As the winter days slide past us here on the farm, our days have settled into a routine. We have been taking advantage of the colder weather by working hard on school and doing extra when we can. It is a lot easier to work on school in the house, and everyone has enjoyed being able to spread out. In the afternoon, we spend time outside after reading. Everyone gathers in the living room while mom reads. It’s her favorite time of the day! If there is snow on the ground, we go sledding. However, we have not had a large amount of snow this year, so most days we simply play a game or go on a walk.
Mom and Dad are now moved into a bedroom. After carefully removing the old wood flooring in the kitchen and dinning room, Dad installed it in the room that will one day be Annika and Asher’s. Mom refinished it, and it now looks almost brand new. Once the floor is laid in their room, they will move into it, and the spare bedroom will pass on to Annika and Asher. On a Saturday, Dad hung both the door to their bedroom and the door to the bathroom. We were extremely glad to exchange the curtain in the bathroom doorway for a door with a lock.
Soon after these house improvements, we were hit by an ice storm. The day before it struck, everyone was talking about the coming storm, and Dad made sure to test the generator while we filled up water and prepared inside. On Sunday, a mixture of freezing rain and ice pellets rained down on us. We watched as the ground turned into a solid sheet of ice and the tree branches glazed over with a coat of ice. After the ice had stopped falling from the sky, Kailey, Caleb, Aiden, and I decided to venture outside and take a look at everything. We slipped our way outside and gazed at all the ice. It was everywhere. A tree that our homemade wooden swing was fastened to was bowed so low that the swing had frozen into the ground. We swung our hands at branches, and they shivered in their icy coats. After several moments of slipping and falling our way around, we decided to play a game of hockey. After a quick search, we managed to come up with long, ice-covered sticks, one for each of us, and a tuna can that would work as a puck. We decided on goals, and then we began a wild, slippery game of hockey. We had a minimum amount of rules; we didn’t really know how to play. Often, we would almost make it to the goal, and then we would slip, giving our opponent a perfect chance to swing the puck back towards his goal. Finally, feeling breathless and chilled, we piled back inside, glad to have solid ground under our feet again.
The ice continued to stick around for many more days, and we wondered if we would lose power. Secretly, I was rather hoping we would (just for a little while), until we came down with the stomach flu. It started with Asher on Sunday night. No one was very concerned, it has been so many years since all of us had the flu. However, on Monday afternoon, Annika got sick, right on Kailey. Then, everybody’s stomachs really felt funny, we weren’t sure if they really hurt, or if we just imagined it. Next it was Caleb, and then Aiden. In the evening, things got really bad. Mom fell to the flu. Annika, Caleb, and Aiden all had their heads in buckets. All of us spent the night in the living room, Caleb on one couch, Aiden and Annika sharing the other couch. I was in one chair, and Kailey was on the air mattress. Everybody was sick during the night; everyone except Dad. He dozed in a chair in the living room and was up at least once every hour with someone. It was a terrible, long night. Time passed slowly. However, morning finally came, and everyone began to feel much better. Mom had made a homemade gator-aide before she got sick. We basically lived on this and toast for a couple of days afterwards. The washing machine was kept running constantly during those days, and we were extremely thankful that the power was still on. If we had lost power, we would almost have been in despair.
On January 20, Dad moved the animals off of the pasture and into a large paddock. To keep the pastures from turning into a mud pit, Dad brought the animals to where they could do less harm. Every afternoon when he gets home from work, he brings Annika and Asher outside to help him with chores. Together they hitch up the trailer to the four-wheeler and drive to the barn. There, they load up hay and take on a couple more passengers, Spice (our dog) and sometimes the boys. Dad will call,”Let’s go on a ride Spice,” and she will immediately jump up onto the hay bales piled on the trailer, eager to get going. As the four-wheeler pulls into the paddock, the animals go crazy with excitement. The goats leap onto the trailer (which is rather annoying), and the cows start to buck around. Ace, our twenty-six year old horse, seems to think that he can be a spry, young stallion at hay time. Dad spreads the hay out in the bare areas of the paddock to improve this soil. For the first few times, Annika and Asher were rather frightened by the animals show, even though they were safe from their perch on the four-wheeler. However, they have been relaxing more and more each time. They eventually decided to sit on the trailer with the boys, and Annika especially enjoyed petting the cows.
As we enjoy our winter season, it is evident that some people can hardly wait for spring. Everyone has been eyeing the incoming seed catalogs with longing. However, as we wait for spring, we also appreciate the change of seasons that winter brings.
