DECEMBER 2018

CB:
I hope it works out well for your pup.  Poor guy....

ROSE:
 Sorry about the health issues going on.  Strokes are so scary.  Robin has grit going to a clinic with a broken foot!  Good for her!

 We got 16 inches of snow today....sigh....it's going to be a mess all week.     Donnie used his tractor to plow some paths, but two hours later you couldn't tell he had done it.  The snow drifted and just kept coming down.  The horses are fine, although Ivan seems to be blaming me for the inconvenience.   Donnie is staying home tomorrow since our vehicles are snowed in and will try to plow the snow again.  We didn't lose power, thankfully.

I wonder how RICK & ROSE are doing..............Hope they have power. ROSE, hope your DIL does well in re hab.

Our weather is humid right now but nice out. Chilly at 38 when I tossed hay a bit ago. The horses are always ready
to chew it. Rex is very happy at 38.

ARK, Ivan is silly, for sure.

Everyone have a good day. God bless.

16 INCHES?!? Good grief! That's a LOT of snow. I heard there was a lot of snow in the south. This is one of the times when it's nice to have a tractor to deal with it.

I have NOT been outside the house in 2 - 3 days and therefore haven't measured snow fall. Guessing by what was piled on top of bird feeder, Im estimating 6 - 8 inches +/-

My doctor restricted my activities and Ive been following his instructions mostly ... therefore there is NO wood in the basement for a fire. We are on electric heat pump and will be OK as long as power stays on. Im doubting any problems as its already 36F. Was 28F when it was falling yesterday morning.

We are hoping my surgical difficulties are behind us ... im feeling better and better each day. I just have to remember to GO when I get that first tiny twinge as there is no waiting period ... LOL!!


Please know that I do check by a coule times daily to see what everybody is doing and posting about. I admit I don't post much because of doing nothing.


My love to all.... Rick

Does anyone know if ROSE has power..........? Pray so.

ELLEN:
Yep, 16 inches. The sun was shining today, though, and it got up to 40 degrees. Donnie got lots of paths and the driveway cleared with his tractor and snowblower. It took me 3 hours to get the barn clean since I have been piling stuff up in corners and had to remove a lot of crapola. But it is clean! We will probably have snow on the ground all week, but it is supposed to rain on Friday, a lot, and that should melt it. I hope.
The rain will probably delay our horseback Christmas caroling we are scheduled to do in Blacksburg on Saturday.

GRAYMARE:
I don't know how much snow ROSE got, but the center of the storm apparently was in the mountains of NC and VA. She may be okay. We didn't lose power, but lots did.

RICK:
I am very glad to hear you are feeling better!!!

ARK:  WOW that is a lot of snow.  The storm missed us this time, just extremely cold 19 this morning just like the last 3 or 4 mornings.  BBRRRRRR

CB:  Gosh girlfriend, that is awful about your doggie.  Prayers going up for him and you..((((((((CB))))))))

ROSE:  Prayers for Robin and your DIL.  Troubles all around.

My friend Dee & I delivered the Christmas gift bags to the nursing home yesterday.  So sad to see those poor people, breaks my heart.  Helena was happy to see us, she is one of the luckily ones who still has her mental facilities and can communicate, she "walked" us out in her scooter.

Working on filling the Lady Lock cookies today.  We made 130 of the little buggers.

Hunting season is over, there were 15 deer in my field yesterday. And they call them "dumb animals." HAH

Stay safe and warm everyone.

Ark, is the snow melting yet. Is Donnie getting it under control with the tractor and snow blower?

We don't have any snow, but it's still cold. Ice is covering the whole lake and I think it is here for the rest of the winter, barring a warm-up.
I think I have most of my shopping under control. I still have 4 little kids to get things for, and I'm at a loss for what to get. They all have two or three sets of doting grandparents, in addition to their own parents. They all have every toy any kid could want.
The fifth little kid is a year old and doesn't really care yet. So, I got a gift of a large pack of AA batteries for her to give to the rest of her family. Next year, I'll do something for her.
As for the other 4, if anybody has any ideas, I'd love to hear there. They are girls 5 and 7, and boys 5 and 6.

