teacup feeder:
teacup feeder this morning:
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It snowed all night and was very cold. It was still single digits during an early round of checking and feeding. When I headed back inside, dawn was breaking:
And by noon the world was quite dazzling:
This morning Della wanted me to wake up and get up, and demonstrated this by walking across my chest repeatedly, and sometimes flinging herself down across my collarbone as if she was going to go to sleep (yay!) but then getting up seconds later and starting the Grand March again. Usually it's Moxie who wants me to get up before dawn, and she indicates this by patting my face gently with one paw. There are worse ways to be awoken, and besides, Moxie knows that if I don't get up right away, she might as well go back to bed. If Della's new method becomes an ongoing thing it's going to be more challenging, because when I resisted the marching and flinging, she escalated things by knocking an unknown item off the bedside table. Okay, fully awake now, Della - was that my water bottle? But it's still totally dark so no one is going outside just yet.
I turned on the lamp and decided to finish knitting the decreases to shape the sock toe begun the night before. After perhaps an hour, I reached the final fiddly row - I was working with seven little needles - and somehow dropped a stitch. After many, many minutes of trying to see the decreases well enough to reclaim the drop, then unravelling a couple of rows to try to find a perfect row to pick up and knit from, I finally did what would have made the most sense in the first place: I pulled out the whole toe, reclaimed the 68-stitch row prior to the toe shaping, and put the sock aside because now it was light enough to see the snow still falling and the first little birds arriving for breakfast. Let the morning chores begin, Della!
Fed the cats, fed the stove, and went out to water the hens and feed the wilds - birds and squirrels. I bring the big seed feeder and the suet feeder in every night and put them out again as soon as it's light enough to see. There are also two little hanging teacup feeders that I leave out because they are usually completely empty by dusk and also they are right outside my window and when the little birds arrive just before dawn they land there and alert me that if I'm not already heading outdoors, I should be.
There are many creatures with a demonstrated interested in my routines.
Is it snowing where you are? It's been snowing here since the wee hours, and a wet snow it is - every trip outside today has meant a soaked coat left to dry by the heater. Even the goats have spent most of the day in their shelters, because it's so wet out. Makes a change from the bitter cold and strong winds we've been having in recent days and weeks, but the cold doesn't bother the goats as much as the wet, and I feel much the same. But now it's going on 3 PM and it's so gloomy that I'm going to get out there again for early Evening Chores. And take a cautious walk down to the letterbox as well, because a pound of crimson clover seed was delivered earlier today. Nothing like a packet of seed to make Winter seem very much here.
Are you planning your gardens? I updated my Seed Inventory - an actual spreadsheet, which was well worth the effort a year or two ago - and concluded that I don't "need" to buy anything but pole beans and possibly some herb seeds this year. So I celebrated my efficiency by ordering a pound of clover seed for a 2025 experiment in competition. May the crimson clover win!
Meanwhile, here's hoping my boots have had time to dry, because I'm outward bound. I can see Violet in the doorway of the barn, looking for That Woman With The Hay.
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| January |
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| February |
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| March |
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| April |
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| May |
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| June |
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| July |
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| August |
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| September |
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| October |
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| November |
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| December |
Wishing you and yours a very happy 25th of December,
in whatever context you choose.
I hope it is full of peace and light and hay.
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| "December 25th" Victoria Crowe |
It was 2F when I was up at 3 this morning, and it's a brisk 3F now at 8 am.
Seems a good day to write about a recent project.
2024 has been a year of major projects, some of which are going to flow into 2025. But one project that was undertaken and completed in two November days, is the rebuilding of my chimney.
Ever since the roof was replaced in 2017, there has been a gradually increasing leak in the parlor, from around the chimney. Whether the leak was coming from the 85-year-old chimney itself, the flashing, or the roof, was uncertain. Even if I was still capable of clambering around on my roof I might not have been able to identify the source, but in previous years I would have at least gone up to take a look. Not this time.
Back in February I decided that regardless of whether I would continue heating with wood - a question at the heart of a different 2024 project which will be a topic for another post - I needed to get a chimney professional out here to do whatever it would take to stop the leak.
The mason came out in June and looked at the job, answered all my questions about repair versus replacement, assured me that the leak in the parlor would stop, agreed that height could be added to improve the draw, and gave me a quote of $1500. to take all the original brickwork down to the tile liner and rebuild the chimney. The work was going to be done "either in August or after September." He gave me the names of a few places where I could see the various brick options, and one day I borrowed a car specifically to go brick-gazing. This decision was important; in recent years I've made a couple of big, bad, expensive decisions, the visual and practical results of which I live with every single day, and I'm trying very hard not to make more. (The metal roofing was one of those bad and expensive decisions, by the way. How I wish I had just stayed with ordinary shingles.)
Anyway. After considerable pondering, I selected the brick, and five months later the busy mason finally had the time to do my little two-day job. He arrived with an assistant and the two fellows had scaffolding up in the blink of an eye. They began removing the original brick, saving quite a bit of it for my use in a future project.
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| Original chimney just before work began. |
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| Brick removal underway. |
The entire 2-day process went so smoothly there are only a few snapshots. I try not to hover around people who are doing their work so I puttered by the barn, right arm still in a sling at that point, staying available for questions but also staying out of the way.
Here's the new chimney and the first fire, on November 15th:
This is one of those unforeseen tasks that was thrust upon me, so to speak. It had never once occurred to me that the chimney would need replacement in my lifetime, but the leak made it necessary to take action even if the chimney was no longer going to be used.
And it is certainly being used.
I am very happy with the replacement. (Whew.) The chimney "fits" both visually and functionally - the proportions are excellent, the appearance is smart but not glaringly new-looking. And the draw is much improved, which is a very nice bonus after 40-odd years!
How are your 2024 projects looking?
I'll bet you got more finished than I did!
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