We are undrifted! The roads to town are clear (except for a few passable drifts in all the usual spots) and I am feeling human again. We are expecting snow on Christmas Day, but not a lot. Just enough to make it a true White Christmas. The sun is making a return again much to the relief of our solar panels and batteries.

We managed to get to the mailboxes and into town the other day. However, on the way home Lex (our Expedition) sent us a message via the dashboard that we had a low tire. Not exactly what you want to hear when you are headed out of town on the lonely dirt road home. Rick got out and looked and could not see any noticable differances. When we got home he added air to the tires and let it sit overnight. In the morning, the tire was low again. Rather than risk a flat tire again (the first one was not pleasant), he decided to go back into town yesterday to have it looked at. He also decided to borrow the neighbors' trailer and take the non-working snowblower in to have it seen to as well. 

They could not find anything wrong with the tire—no leaks, no nails—so its lowness was put down to weather changes. Thank goodness. The snowblower had a clogged carburetor and it took awhile for Heggie Logging (they sell and service Husqvarna products—we take them our saw chains) to tear it apart and put it back together, but it is now working. YEAH! It might not be the best snowblower in the world but hopefully it will get us through this winter and maybe next winter we can buy a more powerful one with winter tracks that Rick has been salivating over. Poor guy left home at 10:00 a.m. yesterday and finally got home at 4:30 p.m. 

While he was gone I did two loads of laundry and although it wasn't the sunniest or warmest of days, it was above freezing so I hung the clothes out on the line. They didn't dry completely, but enough that it didn't take long for them to dry once I brought them inside in front of the wood stove. Today it's even nicer, so another load of laundry is in my future. We are out of clean dish towels!

In fact, it's so nice it might even be possible to sit on the front porch and also nice enough to use the pizza oven for our pizza tonight. Woohoo! Now this is the Colorado that I remember and not that New Jersey-like stuff we've been having for the whole month of December.

Okay, where did all that stuff come from? Let's move on to the topics that this blog post is supposed to be about.

Some things we've tried have not worked out. Like putting our potatoes, onions and squashes in a basket in the shed. We thought putting them there was a good thing -- after all they like being dark and cool. We found out the hard way that although it's true that they like to be dark and cool, they do not one bit appreciate being frozen solid. We were not really expecting the frigid single digit temperature or the below-zero nighttime temperatures that we had this past month. The shed is nicely insulated, but not for those temps.

When I brought a couple of potatoes in with the hopes of baking them—oops—. We brought them all in and defrosted them, dried them off and tried to revive them. We were not successful and within several days, most of them had turned to mush. Such a shame too since we had three bags of potatoes (jumbo russets, yukon golds & red), and a butternut squash that had to be thrown away. The onions, it seems, took the freezing in stride. Now I guess we'll put them down in the crawl space where they can't freeze. It's just such a pain to get down there. Everything has to come out of the closet (trash can, dog food, vacuum cleaner, cat kibble, broom, dog feeder stands), lift up the floor and get down a precariously tiny "ladder." But, some things just have to be borne.

Our fancy shmanzy appliances have been mostly working. The fridge is now running perfectly after its latest part trade-out, but the stove is being picky. It lights and all is good. That is until you are midway through baking Christmas cookies or a beautiful loaf of bread and when you go over to check on it, it is no longer heating, nor will the pilot light even come back on. You wait, and wait, trying to light the darned thing several times, and then it finally comes on. I guess it just needs yet another adjustment to the flame sensor. Adventures in cooking indeed.

Life on the frontier is good.

On the way up.

Destin has been known for his death-defying feats since he was just a wee pup. He loves the challenge of climbing UP. Our big drift is developing on Avalanche Slope and Destin couldn't leave it alone. What follows is a photographic journey of what goes up, must come down.

Look Mom & Dad, I made it to the top!

King of the Drift!

Gosh, it's kind of steep here ...

Okay, here I go ... time to come down!

Just a few little trees, nothing I can't handle.

See? Easy-Peasy!

Gosh, that was fun, even if I did give Mom & Dad heart failure. 

