Looking for something to put in the coffee

(Besides sugar and milk that is. It is so cold that anything that might add warmth would be welcome.) Yesterday afternoon you could feel it coming in. The cold I mean. Bone chilling, heart stopping, rottennasty, miserable cold. I moved the tender house plants in the parlor away from the windows and grouped them around the heat register and piled blankets, old coats, pillows, and anything else I could find against the windows. It may look dumb, but it works...sort of. (This house was built for summer and I don't want to staple plastic to the golden oak, hand carved woodwork, so when the north wind blows...brrrrr.)

Alan and I taped the kitchen door shut, like Grandma Peggy used to do. It made a big difference too, as did the heavy cloth objects piled against the bottom of all the doors. Extra blankets on every bed. 3 liter soda bottles filled with extremely hot water tucked in every bed before milking. Then they will be semi, sorta, kinda warm when we get in em. The boss fired up the oil furnace to supplement the wood, but it smells so bad that everyone begged him to shut it off. The wood furnace is mostly keeping up, and it is not too bad this morning. If you wear enough clothes that is. I really should go out and throw in some wood, but I am honestly afraid of falling out there in the dark before anyone gets up to miss me. It is really icy.

When the sun comes up I will get you some pictures of the amazing ice on the living room windows. It glitters right now in the light from the office like Christmas lights and fireplaces and things that are warm...which it isn't. Meanwhile here are a couple quick shots I got of the really wonderful Christmas presents a certain pair of someones gave us.




Note the shirt with farm name, cow and person's name...we have wanted to get show shirts so we all look smart at the cow shows for years. Now we all have 'em. Note the board game, Farmopoly. This game started as soon as Alan got out of school and continued until bedtime (with a couple of intervals for chores and milking). The rules kept bending until it sounded more like a casino in here than a version of monopoly for farmers, but they sure had a great time. There are some other pretty special things as well, including the coolest tractor pulling video I have ever seen. I generally don't watch TV, but I was glued to it when the guys watched it the other day. Made by a local guy and he is GOOD
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And, no, Becky has not been hitting the stuff I want for the coffee. She was just telling me that if a picture of her showed up on the Internet I was in trouble. (Oops)

The little chickadee in the top photo is enjoying our Christmas tree, which migrated outdoors on Tuesday. The wild birds love it! There were birds in it before Alan even got back indoors from tying it to the swing set where I feed them. Now they huddle under it and skip around through the branches just as if it grew there. Nice