Snow Visitors Puzzle

How many animals can you guess were on my deck in the snow?

We know 2-3 dogs, 1-2 cats and a possum.

Sewing Machine Repair

I will be teaching a quilting class at our local Community Center. One of the students did not own a sewing machine. Another student offered her machine if someone could fix it. My husband is pretty good at fixing machines. After opening this Singer 834 we found a broken bobbin case. Luckily, they still have these for sale at most Singer sewing centers. The new bobbin case should be in soon and this machine will be ready for a new quilter.

Yucky Friday

It rained, it sleeted then it rained then it snowed again! The weather was all over the place this Friday in the Ozarks. Everything is now iced over outside, the car, the doors and the trees. Good day to just stay inside next to the woodstove.

Into the Valley of Cats

This is what our cats do on a cold day.

Good Neighbors in Snow

We are truly blessed to have such nice neighbors here in the Ozarks. After the 5 inches of snow we got this weekend, our driveway disappeared. I thought we were going to have to shovel it to get out. Well this Sunday morning our neighbor Mark came by with his tractor. He plowed our long driveway from the country road, garage and our front door in less than 15 minutes. We can now drive out again. Having a tractor is a good thing.

Saturday with Poppy

Treed barn cat

Our barn cat, Annie, spent the night in a cozy heated pet house on our deck all night during the snowstorm. This morning she was rudely awakened by a hungry Osa, our shepherd. Annie ran away off the porch and into a tree. She has been there all day. I have called her and try to coax her back down to no avail. She knows at night the dogs are in the house. So she is biding her time in the tree until then.

Snowening

It snowed again in the Ozarks. We expected this on Thursday but it came all day and night on Friday. Our porch was snow filled and the car was snowed in with 5+ inches. We can't see our driveway anymore. My husband and I shoveled our way out the porch and deck. We walked up our snowy hill to our mailbox. The mailman made it through! We then walked down the road to see how far we could get on foot. No way our car is getting through all this snow. A huge tractor came by to pick up hay for the neighbors cows and horses. Tractors have no problems in the snow. We will wait it out like our neighbors are doing. Just take care of the animals and stay warm at home with the fire going.

Rorschach Dog

Hickory on patrol.

To make a fire

Here is our nice burning fire. It has taken us about a month to figure out how to make a good fire in a wood stove. We asked a lot of people and read many websites about fire making. The key was having good dry logs. Next, is to split those logs into quarters to make smaller logs easier to burn.

Here is A. splitting logs with a 12 pound maul. It is like and ax only heavy. We have both taken turns chopping logs.

Poppy chose to hang around to catch the flying bark off the split logs. Poppy has no common sense. It is a lot of hard work but is great exercise.

Warm and toasty

It is snowing in the Ozarks again. Daisy and Poppy are taking it easy staying warm in my sewing studio.

Turkeys in the woods

I got to see a large flock of wild turkeys near our property. There were at least 20+ birds walking and eating around a pond. This is one of the reasons we moved here to the Ozarks.

Just a little auction

One thing about the people of the Ozarks; they work hard to take care of their own in times of need. A woman named Lori needs medical test to biopsy a growth. She has no health insurance like most people around here in rural America. So her church and our town come together for a little auction to help gather funds for her. Cakes, pies and sweets were made and donated for the auction. Handmade quilts and other goods were also donated. I got to meet Lori, the woman in the black and white dress. She was surprised outsiders would want to participate. We don't know her and don't attend her church, we just wanted to help. So we bid on lemon meringues, angel food cakes and breads. We spent about $30 for a lemon pie that cold and rainy Saturday night. And that pie was the best we have ever had. Our town knows how to make the best pies!

I know we raised some small amount for Lori, but pies are not a long term solution. Our government needs to step it up and take care of her people and not big business. People make America great; not greedy companies working far away from American soil.

I will get off my soapbox now and eat some more pie.