Blizzard 2013

Various names were given for the storm that slammed into Connecticut on Friday and Saturday: Charlotte, Nemo or Blizzard 2013, depending on who you talk to. It put down about 30 inches of snow in our yard. In some places the drifts are over our four foot tall fences! Thankfully the lights only flickered and we never lost power. 

We (and by "we" I mean the children) started
shoveling paths to the barns at 6AM.
The snow was still coming down at a
rate of 1-2 inches per hour!

Can barely make out that Abby is halfway to the barn.

Turk is chest deep in the snow and LOVING it!

Nathalie is digging a path to the bucks.

The Old Chicken Coop (will be the Sugar Shack next week IF we can dig it out!)

Abby made it to the barn  door at 7:20

Samantha finds a way to stay out of the wind! 

Jumping into the snowbanks so another person can pass.

Abby tries to make a snow angel

Nathalie dumps a shove FULL of snow on her head!

The sun finally came out and the snow stopped falling!

  

Abby hits Hannah with a shovelful of snow.

Hannah retaliates

GOT HER!

Pippi had fun running on the paths.

We finished the driveway around 4PM. A neighbor came over with his snow blower and cleared the last five feet for us. We were very thankful as the last five feet was the very heavy and icy stuff from the plow trucks. Our friend with the plow truck showed up as we were finishing! He had just managed to get out of his driveway (it's a mile long)! He plowed the turn-around area for us. It would have taken another two hours to do what he did in ten minutes!

Hard to believe, but on Monday we'll be tapping trees and making maple syrup!

   

  

Nor'easter In October?

Good ol' New England! The weather is always a surprise!

On Saturday we were clobbered with 8 inches of very wet, heavy snow. It started snowing at 9AM and by the time afternoon chores were underway the trees were heavily burdened under the white stuff. The dog barked every time a tree would snap or pop. By 8PM he was barking almost constantly!

Several very large branches broke off trees in our yard. Sam was at the firehouse, of course! So The girls went out and moved the ones that were blocking the driveway. Abby watched one branch snap, but not quite fall. It was swaying over the truck! She ran out and moved the truck. Even now, several days later, it still hasn't fallen. Sam can't quite reach it because it is so far out from the trunk of the tree and over 40 feet up.

Several hundred thousand people are still without power in Connecticut. Thankfully our power never went out. There are several large branches that are snapped and hanging over our street though, so if they fall before the crews can get to them, we could still lose electricity.


 Halloween was cold and snowy. The girls had a pirate theme for this year. Abby was a parrot, Nathalie a pirate, Hannah a Pirate news reporter, Rachel a princess held by pirates for ransom, and Samantha was a sack of grain. We went to my mom's for hot dogs and cupcakes. The girls made their annual stop at Mrs. Veit's house for bags of popcorn.

Snow

I like snow. This year I am liking that I have five girls who are quite capable of shoveling it! These are pictures from our latest snow storm which dumped about 17 inches of snow. Hannah measured a spot in the yard that hadn't been disturbed and it measured 29" deep!

The lower roof line on the buck barn is about 30" high!

The sunrise the morning after.

Samantha shoveling a path to the barn.

Rachel shoveling a path from the house to Samantha

Somewhere under there, is our flatbed trailer.

Blizzard of 2011

We're calling it the blizzard of 2011.
We already had about 8 inches leftover from the previous two snowstorms and last night another 15"- 18" fell. We even had lightning and thunder with it this morning! The weathermen said that with the lightning we were getting snow at a rate of 4" per hour!

So, here are the pictures of us digging out. Thankfully our neighbor has a plow and he came and did the longest part of the driveway. This just left us the parking/turn around areas to shovel.

More Snow

Another snowstorm. This time predictions of 5-10 inches before morning. The weather forecasters are already discussing the next two storms: one on Tuesday and then another late Wednesday into Thursday. I suppose the snow is better than the ice we had last week. We STILL can't walk across the yard from the ice!

Our supplies for making maple syrup arrived in the mail, so it must be nearly Spring, right? I ordered three colonies of bees, and more jars with lids for storing all this sticky stuff!

The girls are enjoying skating on our "pond". Calling it a pond is definitely an exaggeration as it is only about 10 feet by 20 feet and a mere 2-3 feet deep at it's deepest. At least it freezes quickly and getting there is a lot easier than getting up to the town green.

Rachel's birthday is a week away. She's invited two families to come and celebrate with us. There will be lots of kids since one of the families has 11 children and the other (of course, it's best friend Grace's family) has 4 kids. We'll order a party pizza from Big Y and I'll make a cake. Rachel's plan is to go out to the "pond" and have Sam build a bonfire while everyone skates. I hope the weather will cooperate. It looks that at the very least, it will be cold enough for the water to be quite frozen.

