Trail Seeker

The neighbor's cousin was visiting (he lives in eastern Oregon) across the street and my oldest likes him, so when she was talking to him yesterday, my wife said, why don't you invite him to go with us to get a Christmas tree tomorrow. My Daughter jumped on the idea then after he agreed she realized what she had done and her shyness set in. Jacob is really a nice young man and polite and was fun to have him tag along.

This year I suggest we head to the mountains and cut tree and we couldn't have picked a much nicer day. Although freezing cold, the sun was out. When we got to an area we thought promising in finding a tree we went out looking. My wife and I did, I guess, because the three kids thought the snow was funner and got into a snowball fight. My wife found one she was satisfied with and I cut it down. Just so my girls were a little more involved, I had them haul the tree back to the truck

When we got back to town we stopped for pizza. We figured there would be a little time from ordering to serving when we saw some games by the door. The girls gave Jacob a run for his money playing checkers this afternoon.

The temperatures barely got above freezing and I have to say, sheep really must be the dumb creatures like i have been told. I was busting the ice in the stock tank and the ram comes up and starts licking the ice on the other side where is wasn't busted rather than move over to the busted area. This afternoon the ewe decided it like chewing on chunks of ice created when I busted the ice up, rather than drink the water. At least the ram seemed a bit smarter today.

The wild birds tend to clean out the feeders in this kind of weather rather quickly, it is a daily ritual to refill them. The green house made it up to 84F today from just the sun we had. I do have to run a little heat in it at night to keep it from freezing, I have some sensitive plants over wintering in there.