to be certain that it is the same for them.   

That means we will still be wearing masks and social distancing when we are out and about.

Our latest forecast calls for some colder temperatures next week  so Jon and I brought in five loads of firewood.  That capped off our day. 

I have decorated the front porch for the UPS deliveryman.  Fat Tuesday is February 16th.   It will be Mardi Gras time!  All I can say is that we have to do something that's festive and fun, even though we can't have a parade or party.  

I've seen reports on the news that in lieu of the Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans and Mobile, people are decorating "house floats".  There are maps to the house locations.  What a great idea. 

 

Let the good times roll with a little bit of Kermit Ruffins Monday Night in New Orleans.