January/February/March
This winter has been really good. Both Billy and I learned a lot of new things and skills, and we got a puppy! Just a good, solid winter.
Billy and Alex built an ice shanty last year, and this year they built an addition for a wood burning stove. It was the warmest ice shanty on the lake! You didn't even have to be all bundled up. People kept stopping by because they were curious about the smoking chimney. But we left it on the ice very late in the season, and getting it off the lake was kinda tricky.
Poker nights, and we found some new pals for pub trivia nights. Which are a lot less fun now that everyone has a smartphone and cheats!!!
Rug sweater.
The guy in the background of this picture is Parker, Billy's friend from when he was in the army. He drove from Oklahoma and stayed with us for a couple months. Too bad he visited in the winter...he wore his coat in the house all the time because we keep it at 60 degrees, and that takes a while to get used to.
Seedlings!!! This is my first year starting plants from seed; and they've sprouted and grown beautifully since I took this picture. I ordered the seeds from the Fedco catalog this year, they're good guys. I started three different kinds of tomatoes, two kinds of onions, sunflowers, peppers, echinacea, and some other stuff. Everything else gets direct sown in the spring. Once we get the hang of the whole growing and harvesting part, we're going to build a little greenhouse to extend our growing season. Once we collect enough windows. And do some other "urgent" repairs (like the roof!)
I haven't been doing that much sewing, since piano teaching/piano playing has taken up so much of my time. And I'm fine with that! I made a dress for myself, helped my sister sew a quilt, and miscellaneous clothing repair, but that's about it. I'll have extra time pretty soon now that all my accompaniment jobs are less frequent, and students go on vacation.
Puppy! We got him from the shelter, his name is Emmett. We think he's a rhodesian ridgeback, but since he's from the shelter we don't know for sure. He could potentially grow realllllly big. He's very smart, and very snuggly. And fast!
Billy did his first piano repair! After we had it tuned, the tuner said it might need this repair, and it would be expensive. It was really stressing me out because more and more keys wouldn't play, and it was bothering my students and affecting rehersals. Billy found a piano parts supplier and successfully repaired the piano, without reading anything, or asking a specialist. It's crazy how he can just look at things and understand how they work. I'll admit I was a little nervous, even though I know how skilled Billy is at fixing things, but it's a piano! I mean, that's a pretty specialized skill. But he fixed it, and it works perfectly. I'm still very impressed <3 <3 <3
I learned how to make all my cleaners myself. It's amazing how much you pay for fancy packaging, dyes, and fragrance. So yeah, waaayy cheaper than store-bought stuff, very effective, and I made fancy labels because I like to do that kind of stuff.
Adventures in fermentation! My first attempts were apricot butter and turnips (sauerrueben). As you can see, they didn't go very well, they got the bad mold. I've since learned the error of my ways and made some really tasty fermented beets, ketchup, and cranberry sauce.
Summer home! A truck-bed camper in good condition, for free!
Billy borrowed a heavy-duty log splitter to chop wood for our stove. He had been chopping wood with an axe all winter, and plans to keep doing that, but we had to call a tree removal service to cut down a GIANT branch that was in danger of falling on the power lines. Billy asked to keep the branch, and the guy also gave us an entire tree that he had just cut down before he came to our house. You can see part of the trunk in the background, it was like three feet or more in diameter. So yeah, borrowing a log splitter was a very good thing. We will keep our house heated for quite some time with that tree!
Emmett!
