First dusting of snow

Well it's late afternoon/early evening on Wednesday and I'm just sitting down in the living room with the fire going, the curtains closed and the puppies fighting around my feet. A is in bed sleeping as she's just been to the dentist where what was supposed to be a two minute extraction took 50 minutes of agony which is not cool. I'm just going to get this done as quickly as possible now.

Skies

This week we'll start with the pictures of the sky, and nature, and other stuff like that; it's nice to look through those pictures for me and the way the weather is going it's going to be the central theme for the next few updates I reckon.

Moon still out early Sunday morning

Got so warm during the day the permafrost finally melted

Another stunning sunrise for the collection

Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were all very much similar to the previous few weeks. Barely a cloud in the sky, a glorious sunny start to the day, though with a heavy frost the night before, and then getting super warm and everything melting if the sun could reach it until the sun went down and then the temperature plummeted again. Of course this fabulous weather cannot continue for ever and the forecast was very much giving us the impression that sooner rather than later we should prepare for the snow.

One very bright (and multi-coloured) celestial body

Sunday night was so bright and clear the stars were amazing. I was walking back from putting the chickens away for the night when I saw what I thought was an aeroplane in the sky. It was much brighter than the stars around it and was flickering with different colours. I called A to check it out and she was also confused by it. The photograph I took isn't great of course, and I wished again that I had a telescope set up, but you can see how much brighter it was than everything else. This shot was a 30 second exposure, hence the movement of the stars.

Night time reveals smoke over the local town

I love the way the mist covers the hills, nearly

I've commented before on how smokey the valley gets at night, as everyone lights their petchkas to keep warm. When I was outside taking the photograph of the stars I quickly snapped a long exposure shot across the valley as well as the view was stunning. I didn't know how it would come out so I'm pretty pleased with this. The fog in the valley has been persisting most of the day recently, and on Saturday it hung around for ages here as well as I said in the last update. It's good to be above it most of the time but it does make for a fantastic picture.

Two levels of bird

This was a long way away

We've been out to the other local town twice this week, both times because of A's teeth. The first time, Monday, while we were at the garage waiting to chat to Lubo about winter tires for Thomas we watched as a swan and a stork flew over and landed by the river just near by. It shows just how warm its been that these animals have been able to keep eating right up until after Christmas. Sadly I don't think they'll survive much longer. Today we went back and on the way drove past a hawk sat on a fence. Sadly it flew to the other end of the field when we stopped to get a picture but it's still quite clear  here. Stunning creature.

The sun came out while it was snowing

Just the slightest dusting of snow

Last but not least comes the photographs from this morning. We went to bed last night aware the forecast was for snow and in the night, when the puppies demanded to be let out to the toilet, there were a few flakes drifting down but that was about as much as we got. There was a tiny dusting on the balcony and in the shaded parts of the land, and when A was out shopping it starting snowing again and got quite heavy for a few minutes, but none of it survived the day eve though the temperature hovered around freezing all day. It's now howling with wind and bitterly cold outside, but not snowing again. Sunday is the day it is forecast to really come down so we shall see.

Friends

I'm including the animals in this section as they are very much a friendly influence in our lives. The puppies are being so concerned about A as she suffers from her tooth extraction it's hard to think that they don't know something is wrong.

SamdS enjoying the day out

Rambo in the water. Again.

Louise pretending to be a parrot

The villagers congregate to go hunting

On Sunday we had the pleasure of a visit from SandS to come on a walk with us from our village up the mountain to the lake at the top which is our usual target. Rambo was super excited of course, two walks in two days, but Louise was far from impressed and cried so much she ended up being carried most of the way there and back. Thelma was happy and ran ahead the whole time. It was a glorious day, really warm, and we had a lovely time. A few cars went past while we were there and one of them stopped and out jumped the kmet to say hi. They were off hunting and parked up just down the road to wait as more people arrived. We headed back before they headed off into the woods. It was just a lovely time and hopefully we'll do it again, maybe even going a slightly different route next time.

Puppies cuddled up next to the fire

Thelma very happy the fire is lit this morning

Everything is interesting to these two

These puppies of ours are pretty much spoiled rotten. They hate the cold and are always as close to the fire as they can get, and in the morning their exaggerated shivering before the fire is lit in Room 13 is pathetic to watch. We're very excited to see how they react to really deep snow, if we do ever get any, as they're so short they will almost disappear. The cold weather, so long as the sun is out, hasn't prevented them having a ball on the top bank every day and the speed with which they run up there to play is a joy to behold.

Rambo with his Christmas present

Rambo has been enjoying the attention of us being outside a lot still. He also absolutely loves his kong and won't leave it alone, running everywhere with it in his mouth. He has been sleeping on his new bed (which makes A very proud indeed) which is good as the temperature drops and the ground is so cold.