Let Me 'Splain. No. There Is Too Much. Let Me Sum Up

Let's see. The computer when in to be repaired on November 29th, since then much has happened:

Abby wrote up a proposal for her 4H community service project and mailed it to the first selectman. She then presented her project to the board of selectman. It was approved and so now she will start soliciting donations of mulch, edging, and plants for her beautification of the flagpole on the town green.

A friend's husband died suddenly and very unexpectedly. It was a very sad thing and we are all continuing to pray for the family.

Sam was injured at work, again. This time he was sliding the pole going to a call at 1AM. He landed wrong and wrenched his back. He continued to the call in severe pain. Upon returning to the firehouse it was decided that he needed to go to the hospital, so at 6AM Sam called to inform me that he was going by ambulance. Gotta love those moments....

He is home now unable to return to work for a few more weeks. He is still in a lot of pain and is on three different pain medications. He started physical therapy this week and will continue 3 times a week. They are working on getting him in to see a neurologist since he has persistent numbness down his leg and into his foot.

A huge snowstorm came and postponed my mom's Christmas party on the 20th. It took the girls and I from 6:30 AM until 11AM to shovel out the driveway. The girls sang Christmas carols at the top of their lungs for nearly the whole time. It was actually kind of nice.

After digging ourselves out we drove to my mom's to dig them out. We couldn't get up their hill so we started shovelling from the bottom and worked our way up. Two hours later we reached the top. Abby went in the house and came back out saying there is a note for me on the chalkboard: Mom had called 911 cause my dad was feeling lightheaded and was pale after snow blowing the top of the driveway. He was fine; just had a bad cold, hadn't eaten and well, isn't really known for exercising and shouldn't have been shovelling snow!

The girls' Christmas play was wonderful and Rachel and Samantha looked truly angelic. Nathalie remembered her lines and Abby managed to sing despite getting the giggle-fits.

Our Christmas Eve Brunch was so much fun! We had about 45 people attend and I think everyone had a good time. Our last guest didn't leave until 3PM! The discussions I heard varied from livestock care, the international dateline, history of the clock, can you lose your salvation?, masters degrees, husband's jobs, school vacations, babies, family histories and Christmas traditions.

Christmas Eve was a quiet one at my mom's. My mom gave Sam and I a vacuum cleaner! It, of course, was exactly what I had asked for. For the girls she gave a brand new sewing machine! I think it might be even better than mine! My uncle gave the girls boxes, yes, boxes of candy! He bought the good stuff too! Jelly Belly jelly beans, cinnamon bears, and chocolate covered pretzels! Andy gave the three older girls itunes gift cards to go with the ipods my brother John had bought them. John gave Samantha a drum set and Rachel a HUGE! stuffed horse with a saddle!

We arrived home from mom's around 9PM. At which point we exchanged gifts. Sam got his obligatory socks and underwear gifts. I got new bowls and serving utensils. Nathalie had built a cradle with Sam for Rachel and Samantha. Hannah had made a blanket and a pillow for it. Abby gave me one of her pastel artworks that will look wonderful in my room once I get it matted and framed. Rachel and Samantha gave their sisters slipper socks.

We finally got everyone to bed around 10 PM. Poor Santa was up waaaayyy past her bedtime!

On Christmas morning, I finally had to wake everyone up at 6:45AM! My parents arrived at 7:45 and the girls opened the gifts under the tree. The crocheted shawls were the big hit! Hannah put hers on as soon as she opened it and I don't think she has taken it off yet! We had a lovely breakfast together. About ten minutes after my parents left, my sister Crystal, her husband Mike and their daughter Alexia arrived. So we opened more gifts! She gave the girls everything they need to run their own beauty parlor! Blow dryer, curling iron, pedicure/manicure kits...

After they left, we cleaned up and took care of the animals before heading back up to mom and dad's for MORE Christmas! And the big surprise! Crystal had decided to go to mom's too! The girls were happy to get more time to play with Alexia. We got back home around 9PM and fell exhausted but content into bed!

Tomorrow is Christmas at my in-law's and I agreed to bring the rolls. My mom's party which had to be rescheduled is on Sunday. And then Sam's birthday is the 31st!

Snow!

The kids are thrilled. Well, at least the public school kids are thrilled. The homeschooled kids can't figure out why the public schooled kids like "doing homeschool" when public school is cancelled. As Abby (homeschooled) said, "If you cancelled homeschool, I would NOT want to go to public school just for fun!"
But here we are: 4" of snow. It figures the brunt of the storm would miss us, since yesterday we spent the day fixing up the barn to put the "show" chickens inside, fixed the woodshed for the "range" chickens, moved the male goats up to the upper pasture, enclosed the females in the barn and fixed the female pup's door so she could be locked in. We filled the inside wood bins and hauled the wood that was stacked behind the pasture into the woodshed. We parked the car and van so that we could get out of the driveway and brought the snow shovels to the front door.
Now if we had done nothing to prepare, we would be getting pummeled by 18" of snow and ice right about now...