Quick! Before it freezes again

Today is a bit warmer, not what they predicted, but at least enough to mush up the ice a little. I decided to raise the chicken pen gate out of the pool of water that shouldn't be there. Easier than hacking through the ice or wasting money on animal-friendly ice melt for the rest of winter.

Next batch of bad weather expected Tuesday and Wednesday. Oh, boy.

Side note: My fingernails are oddly brittle lately. Elbow still hurts.

Winter still dragging on

Power flickers off and on, thunderstorm during the night. Blizzard sliding across the state, heading this way. We are not amused! On the subject of spring storms, I watched live coverage of the tornados today; so frightening for all those in the paths.

Added to this fun, newest arthritis target is my right elbow. Very painful. Of course, I am right-handed and brushing my teeth using my left hand is an adventure all by itself.

Winter project

This is a project I've had in planning for awhile. Got the materials lined up, but just didn't have the oomph to begin. Finally, after over thirty years with a wallpaper backsplash, I started scraping it off. 

Halfway done! The other side needs more patching, but will look so much better when I get it done as well.

Blogging

 Still plenty of snow around. This is at my parents' farm.

So, I was looking for the date when I had some work done on the house. Not having any luck, I start skimming through my blog and found it in 2011. Now that I've looked through some of those past years I realize how valuable it is to have memories written and photographed. Frankly, my memory is not great. I already knew I have trouble with remembering when something happened; now I see I forget lots of details as well. One post I mention watching a movie...I have zero recollection of ever having seen it; if asked I would have denied it. A little scary.

With that said, my plan is to bump up the frequency of posts. Not so much to burden any visitors with the minutia of my life, but so I have reminders of what happened.

Random

Just sitting here, I suddenly remembered a new boy coming to class in the fourth grade. Teacher says something like 'welcome, Nick' and the boy replies 'I prefer to be called Nicholas'. Funnily that must have been the most notable thing he did because I don't know how long he was at my school and have no other memories of him.

It is interesting what actually sticks around in our memories.

Gah

This was my Mount Everest. I shoveled past all the other drifts, but needed to get through this one to reach the chickens.

My face is frozen and my back hurts, but I reached the chickens!

The wind patterns were so strange. In over thirty years, I've never had drifts like these in the back yard. Especially with so little on the driveway. I have a smallish electric snowblower, but it can't handle wind-packed snow or uneven terrain. 

About thirty starlings and some sparrows in the coops.

Have you ever been so pooped there was no energy left to feel accomplishment?

All caught up

This is the last unfinished needlepoint project finally finished. Funny side story: when I was adding the details I realized I had lost all the brown threads and ended up using embroidery floss instead. Then, after I hung it up...I found the missing browns in the bottom of my yarn bowl. I do have tendency to forget where I've put things.

Annoyingly, I've developed a stress fracture in my foot that is making life difficult.