Given the number of evergreen trees that have been killed by beetles over the past 10 years, we always find it very difficult to cut down a living evergreen tree. But, it is a Christmas tradition (for those Christmases we've spent here), to cut a tree on our property and decorate it in the cabin. We seek out a tree that is somehow "disadvantaged". It might be up against another tree so it only has one full side. Or, it might be growing in a cluster of trees and not getting adequate light.

Lynne standing by our freshly cut tree that we are about to haul up the hill to the cabin.

So, about 10 days ago we drove the Ranger down to the bottom of our valley along Avalanche Hill and ventured off into what we call the "Deep, Dark Woods" to find a tree. And, after 30 minutes or so, Lynne spotted the perfect candidate. I lugged the chain saw through 18" of snow to cut it, and we pulled it back out to the Ranger. We drove up the road to the top of the hill, and to the cabin.

We cut about 4 feet off the bottom, giving us a nice 8 foot tree. Lynne used the cut off part for boughs on the mantle of the fireplace. The tree is a perfect shape and size to fit the small place we have for it.

Hailey say's "Merry Christmas, Everyone!".

We had some pretty high winds on Thursday and Thursday night. Sometime overnight two large (dead) trees fell in the meadow. These are trees that were killed by beetles several years ago. Eventually, all the dead trees will fall.

The bad news is that each time a tree falls, we lose some of the buffer we have against the prevailing west winds. The good news is we get a cord or two of fire wood for the next year.

Here is a closer view:

You can see that the larger tree just fell over with its root ball intact and has two trunks.

The smaller tree got caught in another tree and ended up in a strange position.

A closer view of that.

It had snowed and blown enough that we had to use snowshoes to take the short hike through the meadow. Destin was oblivious to anything other than playing in the snow.

Well, as I had suspected it makes little sense to try to keep Wapiti Way clear with the new plow. The road runs N-S along some open sagebrush prairie and any wind from the southwest or west will fill it with snow. The other day, I plowed it and it looked like this:

This morning, we needed to get into town for a vet appointment, it it looked more like this:

Actually, this photo is taken after attempting to get up the hill with the Expedition. We got stuck right away. The snow on the road was about 12" to 14" deep. It didn't look that deep, but it was. The problem driving through it is not so much the tires not grabbing, but rather the undercarriage of the truck getting "high centered" on the snow. I was able to back us out of the drift. I walked back to the cabin to get the Ranger and try to plow enough snow from the road to get over it. There was too much snow to get in one go with the plow, so I set it midway so I'd cut 5" to 6" off the top. My plan was to make another pass to get it down to the ground. However, I failed to tell Lynne my plan and she decided to drive the truck up after me, following my tracks. The problem is, the Ranger with tracks on it rides pretty much on top of the snow. So, after a few feet of following me, the truck was stuck again. And, this time I could not back it out. 

I got the shovel (we always throw a shovel in the truck when we go out) and began clearing the snow from around the tires while Lynne took off walking to the top of the hill where our neighbors were waiting for us in their truck. We had agreed to follow each other into town knowing the buddy system is safer.

Our neighbor, David, drove his truck over the sagebrush hill to get on the road behind the Expedition. We then used a tow rope to pull the Expedition clear of the snow drift. 

Lesson learned: don't even try to drive on the road. Instead, go cross country on the hill (we own that property). This works for a couple of reasons. First, there is simply less snow there after a big blow. Second, the gravel hill and sagebrush gives us more traction. 

So, rather than try to keep Wapiti Way "open" by plowing it, we'll just drive cross country to the top of the hill. I think I'll ask if we can park the Suburban there because once we are at the top of the hill, we have the same trek as our neighbors and we can work together to get into town and back. We will always try to coordinate trips so neither of us tries to go it alone.

The good news is that our Christmas cards are mailed. Hailey kept her vet appointment and we have meds for everyone for at least 2 months. We bought our Christmas ham and some wine. So, we are ready to sit here through Christmas if necessary. That does mean we may not get our mail.