Saturday Eve, Dec. 20th… Less than an hour to clear the snow……

When I got bundled up and went out this morning, I waded snow to the tractor shed, plugged the extension cord into the snow blower and cranked it up, grabbed the heated handles and Zoooooooooom…… I was off…… blowing the driveway open and a wide swath to pull the car in and out of the barn overhang. I then blew open all the paths to the animals in all the buildings, wide enough to drive the John Deere, with the trailer, out and back so we can deliver feed bags when needed without having to carry feed bags like last year. It is easy to enjoy the beauty of winter and the holidays when it only takes about 45 minutes to open everything up. I even have the BBQ grill dug out …… just in case! We do cook burgers out there all winter long, ya know, and right beside the grill is a three burner propane stove that Vick uses all the time because it boils water in half the time of the stove in the house. It’s also very handy around the holidays when you are cooking big meals, because we can put things out there to cook too.
It’s snowing out there again, like it has been all day long and you can only look out and get a Christmas holiday feeling when you don’t have to dread going out into it. We go out when we have to or to do something we will enjoy, unlike a lot of people who are unprepared and hate to see what’s out there. You know what? I think we’re gonna take advantage of the beautiful winter evening and go out for a pizza or something….. After all, the snow won’t stop us.



The driveway all opened up.


Just in Case!!!!!

We'll need to clean this all off sometime.

Out the other way.....the car is under the barn!

Another week of heat in these bags!

Saturday, Dec. 20th… Looks like it’s gonna be a white Christmas…

Now we’re getting down to some serious snowing! We probably have about 16 to 18 inches out there and it’s supposed to “snow shower” until about 2 PM, then take a break until tomorrow, when it is to snow some more, then again on Christmas eve! Maybe it will be a winter like I had as a kid, where you waded snow to your belly button to go to the outhouse! As a kid, growing up in a town called Marysville, Pennsylvania, which was a picturesque little mining town, nestled among the ruins of an old iron works, once owned by Andrew Carnegie, the world was my playground. When I reached the age of ten years old, I realized that we lived in a winter wonderland that extended from State College to the Bald Eagle Mountain near Port Matilda in one direction, and from Matternville to Tyrone in the other direction. Most of the area mentioned, was owned by both the Commonwealth’s state game lands and the Harbison Walker Refractory Company. This tract of land was approximately a twenty mile, by twelve mile strip of un-occupied land called the “Barrens”, due to the strip mining that had taken place and the lumbering to provide Coke for the Iron Furnaces, which stripped the land. The result was lush, thick scrub oak called red brush, which grew to a height of six to eight feet in areas, making the landscape look the same in every direction and Barren. I grew up in this area, played and explored and had many adventures there. Winter was one of the favored times, because you could sled ride down mining slopes on old tin sheets or down icy mining roads in an old car hood, build snow forts from blocks of drifted, hard snow or just have a good old snowball fight with the neighborhood kids…..All 6 of them. Times back then were tough… money was scarce and kids hung out together at each others houses, because a lot of the time in the winter, it was too cold to play outside. I remember waking up on cold winter mornings and seeing fine snow swirling into my bedroom from around the window frame, highlighted brightly, by the sun shining through the frosted window panes. Sometimes you could see the curtains move as the winter winds blew in. We dressed under the covers, which amounted to heavy “haps”. Sometimes, when they were calling for heavy snow storms… dad would hang haps across the doorway to the living room downstairs and we would all sleep in the living room with a kerosene heater running to keep us from freezing in our sleep. See why I don’t consider this panty waist, skiff of snow anything special? We really have it made these days……we have a snow blower and a tractor with a bucket on the front and then four wheel drive vehicles too. Let it snow…… who cares? Not Me.
Come on Christmas!! And tomorrow they’re calling for another foot of snow!!!

Here is Vick's latest masterpiece. I love it!

The barn's first winter.

The Pupskill Lake Pond

The Potting Shed

The dog run entry.

The back yard

The tractor shed

Our "Dog proof" Christmas Tree

Rear deck, looking at the Pupskill Lake Pond.

Rear deck from another view.

Where I like to spend a snowy day with Vick.

