Wednesday, December 18, 2013

About Time

About time I got back to the blog. No excuses really except that I have been having fun. First we got the foot of snow. Then we got a week of really cold temps (like -12 degrees). Our hot water and heat pumps froze up for days. Who knew a case of Pepsi in a garage refrigerator would freeze and blow the tops off all the cans? The heat pumps only started to work yesterday. The ponds are still frozen solid and we have a couple inches of snow in the shady spots.
Poor old McKenzie has a hard time with the cold and snow. She still wants to play but her muscles cramp up.
Me, the one who lives to decorate for Christmas, was stuck with just using artificial boughs until I could finally get the quad and trailer up into the woods on Friday. I was going to use the dog sled but didn't want to get it pitchy and it wouldn't hold the volume of greens I use to decorate and for wreaths. The dogs ran wildly through the woods while I took loads of snow down my neck with each bough I cut.
I took this picture of the cabooses as we went by. You can tell by the icicles and snow-less roof they are lacking in insulation. They too had frozen water pipes.
Saturday my family came for their Christmas celebration. Everyone made wreaths including, my non-crafty sister.
 Of course a snowman was built.
We opened presents. (Note: all decorations are head high or higher. Trask has a fondness for putting anything and everything in his mouth. This is only the second Christmas of my life that I have not had a spectacular  tree. The other was Willy's first Christmas).
Trask checked the wrappings to see if there is anything good to make into a chew toy while Lydalee turned the ribbons into a person adornment.
A quick meal and back outside to play.
 Can you hear the screams of delight?
Frosty at the end of a fun filled day.
It warmed up overnight. The next morning Trask and Koyuk found Frosty's nose a tasty treat
The warmer temperatures made it easier for McKenzie to forage too.