Snowed In

Hoping that snow is insulating our sweet honey bees

 Our road

Bob and Terry, our pigs, eating and then heading back in to the shelter, they aren't fans of the snow

Homemade pizza outta the woodstove, yes please

Sled, eat , repeat. Oh and bring some more wood in, haha..



Mother Nature snowed us in starting Friday evening,, Here we are Tuesday, and our roads are still a mess.. Getting out of here is a long haul in good weather, so you can imagine what 7" of snow will do..

Its been a wonderful 3-4 days.. Full of sledding, eating, baking, laughing, and spending time together.. yeah we are getting a little stir crazy, but a good walk in the woods can fix that right up ;)

There is something amazing about these moments in winter. We work so hard all spring and summer to grow our food, preserve our bounty, split wood, so we can enjoy the feeling complete self reliance.. we supply our own power, heat, water, and food...its a comfort worth all the work it takes to get to that point..
Go ahead snow us in for a couple weeks....,  KIDDING! haha,, no thank you.. It sure has been beautiful, but there is a reason I am living a wee bit south of where I used to live....

We are supposed to warm up quite a bit and get rain, which means the first 12 miles of my commute out of here will be 12 miles of MUD,, fun stuff.....

So for now we are snuggled by the woodstove enjoying the snowy view from inside....


Blessings
The Cools

Change

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What an absolutely beautiful morning here in the hollar. The Solstice has arrived, and with that , comes change..... The mornings are cooler, and leaves are starting to cover the ground a bit. I am picking peppers and peeked in on a few sweet potatoes which will be pulled In the next couple of days, but after that summer crops will be finished for the season.
The bees are  frantically collecting what pollen and nectar , storing up food stores for the cold winter ahead....
Not to mention the squirrels in a frenzy collecting nuts for the winter , and my dog on a mission to catch one.. ;)
Robb has been diligent in hauling wood and we can all breath a sigh of relief for the time being,, feeling confident in our supply. Its a lovely sight indeed! And of course, we are ever so grateful for him keeping us warm through the winter.

Me? I am delving into something new this winter... Quilting.. I've been sewing for nearly 2 decades and have never attempted a quilt.. I have spent most my years making clothing and its time for a change...
This will be Norah's quilt...I am moving right along on it and it feels good to create something a little different. I am enjoying this, indeed...

Change is good .............

family, food and farmin'

 

 

 

(this post was written last week.. hehe, just now getting it posted) 

 

 

 

 

Hello! well I am still without a couple of keys on my keyboard so please forgive any typos!
Well I often feel like I am repeating myself, but life has been extremely busy on the homestead.
Mid July is a time for full on harvest of veggies, canning, soap making and labeling, pulling honey , filling jars and attending the market, butchering chickens . and on and on....
I feel like I should post about some new amazing remodel project that is going on , or some craft I have been working on, but there is just NO time right now.
We have numerous  minor house repairs that hopefully Robb can eventually get too once Bee season slows down and I cant wait to get behind my sewing machine again! Another month or 2 of full on busy and we will really start to slow down and exhale!

On another note, my Dad came to visit this past week. We had WONDERFUL time.. He wanted to be here to Norah off to Camp and then spent a few extra days with us, and was a wonderful help! He helped Fill honey Jars, chop wood( I think he was a bit puzzled that it Is July, we heat completely with wood and had an empty woodshed, I assured him this was the norm and we would catch up,,hahah) We even got creek time in , along with some relaxing evenings enjoying each others company.

Miss Norah is at Camp for an entire week at Turtle Island Preserve. If you are not familiar with this place, or Eustace Conway, you owe it to yourself to check it out. We are very lucky to be able to send here to such an amazing place! I am hoping she is having a blast and cant wait to get her back on Saturday and here all about her experience.



Life is Good!
How is Summer in your neck of the woods?

The Cool Family

December Do Over

Whoa, December has been a whirlwind! We pretty much missed out on the first 2 weeks off the month. My Daughter became pretty sick with Pneumonia. We made an emergency trip to the ER on December 5th, and then both spent a week on the couch, as I came down with the Flu as well! If it werent for my husband I don't know what we would have done....

He ALSO managed to get the Hot water hooked up to the Cookstove. A couple more days of hard work, and a couple more dollars in supplies, and he had it up and running around the 10th of December!

It went off without a hitch, and worked PERFECT for the first 2 days, UNTIL a pipe burst in the Bathroom.... still sick and lethargic, I woke around 9 am on the 12th,, to a pipe in the front bathroom, gushing water.. Imagine a hose on high (without no spray nozzle),, yeah, it was insane.. I am so happy I heard it, as our bedroom is a ways away ... It must have only been going on for a couple minutes, enought to empty about 20 gallons of water in our bathroom, hallway, and onto a bit of our carpet in the bedroom.  Could December really get any worse??
Robb came home fixed the pipe, and insisted it had nothing to do with the hot water system we just hooked up. Now, he is a Maintenance Man, and a damn good one, so I took his word, let him fix the pipe, and forgot about it.. Until...................
I woke up at about Midnight the following night.. To the sound of what sounded like a waterfall in our laundry room.. ANOTHER BURST PIPE!?!?!?!?!?!  Robb jumped out of bed, and proceeded to throw around the F*** word  a couple times,, turned the water off,, and proceeded to vaccum up the water in the hallway, put towels and fans on the carpet.. I lay in bed, completely annoyed (haha) and frustrated.. and figured midnight was not the best time to have a conversation about why another pipe coincidentally burst in the Laundry room....

The next morning, while googling whatever I could think of, to see if I could help figure out why our pipes keep bursting,,,Robb called me from work, to tell me we needed and Expansion Tank..
When we hooked up the cooktove to the hotwater tanke, we also added some check valves, these prevent the hot water from backingup into the cold water line, which is great and a good safety measure, But because of the size of the tank ( we have a 40 gallon tank,, pretty small) the hot water was building up pressure and that pressure needed somewhere to go,, so it chose any which way it could when the pressure built up! The expansion tank has resolved the problem.. But not before creating YET another mess.. RObb had to tear off the wall in the laundry room,,, clean up the water mess,,, replumb the pipes in copper ( we had some pretty cheap pipe in there) and then hook up the expansion tank.

I must say, I didnt think any of this Off the Grid stuff would be perfect... and when the Hot water system worked perfect at first,, I had my doubts..hahaahaha..
We arent quitters though and know there will be more challenges along the way.,,and since the expansion tank, the hot water system works AMAZING!! Start a fire, watch the temp, and you have PLENTY of hot water do live just as we did before.
I will admit if I am gone all day,, I do turn the hot water off,,, as I am still suffering from some broken pipe PTSD..... not quite over that yet,,lol


Since then, My Little Miss Norah has gone to her last check up and is Pneumonia Free! I am better! We have a totally awesome HOt water system, and I am finally working on Holiday deocorating,  baking and crafts....

I guess a December Do over wont be necessary after all....:)
Happy Holiday from The Cool Homestead!