When you heat with wood
You have to clean the chimney.
Which means you let the fire go out, the coals turn to ash and then it’s
Terry’s job.
I am terrified of heights. As you can tell by the need to paint the trim on the house.
And no, the brick is not loose in the chimney, nor is it full of holes; the light just makes it look that way.
So someday soon, I’ll have to have one of my kids come visit and help me paint.
Linda
I was struck by the beauty of the desert on my drive back to the Delta Office.
The sky was an amazing blue.
The jet streams adding a hint of adventure in the skies.
The large blue flat top mountain is Grand Mesa.
And a semi and I are the only ones on the road.
Now THAT was cool.
(This is a well-traveled two-lane highway all the coal miners call “ The Death Highway”.)
Last night we had a cold water (Thank Heaven!) pipe break and run for an hour or so in the house.
We are still cleaning up the mess….the kitchen; bathroom, back porch and the basement were all flooded. Ankle high!
So I am not able to post much today, but hope to be back in full-swing tomorrow.
Just for your enjoyment…. Monkey (Terry’s cat) got so upset with all the water she jumped into the cabinet and the door shut on her. There is nothing in this cabinet but cans so ‘no fur in food’ occurred.
It was so funny I had to take a photo of it. There had to be some sort of a bright spot in the rather long, long evening.
Linda
(Yes, I needed to clean off the cabinet)
We went from this
(driving home Friday night)
and this
to more snow on Saturday
to a Chinook Wind on Sunday.
With really nice temperatures.
And it’s warmer today. Welcome to Western Colorado weather!
Linda
The sunrise over the fields made me realize…. life really is good.
Tallen came to visit us.
Tallen is Grandpa’s Girl! Don’t get me wrong, she loves Grammy,
but she only has eyes for Grandpa!
And…
She brought Odie to visit with her!
(Odie got tired of Monkey trying to chase him so he headed to the top of the towel cupboard in the bathroom.)
So enough of the negative — it really is a wonderful world!
The Frozen World by Emilie Simon
The sun kissed the ice
It glistens for me
And we are one again
We belong to the frozen world
-12* this morning with a wind chill to -24*. I think Canada’s weather slipped into Colorado! 
Snow is predicted for this weekend.
Which is okay by me because It Has To Warm Up To Snow!
YEAH!
But as Leenie posted about one day:
Oh, how I love The Rockies when the snow’s up to your butt.
You take a breath of winter and your nose is frozen shut.
Yes, the winter here is wonderous so I guess I’ll hang around.
I could never leave The Rockies–I’m frozen to the ground.
Author Unknown
Before you leave blog reading, please head over to Leenie’s blog she took photos of fogbows.
Rainbows in the fog!
They are as beautiful as a summer rainbow!
You just have to go see them!
And a very special THANKS to Deb for my hand-made driving gloves!
The wool raised, spun, dyed and knitted by Deb just for me! (And in my favorite color, also!)
They sure are nice on these cold winter morning!
Linda
-7* as I headed to work today!
Brrrr. Its 16* right now and its 1:30 in the afternoon so you know the temperature is heading down.
Of course, this is nothing compared to Canada.
Plus the snow cover is really good for protecting the plants.
The cows, goats, sheep, and deer don’t like eating snowballs, either.
The new ‘lack of snowplowing’ (unless at certain times of the day) leads to some Very interesting driving to and from work.
Out our way, the plows come around noon.
Part of my job requires me to report to our satellite campus, one hour’s drive-time from the main campus.
At least three days a week.
Having to be there by 7:00 in the morning means I really do miss having a snow plow come down our country roads.
Still noon is better than not at all.
Work has me stretched way beyond what I can seem to get done.
But, HEY! I have a job!
Maybe it just seems hard because I have to drive on frozen roads.
Stay Warm out there!
Linda
8″ here, and growing.
It was hard to get to work.
Clearing the paths to the cows and chickens was a trip. Ground blizzards and unplowed roads.
The county is only plowing roads from 9:00a.m. to 5:00 p.m. to save money.
CDOT is only plowing from 5:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Still it is beautiful!
The storm is suppose to move out by Wednesday and freezing weather to settle in —like 2* above at night with another storm scheduled to arrive on Saturday.
It will be very important for us to get the paths cleared before the ice hits.