Yesterday, I made a Sam's Club run and stocked up on several things that will last well into February or March.
Next week, I'm having a small neighborhood get together. I want to do mostly finger food, easy to eat.

ELLEN:
The snow is compressing down now, but still over a foot deep. Donnie made lots of paths and cleared the driveway. He went to work today. He said the worst road he had to drive on was ours, it had slick spots. It got to about 40 degrees today and the paths are starting to melt a little, making for some nice icey spots to slip. Friday we are supposed to get up to 2 inches of rain on top of the snow. That should be fun.

As for presents, my 8 year old great niece LOVES unicorns. Anything with a unicorn on it would be a good gift for that age. I don't have a clue about the boys, do they still like toy trucks?


TRUDY:
I don't know if deer season is over here or not. It hasn't sounded quite like a battleground lately, but I still hear shots. My poor dog runs to me when someone is firing a gun. I haven't seen our little deer herd lately, just one of them. I hope they didn't get shot. We had two does and three babies this year.

Good books, ELLEN................

My gd harper us going on 4 and we got her the book The Winky Donkey. A plastic store or kitchen is a hit for younger kids. A fun game. Hobby lobby have plastic desks kuds can sit on the floor under. Has crayon holder and cup holder. Bright colors. My older gds still use them to color...draw...eat on...they have had them for 6 years now...about 6 dollars.

Thanks for all the suggestions! They're all good ones.

How's the dog doing, CB? Hope fine.

My across-the-street neighbor recently lost her old Puggle. Her husband surprised her with a new Puggle puppy. She had her out in the dog run for a little while this afternoon, so I went over to try to make a friend of her so that she won't bark at me every time I go out of the house, like the old dog did. The puppy was happy to meet anybody, and got all excited. She's cute. She isn't being left to go in and out through the dog door yet. It's still cold and wouldn't be good for a puppy to be out.
We still have ice, but it is not quite as cold and it's raining.
Today was special because I saw a bald eagle sitting out on the ice having lunch. He was too far away to see what was on his menu. I love seeing the eagles. They've been around here for about 5 or 6 years now.

Eagle will swoop down and take that puppy...

Yoshi was doing goid and finally out of surgery at 445...it was a long over 4 hour surgery...now for recovery of 4 to 8 weeks to allow the bone to attach to the metal.

CB, I'm glad to hear that Yoshi is doing well. I hope he makes a good recovery.

The puppy is not outside alone yet, and her run is really small. It wouldn't be impossible for an eagle to get in there, but it would be pretty hard. If it got in, I think it would have a big problem in trying to fly out. When we first saw an eagle 5 years ago, Casey was still here. I told my neighbor to keep her close when the eagle was around. She only weighed about 3 or 4 pounds, so she would have been prime eagle bait, and white would be easy to see from the air. MOST of the time, the eagles get fish. The channels between lakes are moving currents, so there are probably still fish there. I can imagine that the eagle got a fish from the channel and then landed on the lake ice to dine.
Last summer, there were a few boats on the lake, but an eagle swooped down and picked up a fish between boats. That was the closest I've seen them come to people.

It's 36 here this morning at 5A..........clear with bright stars..............it will be 70 by $ P..........
big temp stretch. Horses love nice quality hay, they come running..

MMMMMMMMMMMMMM, hot java w cream & sugar.....................ha, glad to be up & running. Rex is
very happy.

More later..............

It was 36 degrees here this morning too, GRAYMARE. Unfortunately, we won't get much higher and there is a lot of rain aimed at us, between 1 and 2 inches on top of our snow. The snow is slowly melting and hopefully the rain will finish it off today and tomorrow.

ELLEN:
That's great that you get to watch eagles fish! I would love that. I watch Harriet the eagle down in south Florida on a webcam. She is sitting on 2 eggs that should hatch around Christmas. Her hubby, M15, brings her fish and small mammals to eat at the next. Fun to watch and I enjoy seeing their nice weather when we are in the middle of winter.

https://www.dickpritchettrealestate.com/eagle-feed.html#


Our horseback Christmas caroling is postponed a week due to our weather. I hope it is nice then! I have been acclimating Ivan and Areion to jingle bells. Ivan is still skeptical, but not freaking. Not freaking on Main Street is a good thing.....

