Battening Down the Hatches

There's a big storm heading our way so Ed and I spent the day getting things done. It is bitterly cold out. With the windchill it was -25. One of our errands was to get the Christmas tree. Since we always get it on the coldest day of December it seemed that we were keeping the traditions intact. Our area is prime for growing Christmas trees which is nice. We bought our tree from the farmer himself. Yesterday it was in the field today it's in our living room. Now that's fresh. It also means that a 8 foot tree cost $15. Despite wearing many layers Ed and I didn't hang around long. It was difficult because the man selling the trees was chatty. He was also in a ski suit. We chatted for a bit and then made our excuses and dove into the SUV with as much dignity as we could muster.

Another errand was to buy some heated water buckets. With everyone's advice (on the blog and FB) we decided to invest in the buckets. Thank you so much for the input. We had to go to two different feed stores - the first store had only one- I guess they have been flying off the shelf. We also picked up some Christmas presents for the dogs and a bag of beet pulp.

When we came home we had lunch and then headed to the barn to figure out how to run the wires so that the horses couldn't get into trouble. Ed went first but I needed to take a little longer. In addition to the layers of thermal undergarments, fleece shirt and jeans I added a hoody, my insulated coveralls, a scarf, my hat, warm mittens and my baffin boots. I trundled into the barn. Ed was already hard at work. He stopped and took in my appearance from head to toe.
"are you cold?" he asked with a smile.
"not now" I said.

I looked at him- he was wearing sneakers, a quilted flannel shirt and a pair of gloves. How he didn't shiver to death I'll never know. I know that we both had our thoughts on each others fashion choices.

We got the buckets installed and plugged in. Steele came in to check on our work. I can see how these are going to make my life easier. And the worry over colic will be offset by worry over having electical items in the stall. However, I like how the buckets have wire around the cord so that it's  not tempting.  We will be putting in proper conduits to keep the buckets but for now we have it set up in a workable manner.

After that I took the dogs for walk in the woods. It wasn't too bad when we were in the woods. The dogs also had on their coats. When I got back I decided to bring the horses in early out of the cold. Steele was in Irish's stall hanging out so I chopped up an apple to put in his feed bin. I noticed that there was a hole in the bottom.

how on earth did he do this?

With a sigh I realized that I couldn't go in until I fixed this. I found the bin we took out of Irish's stall. But I had to remove a block of wood from it. I then removed Steele's and put in the new one. By then my fingers were frozen. Steele came in and checked out his new bin. He looked pleased.  I could then grab the apple throw it into the bin. II got the horses in and then headed into the house for a break.

We then headed back to town to buy groceries. Our theory was that most of the shoppers would be back home. That turned out to be correct.  We were able to get groceries, including the Christmas Turkey and a roast for tomorrow. It was then time to go home and collapse on the couch.

It was a busy and good day despite the cold. Tomorrow we will decorate the tree. I also hope to get some baking done.

Hopefully we won't lose the power tomorrow. After all this hard work that would be just too much.

It's bad enough I have a frosted nose, thanks for getting rid of the ice...