And Another One

This is a short blog tonight, we are both more than just a little rattled.  We drove into town this evening to meet Lonn and LoraLee at Nat’s for dinner.  On the way back home about seven miles out of Big Timber, not going very fast due to the awful roads, a deer ran across in front of us—Mike tapped the brakes, he didn’t even really tap the brakes and we began to slide, the next thing we know we are careening all over that slick highway with Michael trying desperately to control the jeep.  We ended up laying the jeep onto its side in the ditch with the driver side down leaving me hanging in my seat belt.  I held onto Emmi throughout the whole short process. 

We are all totally OK—no scrapes, no bruises.  It was minus 18 degrees while all this was happening, my purse spilled all over the car and for a while after Michael released me from my seatbelt, I couldn’t find the phone—when I did find it, no service!!  So here we are in the ditch, pitch black, cold, cold.  Michael walked over to the closest house but no one was home.  Thank God these wonderful people with a warm, warm truck came along, had cell service, called all the powers that be and sat with us while we waited for all the flashing lights.

We turned over in such slow motion, the jeep appears to be mostly OK, a broken tail light and a broken fender flare-- very little damage but the wrecker hauled it to town—Michael will want to bring it home and check it over before starting it. 

So, it just wasn’t the little yellow jeep’s week!

My photos are not good, very dark and lots of flashing lights—everyone in these small communities comes out—we had a fire truck, an ambulance, a police car and then the state trooper as it is a state highway. 

A Party

Shirley and I ventured out today—Jeane had decided to have a little luncheon for our quilt retreat group.  There were eight of us who braved the elements to join Jeane in her wonderful home, beautifully decorated for the holidays!  Jeane has that knack—gorgeous decorations displayed just perfectly.  Jeane’s home is a historic former carriage house—they used to store the carriages in what is now her living room. 

Lunch was a delicious soup, warm turkey sandwiches with cheese and apple slices, salad, delicious cookies and chocolate silk pie—YUM!!!  We had a great time—a lot of us have not seen each other since our quilt retreat in September!  Thank you bunches Jeane for deciding to have a party!

The roads were atrocious to say the least, Shirley and I took the little yellow jeep, slipping and slidding all the way.

  Our morning temperature.  Out at Jeane’s at lunch time it was still minus 8!  This weather totally stinks—we are to have these frigid temps for several more days, our high on Monday MIGHT reach 10 above!!!  This just might be the LAST year we stay here much past October 1!!!!  Tonight was the lighted Christmas parade in Big Timber but with this nasty, nasty cold and the nasty, nasty roads, we elected to stay home. 

Here are some photos of Jeane’s beautiful home:

Jeane’s husband Steve is an artist, her son Reed is also and he did the horse painting over the fireplace.

Steve’s spot where he paints in front of the huge living room windows. 

Mary and Bette in the kitchen.

Gay and Barb in the sunroom/dining room.

The beautiful table which their son Reed built, Reed also built the kitchen cabinets.  The quilting ladies in the kitchen.

Jeane doing the tour.

One of the gorgeous bedrooms—their house at one time was operated as a bed and breakfast—the bedrooms upstairs all have their own bathrooms. 

In spite of this awful weather, life is still good!

Broken Record

At 58 years of age I had my first car accident today—yep, I reached the age of 58 without a fender bender of any sort, not even a slide off into the ditch.  After yoga, trying to get the jeep out of a snowdrift, I backed into our instructor Julia’s car, breaking one of our tow tail lights and putting a crease in her driver side front fender.  So much for a perfect driving record!!  And the kicker—Julia had just gotten her car out of the body shop getting repaired all the hail damage it sustained this summer. 

OK, excitement over, back to the weather!  This was our early morning temp and we never got above 2 degrees all day.  It was sunny, making for a beautiful winter scene.  After lunch Emmi and I took a nice long walk and it was not too bad out there with the sun shining—of course I did have on yoga pants, flannel lined jeans, long sleeve shirt, hooded sweatshirt, heavy coat, hat and gloves!

Michael spent the day replacing the right front axle u-joints on his 1995 diesel pickup—the garage has a woodstove and he stayed comfortable.  Because the garage is heated at times, the snow melts off the vehicles—yesterday Michael discovered the garage doors were frozen down!  Today he used a heat gun to melt the ice enough for me to get the jeep out—miserable weather!!

