clean up, more snow, and stuff

I have caught three more mice - one in the garage, one in the basement, and one in the barn. One of the children left the lid off of the metal garbage can in which the chickens' scratch feed is kept. The next morning, when I went out to care for the beasts, there was a wee mousie in there! Adam scooped up Spot and dropped him into the can. Spot is now a fully qualified mouser... well, he can catch and harass a mouse, anyway. I can't independently verify that he killed the thing, since 20 minutes later he was still playing with it. Good Spot! Those two cats have been quite expensive, so I'm very pleased to confirm that he, at least, can do the job for which he was hired.

Mom took the five of us to see Wizard of Oz on Saturday. It was a local community theater production, and it was FANTASTIC. The big brother of one of Amy Charlotte's friends was the Lion, and he did a terrific job.

Last Wednesday's snow topped out at 22".
Thursday morning, I cranked up the snowblower and over the course of several hours, cleared the driveway, the front walk, a path to the woodpile, a path to and past the composter and to the back gate, through the back gate, and all around the back yard. Wading through deep snow can be fun, but when you've got serious back problems, wading through deep snow while schlepping a 5-gallon bucket full of warm water is just A Bad Idea. Plus, the children just LOVE having a maze through the snow.



I invested in an outdoor water heating element, intended for a 5-gallon bucket, but which lives in my galvanized rain barrel below the downspout. Oh, how I love it! I ordered it from Amazon, and so help me, next year I'll have one for each rain barrel. Not having to carry a bucket through and out of the house? Huge!


It turned cold - really cold - we saw -10.7F a couple of mornings ago. I had window quilts installed a while back - I love them - and in case you wonder whether they work - behold what hides behind them! Yes, that's ice on the glass.

I have a rabbit who needed a name - a Californian doe. My naming convention for Californians is to use Old Norse names. Hugin and Munin were the ravens who rode on Thor's shoulder. (or was it Odin's? Drat, I forget) Skathi (Skaði) was the goddess of snow and skiing. So this lass needed a name. Well, she gave birth to a fine healthy litter of 6 during the big 22" snow storm, so I gave her the name of one of the three Fates (there's the fate of the past, of the present, and of the future, and I think this doe qualifies as the Fate of the Future here at Blessed Acre!) - Verdandi.

Now to get off of my keester and back upstairs to the clean-up.