It is cold and white in our neck of the woods. We are experiencing the longest stretch of cold weather we’ve had in a long, long time. I think today it’s supposed to get up to 1 degree. Just walking to the mailbox this morning was brutal! And we have lots of snow on the ground, with ice underneath. It is not fun to be outside right now and it’s been so hard for Drew. Last week he took his little pop up tent, loaded it with blankets, warmed up a bowl of soup and had his lunch out there. He lasted about 20 minutes each time which surprised me and it was a nice break for him. He’s struggling with being cooped up in the house.
We did some watercolor painting using watercolor pencils on our homemade paper and that was fun. Drew wants to make more paper now but I told him we needed to wait until we could do it outside as we had water everywhere. We plan to try our hand at coloring the paper using natural dyes like onion skins and red cabbage. Something I hope to do at Easter too when we dye eggs. Something to look forward to!
Saturday we got the call that our deer meat was ready for pickup in a neighboring town so we dressed warm and headed to Washington. I have to say it was nice to get out of the house even if it was originally for a drive to the locker and back home. But on the way our daughter called and talked to her dad about a smell they had in their master bathroom and what it could be. Jeremy had to work and wouldn’t be able to look into it until Sunday. As we would be so close to their place anyway we decided to head over there after picking up our order and see if Joe could help.
Joe decided the issue was a snow blocked vent on the roof and he wasn’t sure he could get to it without help so we spent the afternoon playing with grandkids and made plans to head back over the next day. So a weekend of staying home and keeping warm ended up being a fun weekend spent with grandkids! We had a lunch of tacos and taco salad and I took a dessert I had made. Then I had the grandkids color some plain seed packets I had and we picked out some flower seeds to put in them from my stash of seed I had harvested in the fall. Their great grandma has just been diagnosed with breast cancer and we thought she might enjoy a little bundle of flower seeds, homemade body butter and a rice bag Abby had asked me to make for her. We know the kids’ Great Grandma and Great Grandpa very well as Abby married a local boy and we’re a small community. I’ve known them both my whole life. Caroline worked as an associate in the high school library when I was going to school there and she was there when Abby and our two older sons where there. She is a wonderful cook and always has a big garden. We’re praying she can enjoy a little gardening this summer.
I always enjoy watching Joe playing with the grandkids. He loves to wrestle and play games with Braxton and it’s been so many years since we’ve had a little girl in the family that it’s fun to watch Joe playing with little Bayah. She is this sweet tiny little thing that loves anything pink, her books, and her dolls but she couldn’t wait until after lunch because she told me was going to jump on pillows, stand on a blanket and punch Grandpa! She is definitely small but mighty. She has no idea just how small she is!