Trip to Town

18°f this morning, a few snowflakes, then clearing.

Snowy Joe's Run.  School has been in session all week, but busses don't run these back roads, so a lot of kids are unable to attend. I wonder if they have some kind of internet classes for them. Seems very unfair.

We had to go into town yesterday afternoon. This time I had to go too, not just Larry, because we had a time-sensitive document that had to be signed, notarized, and mailed. You can imagine how thrilled I was at the prospect! And poor Larry, who had already been up at the crack o'dawn for the 4-hour round trip to the VA wasn't thrilled either. But as is our way, we combined several necessary errands into one trip so in the end it was worthwhile.

Larry actually drove our van down to the house, which pretty much stunned me, but it did just fine on the way back out too. There really is nothing like all-wheel-drive. The tractor had done a decent job of clearing the snow but hoooweee the ice. Plenty of it still left.

A photojournal of our trip out and back:

The whole length of Joe's Run pretty much looks like this. It's a one-lane road, so getting out of someone's way can be tricky.

Our frozen watershed lake

but Joe's Run itself is still running, surprisingly. 

Finally out to the highway, and only 10 miles to town.

And in town...

The courthouse square

Mill Creek, which runs right through town, is frozen over. 

Part of the main drag

Ripley is the county seat, and these photos were taken in the old part of town. The town spreads out a good bit to the west, where we have Walmart, Kroger, Walgreens, a bunch of fast foods and gas stations, etc., because I-77 passes over that way. The south part of town has some car repair and used car places, auto parts stores, another drug store, a feed store, hardware store, and funeral home along with a lot of smaller businesses. Not many businesses survive on the north end except a feed store and another hardware store. Population is about 3000 people, according to the 2020 census, down by 400 people from 2010. Which is odd because there is much more traffic.

Then, homeward bound.

And finally home, where you can see the ridge has done some thawing even though it only reached 26° today,

Just the adrenaline-inducing driveway to contend with. Which was fine, actually,  just very slippery. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

...and Freeze

3°f, -16°C at 8:30am. Clear skies.

Flowers from last week are still holding on, in a pretty vase given to me by a friend.

Brrrr! From 41° on Sunday to 3° this morning. What a roller coaster! And my Larry was out of the house by 6:30 for his 9:00am appointment in South Charleston,  which is about an hour and a half away. But he had to warm up the truck and take it to the top of the hill, then warm up the van for his drive, because the van uses about a third less gas than the truck. 

The dogs and I are keeping the home fires going,and the faucets dripping, just in case. Our water really doesn't have issues with freezing off until it's 10°f below zero, and even then won't freeze if we leave faucets dripping. But still...better safe than sorry.

Not much else to write about today. I canned more pasta sauce yesterday, and my stack of jars that need to go out to the cellar is getting pretty big. Tomorrow's job. 

I also sorted out my shirt drawer and my shoes. Even though I have a general rule that it's one thing in one thing out, these things seem to multiply in the dark!  While I wasn't feeling well, I wasn't as good about following that rule. 

I worked through three drawers in the kitchen too, so surprising what I found! Things I honestly didn't know I had, like a garlic press, a second four-way chopper, chopsticks...the chopsticks hit the trash, the chopper went into a booth tote, and the garlic press got moved to a better drawer. But lots of other odds and ends were in those drawers. It's like an archeological dig sometimes. I will get into a few more drawers today. 

Finished my book, Murder at Honeychurch Hall by Hannah Dennison. I don't think I want to read any more by her; I dislike books where the main character gets pushed around and used and abused by everyone else, so put-upon! Usually this character is female, which is even more aggravating. I want to shout at them, "Get a backbone! Just say no!" Then there are times when characters just don't do what anyone else would---like when the doing runs off with £5000, and the main character can't find it, does her mother immediately demand to know if she found it when the daughter returns to the house, or where she looked? No, she doesn't.  And she doesn't try to find it herself either.  Not normal. Now I am reading Be Careful What You Wish For. And guess what? Same type of main character.  Sheesh.

Sales at our booths are pathetic right now, as you can imagine. With this weather, who wants to go shopping for non-necessities? January is traditionally a bad month in this business. The up side is that we don't have to worry about restocking. I am pricing things I have sorted out of the house in my routine decluttering, so I will have those ready whenever we get back to normal.

I made these yesterday morning. Mine came out nothing like the recipe photo of apple fritters, more like big soft spicy cookies,  but I think I didn't leave them under the broiler long enough to crisp up the top. They were delicious though, and I will certainly make them again. They were a nice change for breakfast. 

Well, my teacup is empty, so time to get busy!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Thaw

10°f, -12°C, warming to 41°f. Clearing skies.

Morning sparkles

Finally, a mostly sunny day that actually warmed up to let some thawing begin! Snow left the roof of the log room with a great whoosh, and took all the lovely icicles with it. Ah well. 

The icicles I have watching grow the past couple days, all gone with the whoosh. I took this photo this morning; you can just barely make them out.

I shoveled part of the deck and salted the porch steps, and Larry salted the walks and tried to shovel, but alas this ice us still quite thick under the snow. He did get the tractor out again and worked on the driveway, so perhaps one day we can drive the van back down again.

Across the hill, we could heat the laughter and shouts of our neighbor's grandchildren as he hitched a large piece of metal roofing to his four-wheeler and was pulling them around in the snow. Other children down the road were sledding, I see, according to their Facebook pictures. It was a good day to be outdoors.

The cellarhouse. The top is storage, the bottom is where I store apples and all the food we can.

I was in and out all afternoon, after the air warmed up, but spent the morning canning pasta sauce. We still have several gallon cans of sauce given to us last summer; it is pretty bland so I added seasonings and canned it in quart jars, which will be much more suitable for us.

This evening we watched Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, an older movie that we watched several years ago. I could not remember the story line, but I knew I liked it. Such a touching movie! 

I did step outside during the movie to see the beautiful full moon though. What a sight! 

I guess that's all the non-news for today. I hope you all had a great weekend!

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.