Who said, "Let it Snow?"

I haven't had time to post and now I'm trying to remember the sequence of events.  Here's hoping I get it right.

There's been a lot of action around here lately.   We thought Jon had some kind of virus since we had been to the immediate care right after New Year's Day.  It wasn't covid or the flu, but last Tuesday he was still really sick and Dr. Crane said he should go to the ER.  We had more than 12 inches of snow in our driveway.  I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to drive him or if I needed to call for an ambulance, but I was pretty certain an ambulance couldn't make it into our driveway.

  I called our neighbor, Andy McChesnie, and he immedicately drove down and plowed us out.   It turned out that I drove Jon to the hospital and he was diagnosed with pneumonia.  Since then he has been taking his medications and is feeling better.  I can't tell you what a relief it was to drive home and know that I was going to be able to get to my house. Thank you Andy.

During the next couple of days we had more snow, adding at least another 12 inches.  I ran the snowblower several times and kept the walkways clear.  We would need plowed out again.  Ben Tibbitts from Clark Fork came to plow us out the second time.  There was so much snow that it wasn't long before he was in the ditch and needed to get pulled out by neighbor Adam Mitton.   Ben proceeded to keep on plowing and then when he was almost to our house, his truck suddenly quit running.  He walked to the house and asked if we could give his truck a jumpstart and of course I said yes. 

I put my Subaru in x-mode and drove down our small hill to where his truck was while he got the jumper cables out of Jon's pickup.  His truck did start but there was an immediate squealing when his serpentine belt broke.  The truck was "dead in the snow".  Now he needed a tow since he was blocking not only our driveway, but also Neil Wimberleys' driveway.   At this point I backed my car up the hill on our driveway.  I mention this because I am  notoriously bad at backing up, but I did it with Ben giving me backup guidence.  

Next, Ben called Adam Mitton once again and he drove down with the skid steer and towed him into Neil's driveway where there was a flat area to leave it until the next day.  

The first snowfall

By this time it was about 7:00 p.m.  Ben walked back to our house and we gave him a cup of coffee and fed him some fried chicken and cornbread. He was in pretty good spirits after a very trying day.  He told us that Adam's son Garrett, who is a mechanic, said he would take a look at his truck the next day.  He would keep me informed as to progress on the repair.  He had called his wife to get a ride home and later I drove him to the bottom of the hill to meet her.  I should mention here that the predicted wild winds were just beginning to blow when I drove back up the hill that night.

As it turned out, Garrett spent the next day working on the truck and was able to get it running later that day.  Garret is a hard worker, being out in the cold all day.  

Ben was a happy guy and so were we.  So bright and early the next morning Ben was back to finish the plow job.  So thank you again to all the snow plowers!

In the meantime we somehow managed to get through the arctic blast blowing in that night without our power going out.  We had spent quite a bit of time getting prepared by moving the generator to the front porch, getting out the emergency lanterns and heater, plus propane, just in case we needed it.  I think a lot of the snow blew out of the trees before the really strong gusts arrived.  The wind howled all night long.    

Our mini-split heat exchanger is working overtime, but we gave it some assistance with electric baseboard heat.  Our lowest temperature was Friday night at -18.  I'm pretty sure that's a record for our house over 44 years.  Our low Saturday night was -10 and it's still pretty frigid around here.  

The weatherman says that we will get another round of snow sometime between Tuesday night and Thursday night, 8-12 inches.  That would put us at close to 3 feet.  Then it might rain.  Cheery thought. Rain on top of all this snow.  

We are staying indoors as much as possible and I hope I don't need to run the snowblower again until the temperature is a bit warmer.  Lady gets to go outside, but only for limited amounts of time.  It's too cold for dogs too.

There are basketball and football games to watch and tonight one of my favorite shows is on, All Creatures Great and Small.  There are several dogs in the show and dogs are my favorite pets.  It's a very entertaining series.

The bitter cold seems to be all over the nation.  I check the temperatures in Missoula, Kalispell and Lolo, where all of our "kids" live, plus my sister Kathy and brother Roy and other nieces and nephews all live in various parts of Montana.  My oldest brother Don, lives in Massena, Iowa.  They were having a blizzard.  The cold and snow even got as far south as Edmond, Ok, where Jon's sister and her family live.  

