1st week December 2001
~ Thanksgiving 2001
3rd week December 2001:
Went
wood
cutting yesterday. Left the house and it was 52 degrees. 30 minutes
later on the farm it was cloudy, about 25 degrees and the wind was howling.
I was woefully---no PAINFULLY---underdressed, no long underwear, no hat and it
took about 5 hours for my butt to thaw when we got back. I think my earrings are
permanently frozen into my skin! Our friend Al took us out to where his
son-in-law had cleared some farm land a few years back and they just roll all
the trees into a big pile and come out and cut what they need when they
need it. Some of it will need to be split so tomorrow I will get a maul
and figure out how to make big pieces into little ones. We are doing a
Christmas Eve dinner here at the house and going to Al and Monica's for
Christmas day. They are doing prime rib and all the fixing's. We had
a few friends from work over for dinner last night. Jeanna, Rosalie, Judi
& I played trivia games (I never knew what the letters on the cross were,
but Jeanna set us straight) and Jeanna's husband Timmy played Nintendo all night
with DJ. We have already had our first houseguest. One of Judi's
co-workers, Bonnie, was in town for a week so Judi had her spend it here.
Kansas is
wonderful. The house is even better than we remembered it. So many nice touches
that we didn't notice when we first looked. Twice the square footage is really
nice as all the stuff of mine that we just didn't have room for before is now
all inside and I am re-discovering all the little treasures I had---and a few
things that make me say what the heck was I thinking!!!! LOL. DJ's school is
great. 301 kids in 6 grades. BAND!!!!!! He is playing an instrument---same one
Judi & I played in school---Clarinet. The dogs run like crazy around the
house and the woods and the fields. Judi & DJ got dirt bikes for
Christmas---they have promised not to ride them before then---yeah, right. Elmo
loves the wood burning stoves and the birds out the windows and hanging with me
in the loft while I try to get my office back together and plan the bookshelves
for my library. Judi is loving working in an office. I guess it's a little bit
different when you run a department with an annual budget of 18 million dollars.
My days are filled with lots to do. I probably spend half the day unpacking
boxes and the rest puttering around the yard with the dogs. I start each day
walking DJ down the driveway---long and twisty through the trees---to meet his
bus. I come back and have coffee on the back deck and a smoke and watch the dogs
zoom around and hope for deer at the pond but deer season is almost gone. No
snow yet. Guess we brought the California weather with us but the rain today
kept switching from rain to snow. Maybe tomorrow. I hope at least by Christmas.
We got our tree today at Wal-Mart. 8 feet tall, scotch pine of the greenest
green I have ever seen on a Christmas Tree. $20.00!!!!! Try doing that in
California!!!! The people here are the nicest. You pump gas and THEN pay. All
the service people we've had out---Stove checker, appliance repair---they SEND
you a bill. Gas is down to 91 cents a gallon in town, 95 cents out here in the
country and we ARE in the country. I hear deer and duck guns going off all day
all around me in the woods. I wear bright colors when I walk the dogs and make
sure to stay on our land so we don't get mistaken for game. Hunting season
closes soon so that won't last much longer.
We got a 4
wheel drive Jimmy since we were told we would probably need one to get up our
driveway on a few occasions. I am still unpacking boxes but we did get our
tree and the holiday decorations put up. The banister and stair railings
have garland and lights and the tree is so tall that all of our decorations fit
on it. We don't have any real TV yet, we need to pick a satellite system
as there is no cable, but I do have my ADSL for the computer...
Top
So, we go
to start a fire in the stove downstairs---the one we have never used yet????
It's cold. So cold we can feel the wind blowing INTO the room through the stove.
Me, in my traditional Tom-Hanks-stranded-on-an-island impression, I am laying
the groundwork for a blaze that will warm the cockles of Cruella
DeVil's
heart. Got my lumps of starter log, a pile of teeny kindling sticks, covered
with little bit bigger sticks and a couple of just a teensy bit bigger than the
little bit bigger sticks for good measure. Nice dry wood. We're ready to rock
and roll---are you with me so far?????
I apply the sacred Aim 'n' Flame to the starter logs and presto, we have
fire. Not a huge fire mind you, I do want to take it slow. The problem is that
there is not enough heat yet to cause air to rise UP the flue pipe, thus
carrying annoying stuff like smoke up and out into the night. No sirree Bob, we
got us a negative airflow. Major negative airflow. Well, I did not bring all the
fireplace tools down to the basement, just the bare minimum that I needed to
START a fire so I reach the critical point where if I don't get some wood out of
the stove before it catches, the entire house will fill with smoke, the smoke
detectors will go off and we will be meeting the all-volunteer members of the
Wamego Fire Department and have people pointing fingers and sniggering at us as
we stroll down Main Street. Well I don't really want to reach my bare hand into
this stove to pull the wood out as I can see some red spots that will cause
discomfort if I grab them so I ask my hero, Judi, to run upstairs and bring me
the tongs with which I plan to grab the logs.
She promptly does..............................
She returns in an instant with..............................
The teeny tiny cooking tongs from the kitchen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First week
in the house. No furniture (it's on that semi you see pictured) so we are
roughing it. We have water electricity and propane. We also have two
wood burning stoves. Had to buy a carpeted kitty condo for the cat so he
doesn't destroy the carpet since his scratching post is still on the moving van
which is somewhere in Wisconsin. Funny, when you are a kid sleeping on the floor
is a great adventure---whatever happened to that?
It is very quiet here in the country and at night you can hear animals moving
in the woods. It will take some time to figure out what animals the sounds
belong to and it's kind of scary. I don't leave the deck after dark as I
am not sure what's moving around out there.
We have a new kitty throwing himself/herself at the door and we don't know if
the people before left the cat or what. I guess this explains the cat
feeder and watering bowl that were left on the side of the house and all the cat
food in the garage...
Top