January is a hard month for me. Cold, dark, and seemingly endless, its days drag by. December is dark, but the holidays make it a merry month. January has no merrymaking to redeem it. The best that I can do is survive it. I’ve devised ways to help me do that. During these cold days seed catalogs come to me in the mail. I save every one of them and during January I pore over them. Armed with a highlighter and a note pad, I mark seeds, plants, trees, and gardening tips that interest me and note them for further study. While the cold wind blows and snow swirls outside my window, in my mind I’m making gardens.
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| Subzero. |
I also use books to distract me while there’s nothing to do outdoors. I try to read books about warm places. One year I read all the Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency books. Set in the hot, dry country of Botswana, these books were a winter delight. Other years I’ve read books set in places like Italy, the South Pacific, and Australia. This year I’m working on a detective series that isn’t set in a warm place, but in Vienna, Austria, at the turn of 20th Century. They aren’t warm books, but they are fascinating. When I finish them all I will find something warmer to read.
We had very cold weather most of the week.The wind howled and the bit of snow that fell was blown into twisting drifts. We had two hour delays on Thursday and Friday because of the cold. The wind chill dipped to almost 20° below zero. It has “warmed up” today. It’s amazing how warm 20° feels after a few days below zero.
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| Blowing snow. |
We had a joyous family event on Monday. Rachel gave birth to her second child, a girl they’ve named Juniper Louise. She weighed 9 lbs. 1 oz. She is an adorable baby (in my entirely unbiased opinion). She is our fourth grandchild – all of them girls. We’re so happy to welcome baby June into our family. On her way home from Arizona, Stacey made a surprise stop in Tennessee to spend a day with the Thayns.
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| Juniper Louise Thayn. |
Stacey arrived home (at last) on Thursday evening. Daniel drove up to Buffalo and picked her up at the airport. It’s so good to have her home again. She was gone for a whole week. Daniel, Josiah, and I did okay while she was gone, but our house just doesn’t feel right when she’s not here.
On Wednesday Josiah left to attend District Band Festival in Saegertown, over near Erie. He was one of four students from our school selected to attend. He was there the rest of the week. He auditioned with his French horn and placed first in his group, so he will be going on to the Regional Band Festival in February. We drove over on Saturday to attend the concert and bring him home. It was a great concert. It took us almost four hours to get there and another four hours to get home again because the roads in the Erie area were bad due to lake effect snow. On our way home we stopped in Erie and treated ourselves to lunch at Chick-fil-a. We love to eat at Chick-fil-a and the one in Erie is the closest one to our house.
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| We drove past the Allegany Reservoir on our way to Saegertown. |
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| At the District Band Festival. |
It feels a little warmer today, a balmy 23°, but it's overcast and the forecast says we’ll get more snow tonight and tomorrow. Today in church we had a missionary farewell. One of the boys in our branch is leaving to serve his mission in Sapporo, Japan. I told him that he has a great adventure ahead of him. Sapporo is in Hokkaido, the northernmost island and they have ferocious winters there. I love Japan. I told him I was envious that he’ll be eating wonderful food for the next two years.
So I’m sitting here with an electric heater under the desk. My legs are warm, but the rest of me is shivering. Dinner is almost ready. It smells good. Josiah just headed down to the barn to do the chores. Outside it’s cold and gray. When dinner is done the only thing I think to do for the rest of the afternoon is take a long nap. I know why bears and woodchucks hibernate.