Windswept Sassy

Lastly here is a picture of Sassy taken this morning as the wind howled across the balcony. We've given her lots of hay in both her hiding places and hopefully she'll stay nice and warm in there should the temperature drop far. She doesn't seem bothered in the slightest at the moment, though; all that fir is keeping her toasty and warm it seems.

Getting stuff done

As per usual there has been progress around the place this week already.

Me inside Sassy's run after cleaning it out

Sunday morning saw us hard at work cleaning around before SandS arrived. The rugs were beaten and hung over the edge of the balcony where they got nice and warm in the sun, and then I did my sweeping task along the corridors to the front door while A hoovered and cleaned Room 13 and the living room. The humanure was ready for emptying as well, which is a regular Sunday morning task, and so I went inside Sassy's run to sweep it out and get her toilet tray. There's plenty of room for us in there which makes it so much easier to do this cleaning. I reckon this could go onto the list of Sunday Morning Cleaning Chores.

Fixed up the garden gate

Bringing the wheelbarrows around

Manure in the raised beds

Raking up leaves on the patio

Tripod in place for my year of photographs

Monday was an unexpected holiday for me as it was a bank holiday in the UK and we made the most of this day to get a load of things done on the list. First of all I went out to look at the broken gate into the garden. I wasn't planning on actually doing the fix right there and then but it was easier than I thought so I just got on with it. After I had finished this A came to join me to help get manure for the raised beds. We did two loads each so now we're just needing to get some soil and mix it together. After this I was near enough done but A grabbed the leaf rake and started sweeping up the remaining leaves off the patio so I got the wheelbarrow and shifted them down to the compost heap. I was so thirsty by this time I had a huge drink of water straight from the standpipe in the garden; it was warm! Later on I got the tripod and, with help from A again, wired it in place for the daily photograph to be started on January 1st. I have improvised some weather proofing so it doesn't rust away.

The new generator, unboxed as of yet

Now to get it all hooked up

All done and it works perfectly

A bending her back to the task of digging out vegetable beds

The new bed

Tuesday was back to work for me but this was disrupted when my awaited delivery of the generator occurred. I wanted to get it fitted as early as I could so I got pretty much straight on with it. The fitting was far easier than I expected, just split the main supply (already done by Bekir when he did his hack wiring for the roof so I just had to move that cable down) and then connect both ends into the box and finally wire up a plug into the generator (scarily enough this is just a normal european plug and not any kind of locking 240v like I have on my other generator). It took a while as I struggled with the plug, what with attaching it to some pretty heavy duty armoured cable, but I got there in the end. The Special One was over as I was turning it on for the first time and was treated to a high five when turning the mains supply off prompted the generator to start up and provide power to the house. Excellent. A was in the garden all this time digging out another vegetable bed, and widening some of the existing ones, and she got that completed too. I went to collect post from town again and after last time when the Kmet had it with him I tracked him down only to be told it was still at the Post Office. Typical.

Thomas waiting for his new shoes

She's just as cold as she looks

Finally today has been a day of getting ready for the winter weather promised (or is that threatened) to begin in the next couple of days. This morning A took Thomas to town and returned with food for all of us (including the animals) and beer to help us survive several weeks. She then had her appointment at the dentist this afternoon so I arranged for the garage to change all the tyres on Thomas onto winter ones. It took ages to get this done, and it was pretty cold so A huddled by their petchka, but pretty soon we were off to the dentist where, as I've said in the intro, A suffered quite badly. As I sit typing this she has managed to have something to eat and is seeming much happier which is a relief.

Foods

It wouldn't be right to do an update without some pictures of food. We went with SandS to our favourite restaurant last Sunday though I don't have any pictures it was as good as always; I had a light snack of an omelette and chips. But wait, there's more...

Making a butty with left over stuffing

Our Christmas Dinner has continued to feed us through this week, even up until today. I had some lovely stuffing butties the other day which were great and then yesterday A made an outstanding curry with the remains of the goat. There was so much that I was able to eat this again this evening for my dinner. We're thinking of getting some more legs like that from Bekir and doing that curry again.

Look at the colour of those eggs!

A made me scrambled eggs yesterday morning with our own eggs as we've been getting between two and three chicken eggs every day recently, and the ducks are also coming into it with a couple in the last few days. They'll probably slow down again if we're getting snow but for now it's great to be overrun with such colourful and flavoursome eggs from our own flock. Brilliant.

So there you are, it's been a slow update to type as I've not felt the inspiration flowing really this evening but I've got through it and I hope you enjoyed reading it.