Friday Eve, Dec. 19th…… What terrible snow?? phooey… it’s nothin’

Well, it’s all over but the shoutin’…… and I ain’ta shoutin’…It’s nothin’… nothin’ at all. Now looking back to my younger years in Central Pa and seeing just the top foot or so of a telephone pole sticking up above a snowdrift was kinda bad. Or maybe a tractor trailer disappearing into drifted hollows where D9 caterpillars spent a week digging snow out and trucking it away, was kinda bad……… but this? Nah. It was nothin’. There is a little blast of snow still remaining to be seen as it sails past us soon, because the tail end of it is now just above Scranton, Pa and the front is over the Catskill Park, so it will be here soon. After that, it’s clear until Sunday.
I went out and fed all the critters and everything there was warm and cozy. The barn was actually warm inside with the snow insulating it. Everyone was all nested in and sleeping when I went in. I think I’ll just lounge this evening and watch Christmas programs on TV while I finish knitting the scarf I’ve been working on. It’s evident now that I can knit scarves for the Hospice Gift Shop along with Vick so she doesn’t have them all to do by herself. We should have quite a few to hang and sell in the Gift Shop for next winter and I can’t wait to knit some from the Alpaca & Angora fur we gather from our own animals, hand spin it and then knit items to sell…… ALL FROM HERE ON THE CLUCKIN’ “A” CRITTER FARM!! Can’t wait…… it should be fun and really, quite extraordinary….you know… a handmade, one-of-a-kind thing…… grown, harvested, processed and produced here on the farm. How cool?

Friday, Dec. 19th… The snow falls and the furnace quits!!!!!!

This morning started off better than I thought…… It was almost 12:00 noon before the snow started to fall. Very, very fine at first and then harder and heavier as the time progressed. I went to the barns and fed all the animals and gathered eggs, processed them and then loaded 16 dozen into a box and brought them into the house and placed them in the basement refrigerator so we didn’t have to venture out into the storm, should someone want eggs. I didn’t do it just because of the storm…… but when someone in the evening comes for eggs, we needed to don our coat, walk out to the back of the barn, get the eggs and come back into the house. I figured, why not bring a bunch in and put them in the basement, so we could just run down there and get them. It also gave me more room for newer eggs out there.
It’s nice to know that the car is under the barn office, out of the snow and when it is done snowing, all I have to do is run the snow blower as usual and open a spot to the car and when we go somewhere, we don’t have to scrape the windshield or broom snow off of the car anymore. I’ll still have to clean off the truck, but we seldom use it for anything except hauling farm supplies like feed or lumber, etc.
Once again, I apologize to all our faithful readers for being so late, but in the middle of everything, Vick informed me that the heat wasn’t working, so I check the furnace and sure enough, it had kicked off on safety. I hit the reset button and it ran, but didn’t light. Uhhhhhh boy……… here we go…… another gotta fix. I’d just as soon be sitting on the couch in front of the pellet stove, but we need to be sure the furnace works, because it is what heats our water…… no furnace…… No shower…… No Backup HEAT EITHER!!!!!! I figured it was a shorted nozzle or possibly a plugged nozzle…..either way, we are not going to drive anywhere to get one. When I took it apart, I found many pieces of black carbon, crap all over the nozzle tip, bridged across the electrodes, shorting them out which will not ignite the oil mist. Whew….just a cleaning task…..the nozzle is ok. I cleaned the nozzle tip, the probes and replaced everything and started it up. Whooooof and away we went!!! Now it is starting so quickly and smoothly that you’d think I did a $150.00 repair. Whoopee… pocket change for Christmas instead of a repairman’s pocket!!
Oh…… by the way.. I made a boo boo a few days ago when I stupidly blogged that “I” would build the Hospice Gift Shop in the spring. It should have said “WE” will build the Hospice Gift Shop in the spring! It was (rightfully) brought to my attention that everyone will think that I do all the work and Vick does nothing. If anyone thinks that……they are extremely WRONG! She is usually right there beside me doing exactly what I am doing and sometimes more of the physical labor as I figure out what comes next, so be advised…… Vicki and I will build the Hospice house with our own hands this spring. But right now…..the snow continues to fall…… There’s five inches out there right now….

Thursday Eve, Dec. 18th… We’re finished & ready for the SNOW !

Well, this morning we got around and after feeding the animals and turning them loose to enjoy the sunny day, knowing that tomorrow is going to be a bummer, we moved all the boards that were in the yard to the undershot of the barn, on the pasture side, so they would be out of the weather for the winter. Doing so, did both protect the 10” boards and batten strips and opened the yard area so we could park the car under the barn office, out of the winter weather. I hate brooming frozen, crusted snow off of the car and windshield, so doing this is very pleasing to me and I sure don’t mind walking to the barn to get into a clean car.
I got my mom’s Christmas tree on the potting shed porch and the lights around the outer edges of the potting shed, so we now have some Christmas Cheer going. The pine boughs for the fence is on the front porch, so we can string and wire them into the garland and drape the garland all along the front fence. I’d like to string a few lights on the barn, at least around the bottom entry or on the fence with the garland.
The snow is to start around 9:00 AM tomorrow and go until 1 AM on Saturday, accumulating 7 to 14 inches. Yuck! I’ll start the snow blower tomorrow. I know the tractor with the bucket is ok, because we had it running today. I think I’ll just sit the storm out and watch from the pellet stove area!
Everybody keep warm now!!!