One of my cousins always watches the eagle nest in Decorah, Iowa. She loves watching the eggs hatch every year and then seeing them grow and finally leave the nest.

It was in the low 40s today which caused lots of fog. At the moment, I can't see lights across the lake.

It was 46 when I went out at 6A................a heat wave..................very humid this morning and will be cloudy
today.

We had a Christmas gather last night...............great time & great food..............we played Christmas trivia
and had a great time........there were twelve of us and a lot of laughing. Oh, and eating.

Everyone have a good day....................

While yoshi was having his surgery we went sightseeing. We went to catwalk in glenwood nm...beautiful hike ali g a stream...never made it to the top as we got scared out by something we couldnt see but could hear. Odie was goi g nuts barking and growling and leaping up on his leash
.

Teddy was under our feet getting so close. Since we had seen signs about bear and cougars we decided to go back to our car...odie barked and growled the whole way back at some invisable enemy.

Then we tried to go to a ghost town 9 miles from hiway. Up hill climbing mountain road with hairpin turns and no place
. to turn around
Road went from 2 lane to a one lane barely wide enuf fir our truck with little skinny pull overs so you could be passed
Our right wheel tire almist dropped over the side i was screaming for harry to give it sime gas
.i could hear the dirt and ricks crumbling
.made it by the other truck almost scraping each other and i told him if we find a place to turn we were turning. No guardrails and canyons where uf you went over no one would find you..at mile marker 6.
.yes they had milemarkers on this one lane goatpath road!
We turned and got almost back out of the one lane road and here comes a UPS truck barreling up at us....we bith said oh chit! Pulling over as far as we could it squeaked by us
.
.i was ever so happy we hadnt met it on the crumbling small one lane goatpath..
Talk about hyperventilating...maaannnnnnn.












.

CB:
You are living a little too close to the edge!! I am glad you made it back down from wherever you were! I hope Yoshi is feeling better today.


Rain, rain, snow remnants and lots of mud. That is our day. The snow is down to about 2 or 3 inches, but as it goes down, the mud rises. We put down planks across the mud so we could get the wheelbarrow out of the muck to Manure Mountain. It has been so foggy all day that at times you could barely see the barn from the house, 300 feet away. Winter is stomping all over us and it isn't even here yet.

ARK … The tractor has a loader bucket does it not?? Use that to toss manure in and avoid the struggle of wheel barrow through the mud!! Its really a life / work saver and machine is NOT that difficult to operate.

CB, I've seen a couple of those kinds of roads. Not my favorite thing. I am not typically afraid of most things, but those narrow roads with no guard rails make me very nervous.

Today was the party for Little Miss Lilah's 5th birthday. Her actual birthday isn't until Wednesday, but weekends are easier for celebrating. Hard to believe she is already 5.
Her cake was a very clever unicorn. The cake was several layers of white cake, sort of tie-dyed lavender and pink. The icing made the mane. Some really good icing work to make that happen. The ears were marshmallows, and the horn was a waffle ice cream cone turned upside down with gold sanding sugar on it.

We still have ice, even though the last two days have been in the high 30s, and even low 40s. It really doesn't matter much to me whether we have ice or not, but we need to have some good thick ice when we finally get snow for the snowmobiles to play on.

RICK:
 Nice idea, but if I ran a tractor thru the mud in my barnlot,  it would soon look like this:




That and the fact my fencing isn't tractor friendly makes it almost impossible. So, it's the wheelbarrow for me!

Please everyone....if you remember Ol Man....gene...send a card this christmas. His wife passed last year 2017....and his son says gene is having a tough go. Let him know we are thinking of him. Hes not on cimputer anymore.
Gene Ramey
2739 Rariden Hill
Mitchell IN
47446

Thanks everyone.