Winter Prep

One of the perks of being here is that DH can just walk right out the door to hunt 

                                                                     

which pretty much makes this hog heaven for him

                                

It'll be nice to head into winter with good meat in the deep freeze. Yesterday, DH spent some time up on the rooftop securing a few screws.

We had our first winter storm roll through here on November 7. It just lasted a few days, but mountain snows are beautiful.

I might feel differently if we had months and months of it, but this area doesn't generally get a ton of snow.

We just ended up with about 4 or 5"

And today it's 70 and I'm washing windows so mother nature is making her own rules.

The day before the storm moved in, we worked on bringing in more wood. 

We're just getting started, and hope to bring in more than we'll use so that we'll be ahead of the game for the future.

The weather made me want to bake something, but the oven's out. 😢 

We thought it was the ignitor so we ordered one and DH installed it, but still no go. DH wanted to take it in, but it's a Viking stove and it weighs a ton. We took the door off and it weighs probably 40#. I was worried about DH's back loading the whole stove and convinced him to have the repair folks come out. Alas, they were booked up solid for 3 weeks. I couldn't even bribe them with cookies since I didn't have a working oven. 😉

I considered buying one of the countertop ovens and did quite a bit of research as well as talking to friends about them. I even settled on one. Alas, I decided against it because I am pretty stingy about giving up any counter space. I've never liked having lots of things on my kitchen counters, so I'll just sweat it out.

We wanted pizza the other night so we just cooked it on the smoker - it was perfect. I even cooked egg rolls on the grill when I made stir-fry last week and Baked Apple Oatmeal for breakfast this morning

It worked great!

But I'm ready to have my oven back up and running. Thankfully, it's soup season and I don't need an oven for that!

Celebrating 1

 10 days ago we took a road trip to celebrate a very special birthday 

We're all shaking our heads that he's already turning 1

What a fun age! 

                                       

And what a charmer!

We're completely smitten

I treasured the years raising our two chiddlers, but there's something extra special about watching your child, parent their child

It's such fun watching them navigate parenthood.

They are much smarter than we were -they have so much more information available these days. We just had to wing it, but they survived. They recently moved and have a quiet, private road with lots of space

I love our new place, but I'm really wishing it was in Oklahoma because we already miss this little treasure.

What We've Been Up To

 Autumn is my  favorite time of year and this year we're grateful to be enjoying an unusually long fall. It's been absolutely glorious. Mornings in the high 30's and afternoons in the high 60's. It's just been too nice to be indoors. The weather will chase us inside soon enough.

We've been chipping away at projects

This spot is not accessible by truck. It's even iffy with a UTV, but DH has been working on a water line with a neighbor and they've had to clear some downed trees to access the area. So we've been going back to harvest the beautiful firewood. 

We spent some time posting signs on the fence line 

                                         

Exploring spots to clear in order to blade a road around the property. This will help when we replace the old fence as well as give us easy access should we ever encounter a fire situation

We found an old cook stove in the creek bed

Such a magical place. Coming from the treeless desert (that had its own magic), I am delighted by trees

We had a Conex container we bought last year delivered

It's in a pretty tight spot and the delivery driver couldn't set it up on the railroad ties so DH had me climb into the skid steer and move the container around so he could set the railroad ties perfectly square. 

Then I put together shelves and filled them with storage containers - it makes my heart happy to have everything organized and easily accessible 

                                              

We also cleaned out a shop that the previous owners had used for storage and we filled up a 10 yard dumpster. They are very kind and offered to pay for the dumpsters as they were not able to clean the shops and barn out on their own

DH is finishing up his tack room

I stained a backboard for my cast iron collection

And I've been procrastinating the one indoor project I've got to tackle because I'm loath to waste time inside. The former owners chose the perfect nature inspired colors for every single room...except one. The office (they used it as an exercise room)

The red had to go. It's not a big room, but the ceilings are 10 ft tall. And covering that red...oye.

I knew I needed to tackle it before the Cortisone shot I had 4 months ago wore off anymore so I just made myself do it. The paint store fella insured me the high dollar paint I bought would cover it, but I was skeptical and used a coat of Kilz first. As anyone that's painted rooms before knows, it's the prep and cutting in along the baseboards, windows, and ceiling that takes forever, but I succeeded. I am much happier with the Dove Wing than the red and more boxes are now being emptied.

Whew! I probably climbed up and down that ladder 200 times and although my knee didn't love it, Jesus made it doable.

The hot water circulator sprung a leak on a Friday. We've never had experience with one and didn't even know what it was. DH figured he could fix it, but it was sautered together so we did call a plumber (recommended to us by a ranch friend) the next week. He replaced it in a way that would allow DH to fix it if we ever encounter a problem with it again. We didn't want to call anyone out on the weekend so DH McGyver-ed it using an empty Tide bottle and the tube from a Dectomax applicator. Even the plumber thought that was very clever.

At the end of the day, we're tired, but grateful 

The other morning began with a visit from the neighbor

I think we're gonna like this neighborhood.