We had package deliveries from both the UPS and FedEx today—Bill (our UPS guy) was his usual cheerful self.  The FedEx man arrived a little after 6pm tonight—when I said, “you are out kind of late,” he said, “tis the season,” with a smile. 

More Cold

You know it’s cold when the garage doors freeze down to the concrete due to the water melting off the snow covered vehicles!!  I won’t bore you with more weather talk tonight, just suffice it to say, it is cold, beyond cold!

But then again, not much is happening around here except the weather—the UPS man delivered a package, he and Michael discussed the weather.  We took two fairly short walks—couldn’t stand the cold, Emmi may have to learn to use the treadmill!!  I hibernated in the quilt studio in between making lunch and fixing chicken and wild rice soup for supper which just boiled over on my clean stove! GRRRR 

Michael replaced the foam in our motorhome reclining loveseat.  He bought really, really high quality, dense, firm foam and what a difference it made in how that couch sits!! 

A slow blog day in Montana—but dang it’s cold!!

Things Are A Little Scary Around Here

My Dad and I would often discuss how the old timers coped without all the weather forecasts, Gortex boots and clothing, heated seats, and most of all equipment to move snow.  Today, I am very happy we own a heated backhoe with chains on the tires so Michael could plow ALL this snow we got—12 inches total.  Our all time high temp today was 9 degrees above—as I type this blog it is 3 above.  And the scary thing is this kind of weather could continue for another two weeks!!!

Michael plowed and plowed—plowed to the wood stack, plowed down to the road.  The horses were mighty happy he filled their feeders with hay yesterday!

I made it to yoga in Michael’s old 1995 diesel and made it back up the driveway without chains!!   The log truck driver wasn’t so lucky—just above our driveway a loaded log truck was coming down the road and met two other trucks going up the road—the log truck got too far over, slipped into the ditch and overturned the entire truck—that was one scary sight!!!

After making us lunch I turned Gertrude loose, did a little house cleaning and headed to the quilt studio to work on Christmas presents—the gifts are going to be adorable I might add! 

We’ve taken two walks today in the frigid temps—Emmi wears her coat with socks attached and is just the cutest thing.  She doesn’t mind the socks at all—just trots along as usual.  It was sure easier walking this afternoon after Michael had plowed the road!!

Teaching A Class And Winter With A Vengeance

Yep, that’s what I did today—our friend Bonnie has owned the quilt shop in Big Timber for I’m guessing about a year—the former owner of the longarm and shop wasn’t able to provide much in the way of education for Bonnie due to time constraints when she left.  So, Janna to the rescue—Bonnie and Vickie wanted a basic lesson on machine maintenance and how to load a quilt so it comes out square when you are finished.  We had a great day—learning and chatting.  We progressed to having Bonnie practicing feathers—I drew them and she began tracing the drawn feathers.  I left her lots of drawn ones to practice on!

Our weather forecast has been all gloom and doom—this morning it was 45 degrees when we got up, not exactly a winter storm.  Well, about 3pm that all changed and now we have 10-12 inches of snow, the wind is starting to blow—this could be one major, nasty storm!  Our temps are supposed to drop into the single digits tonight and below zero in the following days.  Our power has blinked a couple times, hopefully we won’t lose our power.  We aren’t leaving to go south until after Christmas this year—maybe we should have gone south and returned home just for the holidays??? 

Obviously these photos were taken before darkness fell—we have twice as much snow now!!

We have a pot of soup on the stove and are sipping on a glass of wine, all snug as a bug—and we don’t have anywhere to be for the next few days—life is good!

Something About Sunday

That makes me want to cook southern—maybe I’m remembering all those good fried chicken dinners my Mom used to make after church on Sunday.  Whatever the reason we enjoyed a very good, not so good for us lunch with Nat today—I pan fried pork chops, made mashed potatoes and gravy plus we did have some healthy carrots and fruit salad. 

I finished up the Christmas decorating today after giving the house a little sprucing—Gertrude helped me much to Emmi’s dismay!

Michael finished all the repair work on the little Tin Tee Pee and I spent the afternoon working on Christmas presents.  It is hard to believe today was the first day of December!  Jeane was kind enough yesterday to remind me there are only 3 weekends left before Christmas!!  YIKES 

We all took a walk this morning then Emmi and I repeated the hike this afternoon—it was a very cloudy stormy looking day but no moisture ever fell.  Our forecast for the coming week is down right scary—high temperatures in the single digits!!!