Tuesday

Well, our thermometer outside went bonkers in the wee hours of the morning. It cannot handle temps below -12F (-25C) and last I heard it's -15F (-26C) out there.

So why on earth am I up before sunrise??

It's complicated: the boys' preschool was threatening to close because of the harsh conditions outside. If that happened, someone would have to take one child to an appointment while the others were stuck at home. Meaning, I was on standby, ready to show up at my daughter's house at sunrise if necessity called. 

In the end, the preschool did not close and my help was, therefore, not needed. But hey! I'm up, showered, ready to go! So, go I must!

Only where?

It's not often that you get sun, and you get me up early enough to see it raise its warm head over a horizon. When I first moved to the farmhouse, I got all excited about such things and I'd often take the motorbike to Lake Waubesa to watch a sunrise there. A newcommer's enthusiasm for country living. How times have changed...

This is not motorbike weather, indeed it is not any sensible person's outdoor weather, but I'm up and revved up, like a car whose engine has been left running, waiting for someone to hop in and get moving.

To Lake Waubesa then! (It's all of two miles away.)

A few photos from my big trip:

(going there)

(the moment before the sun cracks the horizon is always exciting...)

(satisfied, I turn back, with an occasional glance at the now brilliant disc over snow-covered fields and farmsteads)

(running to get back to the safety of the forest...)

And only after do I go out to deal with our animals. Most are hiding from the cold. Two are unhappily navigating the pathway, one coming, one going.

Once done, I feel like I have a mountain of free time! So early still? Wow! I can do some planning, reading, spot cleaning, writing, baking, decluttering.

Muffins, here I come!

Breakfast, anyone?

The decluttering is really high on my priority list. Once again I read a good article about our relationship to junk (you and I both know that what we have in our homes is mostly junk). This one. And once again I embark on piling up the donations to Goodwill. Honestly, I am determined to get this place to be free of any item I haven't used or looked at in the past two years by summertime. Imagine the airiness of a home with empty shelves!

Please do not ask about skiing today! When the hairs in your nose freeze just by going out to rescue a stuck-in-the-snow chicken, you know it's not skiing weather.

What else did I squeeze in today? A grocery delivery. I ordered a small, inexpensive bunch of tulips. Through someone's error, I got these instead:

Ed thought we should notify someone of the error (the correct buyer of the roses is going to be very disappointed!), but there's no method for it, unless you want a refund, or to convey a complaint, and that's surely not our issue! We are stuck with two dozen beautiful roses! Bummer!

In the afternoon I pick up Snowdrop and though we do come to the farmhouse (and she pounces on the muffins, always selecting those with the most blueberries)...

... we are back to a ballet routine, so that much of our time is spent on getting her ready for dance. Oh that long hair!

We are on time! What a good way to start the new dancing semester!

I come home after her class. 

(We have visitors...)

Ed locks up the hens, I bake a frittata and I think about the beauty of a clear winter night. So forbidding, but so fantastically empyreal too! The Snow Moon is still five days away, and yet it's all magical outside even now -- the stars, the shadows on the now thick snow cover -- sublime.

And the furnace is working well and the house is warm.

We are so very grateful!

with love...