Dan's Ramblings

 Dan here ~

Thursday evening, in the studio trying to keep warm. There have been many days this season I sure missed my wood stove. This was one of them. It has been cold even up in the studio. Warmer weather is bound to get here sometime. Then I can complain about the heat. Today was cold and very windy. I went out to the shed a couple times on trash runs but that is about it. Otherwise I’ve been in the studio.

Carol spoke the other day about us walking around the pond on the ice. Which I found to be much like a kayak tide. Calm when we leave then freshening to a stiff breeze blowing in your face the rest of the way home. This equals a much more enjoyable first half to the journey than the last half. It was a refreshing walk anyway. 

I don’t know if these folks are early for spring or never quite got to removing theirs last fall. 

Lotsa Bindings

Carol here ~ 

I spent most of last week at my sewing machine making and stitching on bindings.

Here is the pile of quilts waiting for the binding to be hand sewn to the back. I guess those will keep me busy for a while.

Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening. All I could get tonight for a sunset. 

Damn it’s been cold. I remember working out all day in the cold weather and surviving. I worked at Saddleback Ski Area when we first moved to Rangeley, when I was much younger, I’m older than that now. 

Snowblowing

Carol here ~

I had my first tractor/snowblower lesson yesterday. I didn't go in the ditch and I didn't hit anybody so guess I did pretty good! I will need a couple more storms before I feel comfortable, there are quite a few levers and knobs to keep track of. I think I need a cheat sheet!

Great niece Annie was over for more sewing yesterday. She sewed squares together into rows then sewed the rows together.  Next time she is here we are going to load her project on Lena Longarm and quilt it. 

Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening. It was a nice calm day today. I managed to burn off some of the wood I have been pulling off the pond. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to keep the chain on my EGO electric chain saw. I must admit I have probably cut more wood with it than was ever intended for it to cut. I will probably buy another one then you can count on this one finally working right. The chain just doesn’t function correctly, it falls off. I bet they are making new ones as I write this. Unfortunately, probably in China.

I managed to get most of the branches that were sticking up out of Mud pond removed. I was working on those at the edge where the blowdown occurred when the chainsaw decided to not function as desired. So I “harvested” what I had cut and took it up on the hill where the rest of the wood is stored. There it is waiting to be split.

A New Chair

Carol here ~

We have had this Canadian Glider that belonged to my mother in the corner of our living room since we moved here. We like the size of it as we have limited space but it was a pain in the neck (for real) when trying to look out the window at the pond.

Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday evening. Beautiful sunset on Saturday before the temperatures began to drop. 

The weather here has been rather cold and extremely windy. We had to remove most of the bird feeders for fear they would blow off and come through the window. Some parts were already separated in the wind. They are still on the ground where they landed. Too windy out there for me. I can feel the house shake during many of the wind gusts.

Dan's Ramblings

Dan here ~

Thursday, I think. I think I have less of an idea what day it is than normal this week. 

Christmas and New Year have come and gone so maybe now there will be fewer sale emails. But wait if you hurry there is enough time to save a bundle. I sure did save, I deleted the emails. That way I saved even more. I figure if I didn’t know I needed it until you told me how much I was saving I probably don’t need it anyway.

I think that the warmer weather is about over, all the snow is about gone around here. The ice became water covered and is open along the edge in many places. I rather doubt it will stay that way very long as the forecast is that we are headed back into a deep freeze. That will cause the ponds to grumble and grunt as they refreeze. The noises created are often quite loud and sometimes continue on for several seconds. The rumbles are occasionally followed by a loud crack as the ice shifts to make itself more comfortable.