That was yesterday, this is today!!

Yesterday I told you about the ice storm that went thru here. It was crazy. Then about 4:30 last night it started to snow. In no time there was about 2" of fresh snow on the ground. I needed 4 wheel drive to get up to my house at 7 pm. In the night it must have warmed up because it started raining and I heard it rain all night long. This morning when I looked outside the snow was all but gone.

THEN......at 7 am it started snowing ginormous flakes. It was really getting deep. I had to go into Salem and the roads were pretty bad. Most everyone had 4-wheel drive or tire chains on. It hasn't stopped snowing all day.

We measured it a little bit ago and it was over 9". THIS IS CRAZY! Needless to say, we will not be going anywhere for Christmas. This will be the first time in over 22 years that we have had Christmas at home. It will be really different. But this year every day is different. We will stay home, open gifts with the little guys, make a yummy dinner and watch a movie or two. Maybe we will make a snowman. I better go get some bird food. What do those little guys eat when it's all covered up?

Crazy Weather

This morning we were getting ready for church and it was raining outside. Mindy called and asked "Are you sure you want to come down to church?" " Why would I stay home because of the rain???? " I said. Well, there is an inversion going on cuz I am at 1000 feet of elevation and they are at maybe 500 ft. Here it was fine but as we went down a couple of miles it was all ice.

Every little thing was completely covered in ice. It was so pretty but so dangerous. We saw tree branches touching the ground, power lines down everywhere and people trying to stop traffic because of the downed trees and branches.

Every road we turned down was impassible. So we drove around and took pictures and talked to people. It was really quite fun. Then we went to the cafe to eat. It was packed. There were so many people in there. Everybody was out of power. It took over an hour to get served our breakfast ( which by now is lunch). Outside the restaurant was a tree lot.

This is the sign and the trees.

" Nope we don't have flocked trees but we do have frozen trees!"

Any way, after we ate , we drove around a little more to see the awesome sites. It is amazing what this weather is doing. We decided to come home, make a fire, play games and eat. Now it is snowing big gigantic flakes and everything is turning white again. I am glad that I don't have anywhere I need to be.

Simple things

I told you about the girls and some friends coming out yesterday for a lunch and a cookie exchange. I told you how much fun we all had. What I forgot to tell you is that it didn't matter that there was a couple of inches of snow on the road to my house. It didn't matter that I didn't get the front porch decorated cute like I had planned. It didn't matter that the boys (Connor and Caleb) knocked the 9 foot tall, fully decorated Christmas tree down in the middle of the living room when everyone was here. Or that on it's way down it knocked the mounted deer head off the wall. It didn't matter that Robin is dieting and this was so not a diet food day. It also didn't matter that I forgot the broccoli in the microwave oven till lunch was almost finished. What did matter was that we all had so much fun. We laughed alot and shared yummy recipes. What I do know is that sometimes life is so complicated but happiness is really pretty simple.

Simple Pleasures

Today Stacy and Mindy and I had some of our friends over for a cookie exchange. It was so much fun. We have done this for a few years in December after harvest is over. We tidy up the house, put out a few decorations and make some yummy treats for the girls. We even had snow outside for added decorations.

Everyone brought their favorite cookies along with their recipes. We all had lunch and then traded cookies.

There were lots of different kinds of cookies, bars and candies. I don't know who was more excited about this, us girls or the boys. They didn't have to clean house, make lunch, bake cookies or clean up afterwards. But they sure were happy to test all the cookies and tell us what ones were their favorites. Sometimes it took lots of trys to decide which ones they liked the best.

Advent Conspiracy

From Wahoo to Boohoo

We are finially down to our last load of Christmas trees. They should go out tomorrow or Thursday at the latest. The slings are hung back up in the barn. The pallets are all neatly stacked. The chainsaws are put away in the shop. The guys have been cleaning up the landings where the trees were staged. It has been a fast and furious six weeks. Now that it is almost over I find myself smiling and crying alot. I am so happy it's over. I'm so happy that we got it done with no problems, no injuries and no screw ups. That's the wahoo part. The boohoo part is that two of our full time guys are leaving for Mexico tonight. Even tho they will be back in a few months, I cried when I paid them and said goodbye. They are like my family and I like to have them here with me always. I cry cuz I am so proud of my family for helping get this season behind us. I cried when I think of all the prayers that were offered up for us. I cry whenever I think of Jay guiding us thru each day, thankful for all his notes and records. What the heck, I am crying right now. I call these tears liquid love. I think I better go squirt myself with "Happy" perfume.

AMEN!!!

Can I get a big AMEN!! We are almost finished with this years tree harvest. Everything has gone so smoothly. I know without a doubt that Jay was watching out for us on many occasions. I know that I told you about the fog and how we didn't have fog on any of our fly days with the helicopter. Even when it was foggy everywhere else we were clear to fly. I also wanted to tell you about another thing. Jay had both of his GPS's (global positioning system) with him. They were both destroyed. On them were all the coordinances for the different fields. This information is necessary for the helicopters to locate the fields. Without knowing how to use a GPS we were wondering what to do. One day Caleb and Connor were making their "time sheet" for me and putting them on a clipboard. When I was doing payroll I took their time sheet off the clipboard and there in Jay's handwriting was all the coordinances for each field.
Another thing that happened was this. Towards the end of harvest you have to look at your orders and check you inventory of trees cut and bailed on the landing. Sometimes the trucks get full before all the trees are on them. They don't want to come back for just a few trees so we try and adjust. We see who can use more and who might have too many. One guy had 243 extra trees. They are cut and bailed and he doesn't really want to come all the way back from Idaho if he doesn't have to. And then there is a field that we need to clear cut with approximately 220 trees left. WELL, last night a guy called from California and says he NEEDS 500 more of exactly the ones we need to get rid of. How about that???

On another note, a very good friend (teacher) of ours was accused of sexual abuse last February. We knew all along he was not guilty of this horrible thing. His trial was this week and yesterday he was found INNOCENT! Amen to that.

Also, my good friend Diane got test results back yesterday. Her cancer is only in the left breast and is not attatched to the muscle. She will have surgery soon to remove the breast. They will take a couple of lymph nodes and check them for cancer. The doctor told her she may not even need cemo. Please keep Diane in your prayers.