Snug and Warm

Another lovely weekend at home!

Now, you probably won't understand this part, but....we got about 100 miles from home on Thursday evening, stopped for dinner, and decided that we were calling it a night. It was only about 7:00, so we could have easily been home by 9:00, but we were both a little tired, and quite frankly didn't feel like driving anymore. So we ate our soup in Big Timber, MT and went to bed.

I have to say that getting home at night is always tiring, because we come in and I never want to go to bed right away. There are things to check on, and do, and of course the girls are so excited to be home that I can't bare to put them in their kennel right away. (they sleep in a kennel at home) Granted it would have given us a few more hours at home if we had gone on in that night, but it worked out fine.

We got home around 9:00 Friday morning and I honestly think getting home in the morning like that makes it feel like you've been there longer. We were only there till Sunday afternoon, but it felt like we'd been home for several days!

We spent this trip home getting things ready for winter. It is just around the corner you know! The biggest project was cleaning up Malcolm's shop. It took the better part of a day. It had been totally trashed during the whole truck swap, with all the projects that had to be done to the old truck, the new truck, and a few tweaks on the trailer while we were at it. My parents are coming to visit the first week of October, and so we had a little extra incentive to get it done. When we were finished, it was such a great sense of accomplishment and it looks so nice. No pictures, because there is still a little to be done, but its a different world out there! You can walk around and not worry about tripping on something!

Part of cleaning the garage involved a trip to the dump with some garbage. And since we were out with the trailer, we swung through the lumber yard and bought a pallet of wood pellets for our stove. This hefty stack weighs about 1 ton, give or take pellet or two. Pellet stoves were a new concept for me, but the house had one when we moved in. Apparently they are quite common in these parts, and rather ingeneous contraptions too. I'll have to explain in more detail about it sometime, if anyone is interested.

We have electric heat that we leave set on about 50 to keep the pipes from freezing while we're gone, but when we're home we pretty much heat with our pellet stove. It does an amazing job. We also have a wood burning stove upstairs that takes normal wood logs, and we use it when its really cold to knock the chill off when we get home. Nothing like looking winter in the face, knowing you have your wood supply put in!

Also, the girls new clothes arrived while we were there! I had ordered these, and thought I'd have to have the neighbor get it off the porch for me, but the FedEx guy showed up Friday evening. Perfect timing, and it was cool enough that the girls wore their new clothes all day Saturday. These are light cotton for cool weather. When its super cold, they have fleece jammies that Rachelle makes for them. She has the cutest fabric! She has a link on her website for her doggy clothes at http://www.darlingpoodles.com/

Don't they just look thrilled!

This is my girls going to "Daddy" to show him what "Mommy" did to them, assuming he's going to sympathize and take the clothes off for them. Little do they know it was he that told me to dress them. I was going to let them go naked, but they looked so cute in their jammies, he wanted them to wear them, and it was cold enought that Paris was shivering, so she really did need them anyway.

Found time to do a little project I've had in mind. Last winter when we got a load of wood for the stove, Malcolm picked out a nice piece of cedar for me. And this weekend, we finally got around to making the bird feeder I had seen pictures of. I like mine even better than the photograph I'd seen. It has holes drilled in it and you stuff the holes with suet.

Its supposed to draw in wood peckers and nut hatches, but since we have more finches and sparrows than anything else, Malcolm added some perches to it for those little guys. I had actually not seen any woodpeckers, but the next morning, ironically, I caught a little Downy woodpecker inspecting my porch railing (no no no little one!) and then later this Flicker took a sip out of my front birdbath. Never saw anyone use the new feeder, but it takes a few days for them to find stuff.

Left Sunday around 4:00pm and drove about 400 miles to deliver this morning in Powers Lake, ND. We then drove back to Montana, just on the border, and reloaded with peas.

Dallas said "Peas please!" and so we're on our way. We just stopped here in Mission, SD which is on the Rosebud Reservation. We'll camp out here for a few hours and then start again, landing in Dallas on Wednesday morning.

Till then, here's a parting shot of the hood ornament on the truck as we sail down the road.