Stay well and stay warm everyone.  I am counting the days until February since spring seems far away.

Winter arrives!

 Yes, we have snow and they say we're going to get more in the next few days before the Artic air blows in.  Winter is finally here.  I haven't been outside yet but will need to do something soon.  We have the Montana Grizzlies in the championship game to watch and also the Seahawks.

My birdhouse village has some snow on it and an addition of a white candle tree, a gift from my friend Ellie. 

Jon has been feeling a bit under the weather for the past few days.  We have tested for Covid and the flu and both were negative.   I am making sure he takes his meds and hopefully the bug will finally be destroyed by his immune system.

Lady was pretty leery about going out in the snow this morning.  She stayed on the porch for at least an hour before deciding to venture out.  Then she had a blast running zoomies around the house and rolling in the snow.  

I wish I could say that I'm going to have that much fun when I shovel the steps and then decide if the snowblower will even blow this white stuff.  It might be too wet.  If that's the case then I need to wait until it freezes up, which should happen tonight.  Predicted low of 18.  

Our family has a college football bowl pool and due to my research and a lot of luck, I am in the lead.  I have $$$ coming my way.  

Happy Winter!

And just like that! It's 2024!

 Introducing the Dixie Cup Kid!

Our great-grandson Jason loves anything to do with numbers, including counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, time, clocks, dates,... he loves it.  Somehow he started collecting and counting my Dixie cups.  He gradually worked his way up to 53 cups and only "needed" 5 more to have 58.

I ordered the Dixie Cups from Costco about 4 years ago.  I think there were 200 in the package.  I'm almost out now, but I'm good with it.  A pretty simple game to play with the cups.   In the top photo Jason is getting ready to leave for the "ho and tel", which was his language for where they were staying.  

One of Jon's favorites - cheese balls.

A new game for Ben, Poetry for Neanderthals.  We played it and it was not an easy game. 

How most of us felt in the early morning.

Preparing to cook "the beast".

The dining table was put to use for games of poker, Rummikub and for a collective effort in assembling a dinosaur T-rex remote controlled robot, which required coding and engineering skills.  Ben could not wait to start working on it.

100 pieces...

The builders!

When they were finished, they had a T-rex with sound, light and Jason could make him "dance".   

There had to be a brush pile to burn.  It's tradition.

New Year's Eve is a time for assessment. 

The youngest brother is almost there at age 14.  

The white elephant drawing.  Take a number.  The rules are:  choose one of the gifts that haven't been taken or steal one from someone else.  You can only steal one time. 

The white elephant exhange begins.  Dave receives a diabetic testing kit along with a bottle of Cap'n Crunch Ocean Blue Maple Syrup and multiple bags of candy.

It was popcorn and movie night for Julie.  A blanket and movies included.

Kelsey chose wisely with her white elephant gift since she loved the game Solarquest.  We've had the game since the late 70's and she learned to play it at Thanksgiving.  Unfortunately, Dylan hated the game.   Her white elephant was a new version of the game that just returned after 40 years.  Up until this year if you wanted to buy Solarquest you had to search for a used one on eBay.   Also, there were two coffee mugs in the bag.  

Rylee opens the game Spanish Bingo.  It's looking like a white elephant game year.

I -54 in Spanish please.

Melissa with a package of six more coffee mugs. 

Grandpa Jon gets a Gnome and a coffee mug. He actually received two mugs as gifts.  No more mugs!

Collin receives "all things a football fan would want", except he's not a fan.  Plus, a football coffee mug.

Another game - Worst Case Senarios and you get another mug...

JP gets an apple-peeler-corer-slicer kitchen device.  A water bottle this time AND, you guessed it, a coffee mug.

I was #10 and the last to choose.  I decided to steal David's sugar, candy and diabetic bag.  I defenitely need the syrup for payback from an incident many years ago when a very large container of very cold water was poured on me while I took my shower.  I did get some revenge that year by pouring a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth's on David while he was in the shower.  The revenge battles continue on in 2023 and probably 2024.   I've heard that 2024 might be THE YEAR for revenge.  

They say that Cap'n Crunches' Ocean Blue Maple Flavored Syrup is also an excellent shampoo product.  For best results, use in the shower.

    

Blue is going to be the color for 2024! 

Happy New Year!

I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair! Go Reba!