If this stays we will have a White Christmas!
Linda
It’s me again, Fuzzy the farm protector.
Guard work is really a very hard job, especially when you add in the fact that Checkers is getting on in years -now don’t say that very loud because she maintains she is still a young adult. She’s been a young adult ever since I got here and I’ve been here a goodly little while now.
Now don’t get me wrong Checkers does a good job of guarding her patio and her dog house and her dog dish, oh yes and she is real good at taking care of all the little McCormick kids, but it’s really me that patrols the property.
Why their house part of the farm, and I am in charge of farm security, which means I go down to their place at least once a day and check out what’s happening. Sometimes I can get Checkers to go exploring with me, but she thinks real exercise is cat chasing.
That A.L.W.A.Y.S. gets her in trouble. I use to help her, but when I saw how much trouble she would get in I decided it was best for my reputation to NOT chase cats.
And anyway, I know that being locked into the pen is a threat I don’t want to ever push. Unless, of course, Security Shasha comes back, but Mom told me not to hold my breath on that thought.
Anyway, I thought I would tell you about some of my duties: like barking at the mailman, keeping the birds off the trees and fences, but I already told you that one, or maybe the time something died way over on the hillside and I got to roll in the lovely sweet smell of the carcass.
As I was lying on my back, rolling around on the grass, paws up in the air, having a really good scratch on the back it dawned on me that I really should let you meet ‘all of the cats’.
Four cats live at Misty’s and two live at our house.
That makes six cats I’m in charge of protecting, not to mention chickens, cows, goats, ducks and all the fence lines.
I’ll do Misty’s cats first, because three of the fur balls insist on walking over, with Misty and the kids, to my house and tormenting me by Misty letting them go inside house. Makes Monkey and Sammy upset also, if they get too upset though Mom throws them outside. In order to not get thrown out they hide under the furniture and sass at the other cats.
Something is really wrong with Mom; she lets all kinds of animals come visit. I’ve tried to reason with her, but she doesn’t hear. Dad says Mom has selective hearing.
Okay, first there is Aphro, short for Aphrodite, which Mom made sure she really didn’t become (she had the visit to the vet we All got to experience.) Aphro is the oldest cat on the place and she knows it. She is the queen.
Then there is Odie, now that is one tough cat, between him and Sammy my work at guarding the fence line is pretty much a breeze. The problem with Odie, though, is he really only guards the house property and the corrals. And he only guards against other cats. Sort of useless when it comes to some real enemy, like a fox or raccoon.
I decided to go by age so Sammy is the next oldest. He lives with us. Now that is one amazing cat. I come across Sammy clear at the upper end, what he is doing up there beats me. He says he is hunting. Hunting for what…I guess I will never know.
Then we have Dad’s cat. Geez, this cat never leaves the house unless Dad lets her out. She won’t go. Will claw her way back in as the door is opened. Sammy even brings her mice, hollers for her and unless DAD lets her out she won’t go. When she is outside she hangs around Dad, lays in the sunshine, and explores. But never very far away from where ever Dad is.
Twister was a feral cat that was mauled horribly as a kitten, rescued by Mom so Misty could have another cat. You can’t tell but Twister is a Maine Coon Cat. She is a friendly soul and seems really grateful to still be in one piece and loves living with the little kids. (I like the little kids also; they just get to be a little much when they want to drag me all over the place with the leash.)
The last to arrive was O’Malley. O’Malley is, well, O’Malley is just the best cat in the whole world. I even let her sit on my back sometimes. But O’Malley is a busy girl, she doesn’t like to lie around much unless she is taking a nap on Blade’s bed, the rest of the time she has things to do and places to see and games to play with the kids, Twister, and me.
She even likes to have Checkers chase her.
Well, these are the cats of the place. Just like any job it’s the people you work with which add dimension to your work.
It’s not every dog who gets to patrol 80 acres and a herd of cats.
Fuzzy
I live on a farm in Colorado, the western side of Colorado, called Delta.
Farming, as a way of life, is fast disappearing in western Colorado, due to farms being sold to developers/subdivisions.
Therefore, I decided to share with anyone who was interested, what farm life is/was like in my lifetime.
I can honestly say that I now understand what the American Indian felt like as he watched his way of life disappearing!