Thursday, Dec. 18th… 5 days till Christmas… do you know where your brain is????

Do you find yourself walking in circles? Do you hear yourself asking questions… offering the answer and then thinking, “What the hell do they know… they're asking all the questions?” Perhaps you do as Vicki and I. We rush and dodge people at the malls, on the street… in the stores and then finally stop and look at each other before one of us finally has the intestinal fortitude to ask, what the hell are we looking for again? Sometimes the answer eludes us for a moment, then my dad’s philosophy comes flying to the rescue.. ahh yeah.. FOOD. We need to find a place to eat!!! Seriously, it is sad, but we have been running all over the place, buying and arranging for a Christmas Eve party here at our house, buying food and party snacks, blogging about it and doing very little to find ourselves in the holiday spirit. Quite honestly, this is the first year, ever…… in my, almost 58 years of existing, that I have not had at least a little bit of the holiday cheer…… I feel like I did in September…… I’m certainly not ready for Christmas.
I do know that today, I am putting my mom’s Christmas tree on the potting shed porch and plugging the lights in, because I made that promise to her before she died. I said that I would positively put up a Christmas tree, especially for her each year. I said originally, it would be on her grave… but that was before moving eight hours away from there and besides, Vick and I have both felt and heard her presence here in the house, so why would I place a tree on her grave, where an old worn out body rests, when her spirit is right here with us? Dad has re-married a lovely lady, and I believe, a portion of my mom's spirit has also taken residence within her, so mom doesn't have to worry about him and can reside here too. (I hear my mom in her… and I swear, I think it was a way to watch over dad from beyond) Anyway, I’ll put up the tree today, string the lights and help Vick tie and hang the garland we are gonna make out of the white pine boughs we cut. It is supposed to be partly cloudy today, but tomorrow is gonna be a miserable winter day starting around noon with heavy snow accumulating 7 to 14 inches before midnight. The Friday evening commute will be deadly, with whiteout conditions being projected for that time. They estimate that approximately 5:00 is to be the time of heaviest snow fall.... at a rate of 1 to 2” an hour at that time. I thank God Vicki and I are retired and do not have to travel in times such as this. So…… I guess today is the day! Mess up today and we’ll not “Git err’ Done”.

Wednesday Eve, Dec. 17th… Home after a day on the road……

We left for Albany this morning to go to the FedEx Kinkos store on State Street in downtown Albany. It is the master of all Kinkos and if you think I’m foolin’ ya, just look at the pictures of their store……… The Sistine Chapel may have prettier painted ceilings, but not by much!

We went there to get business cards to advertise that we are selling our farm fresh, free range, chicken eggs. We wanted cards which we can drop here and there with our phone number and address on them. While we were there, we checked the prices and had two of Vick’s latest watercolors copied on watercolor paper, which came out beautifully……… far to lovely to warrant driving to New Jersey or paying the premium for Giclée prints made here in upstate New York. Also, since the copies are made on watercolor paper, Vick can highlight anything needed and number the print series copied. We needed to do this for the Hospice Gift Shop items she is painting every night, getting ready for spring when I will build the gift shop. She will already have a full compliment of items to stock the shelves when it’s ready to open.
Once finished making art prints, we went to the Honey Ham Store and check on our order for Christmas eve. We tasted several side orders and settled on one, the ham and dessert. After a bit more running around, we came home and fed the animals. Tomorrow I’ll feed the animals early and then…… maybe just nurse this sinus headache I have now and will have when I awaken……… I just know it will be there, but morning heat at the pellet stove and a cup of steaming coffee will straighten it up!!!!

Pictures from my last post of Dec. 7th...

I had all kinds of trouble trying to upload the following pictures after posting the text portion last night. It took almost three minutes to load the page no matter where you went in Blogger after that, so I dumped it and redid it this way. Now everything is ok.

This is the "Senior Citizen" hen house.

Nesting boxes in the "Senior Citizen" hen house.

Outside run for the ducks

inside the duck house

This is Phillip Pheasant

I'm too sexy for my clothes...too sexy don't ya know... I'm sexy where I go.
The new Barn chicken coop

New coop

Claudia de putt-putt

Sir Dorasal Dempseey

Vick and Timmy..... She loves to torment him with her affections..

The "Girlie Man" knitting a Hospice scarf....

Sedwick Von Chick

Tina roosing on the steps to the loft.