Once the storm had passed, the temps started to rise. It was enough to melt the snow on the sweet peas on the front porch. They had not completely died yet and the tendrils held the drops of melted snow.
I was a hurting unit on Thursday morning. First thing I did was make an enormous cup of tea and take 2 ibuprofen. The PT and exercise class had caught up on me and I had a long day ahead.
Once the post was up, Tom said he’d be out soon to plow. So I got the steps swept and sanded and cleaned off the cars.
The truck was reluctant to start but once running, ran very well Tom said. We were all cleaned up by 11AM. He visited with me for a while and then left to tend to his own house.
I sat and wrote the first Christmas letter since about 2018 or 2019 before my helper friend arrived at noon.
He got the butter beans soaking and then started on the various things that needed done.
The new printer arrived just after Tom left. He will hopefully install it this weekend so I can print out the Christmas letter.
My son arrived and got the shoveling done for the various paths around the house and barn.
First my helper friend carried the 2 bags of stones upstairs. He had bought them up on Tuesday but they were frozen solid so they thawed in the laundry room for a couple days. Turns out we only needed one of them to fill the storage box to make the humidity tray for the ginger.
It’s so dry in the house; the ginger was turning brown on the tips. Maybe now it will do better.
Once the extra bag was out in the garden shed, he came down and started a second meal. The idea was to get meals into the freezer that were protein rich. I decided on beef stew. So he prepped for that while making the butter beans and ham.
Once both of those were simmering on the stove, we both started washing the last of the doors and windows. There were 3 to do and we had them done in about 45 minutes.
That meant I could finally put away all the window cleaning stuff that had sat on my old island in the kitchen since April.
Next we went out and got the huge wood tarp onto the clothesline to dry out. I’ll have to get my son to help me fold it over the weekend, as we have rain coming early next week.
Once the meals finished cooking, I put them on the back porch to cool. I decided to leave them out there overnight as it would be in the 30’s and I was too exhausted to stand and package them for the freezer. I took a bowl full out of the beef stew for supper.
On Friday my helper friend will be back at 8AM and I plan to “spring clean” the bedroom. There are a few other jobs we can do if we finish early. Plus we have the meals to get into the freezer. I have PT in the afternoon.