We had our first taste of real winter weather last week. The temperature dropped into the teens at night and even into the single digits. Yesterday morning it was 8° when I woke up. That’s unusually cold for November even for Potter County. Most days, it didn’t get much above freezing during the day, if it did at all. There were hard frosts every morning. Early one morning I looked out and the frost was so heavy and white in the moonlight that I thought at first that it had snowed. Then on Friday morning, there really was a dusting of snow on the ground. The remnants of it are still with us. There is ice on the beaver pond. Winter doesn’t officially start until December 21st, but that’s a joke here. It comes early and stays late. It’s here already.
 |
| Friday morning. |
 |
| A dusting of snow. |
 |
| Ice on the beaver pond. |
I have discovered what a good insulator fat is. Since I’ve lost a considerable amount of it, I feel cold most of the time. I have to wear a sweater or a hoodie in the house to be comfortable. When I go outside, I have to put on my gloves and wooly socks, something I used to only resort to later during the coldest days of winter. I don’t know what I’ll do when the bone chilling days of January and February come. Yesterday I bought myself a pair of fleece lined jeans and nice new pair of woolen long-johns. That should help.
Down at the barn I plugged in the heated waterer. The barn rain barrel finally froze, so I drained it and retired it for the winter. I tried to put off doing that for as long as I could because now I’ll have to carry buckets of water down from the house every day until spring. That makes doing the chores a lot harder.
All week long we kept the wood stove going any time we were home. I try to keep it burning all night too, but I’m not very successful at that. In order to do that I have to get up sometime during the wee hours to load in more wood and I’m either too fast asleep or too unwilling to get out of my warm bed to do it.
During the months when I don’t have outdoor gardening to do, I satisfy my need to care for growing things by tending to my houseplants. Of course, I tend them all year long, but in winter I lavish all of my attention on them. The stars of the winter houseplant scene are my Christmas cacti. I have six pots of them of various sizes and flower color. They are called Christmas cacti and when I first acquired them they did bloom around Christmastime. But over the years some of them have changed their bloom time, flowering earlier and earlier. Now some of them start around Halloween and they go right on in succession into January. They started to bloom last week. Seeing their bright flowers makes me happy.
 |
| The first Christmas cactus in bloom. |
I’m also particularly fond of my amaryllises. The first one was a gift from my Aunt Joyce given to me many years ago. Over the years it has produced baby bulbs and now I have three pots of them. They have huge, pure white flowers. They usually bloom in February, but for some reason, they are blooming now. They are beautiful. I love flowers in the winter.
 |
| My "Aunt Joyce" amaryllis. |
We attended a craft show in Genesee yesterday. I spent a lot of time during the week getting things ready for it. I had seven barn quilts in various stages of production that I needed to get ready. I finished them on Friday night, just in time. The show was nice. We didn’t sell much – we usually don’t because most people want to place custom orders. Several people expressed a desire to place an order before Christmas. That will keep me busy.
 |
| One of the barn quilts I just finished. |
 |
| A triple Christmas colors porch quilt. |
 |
| Our table at the craft fair. |
The last bit of fall color has come and gone. The larch trees were their golden best during the week. Larches are deciduous pine trees. They are the last trees to lose their leaves (needles) in the fall. They turn a beautiful shade of yellow. Midweek they were at their best. By the weekend they had begun to fade. The drab days are upon us.
 |
| The larch trees of Gold. |
I’ve begun working on one of my winter reading goals. Years ago I discovered the Discworld novels of Terry Pratchett. I read all of them and loved them. They are clever, satirical, and funny. I decided to read them all again this winter. They are the perfect sort of books to keep me occupied and lighthearted all winter. There are 38 of them. I have electronic copies of them loaded on my Kindle. I’m already on novel number eight and I’m loving them all over again.
Today was our Primary Children’s Program at church. Our Primary consists of three regularly attending children – two boys ages nine and four (brothers), and a girl aged four (who is very shy and doesn’t talk). Our friend Laura Dunn, who is ten, was there with us today and she helped. It was a very modest program. The children took turns reading parts and sang a few songs. Then the Primary pianist said a few words. Stacey, the Primary chorister, gave a short talk. Then the Primary president spoke briefly. That’s how it goes in a little branch like ours.
The day started out bright and sunny and cold, but now the sunshine is gone, the sky is gray, and only the cold remains. I see the weather forecast says we have a chance for snow tonight and freezing rain tomorrow. That’s to be expected at this point – unwelcome, but expected. With the wood stove blazing and wearing my fleece-lined jeans and hoodie, I feel as prepared as I can be. Lunch is almost ready. Miriam made homemade minestrone and rolls and it will be delicious and exactly what I need on a chilly Sabbath afternoon. After that, I’ll go down and do the chores and then I think I curl up by the wood stove and nap the rest of the afternoon away.
