Brrrrr......

The last of the corn came down on Friday night. The picture is of the combine with it's headlight on, across the street from us. Its nice to have our view back, but the wind whipping across the fields now is an unwelcome reminder of seasons before us. The only thing left is a field of soybeans behind us. And then things will be bare for a few months. Our neighborhood barn party was on Sunday evening. We are supposed to bring two dishes (one hot and one cold) to share. I brought an apple crisp and a potato dish. We sat on hay bales and drank tea made from mint and other herbs that the maker calls "Meadow Tea". We caught up with neighbors that live nearby but that we rarely ever see. We watched little kids squeal with delight as they sped around the farm in a little train made out of 55-gallon drums pulled by a 4-wheeler. There is a huge hay bale maze with tunnels that they scramble in and out of, emerging covered in bits of hay. Almost makes you wish you were 5 again. It must be something to grow up on a farm. I am a little envious of these kids. The people that farm behind us own a huge amount of land....here and out west in Texas and Oklahoma. There are three separate farm steads making up the family farm behind us, two brothers and a cousin. In addition to corn, soybeans, and barley, they raise chickens and cattle, have horses, raise sheep and goats as 4H projects, and all have gardens. I thought as I watched these kids, that they have no idea how unique they are now. How few children grow up like this anymore. I wondered what it would be like to have a child now and know that he/she would grow up with these children as friends and would likely have no fear of creeping around dusty barns or handling all sorts of animals. That would be nice.

Anyway, the sun went down on this evening too soon. And we had to go home. To our very cold house. We had a long ago made appointment with the furnace man scheduled for this Tuesday for routine maintenance. On Friday, the furnace decided it didn't feel like heating the second floor and only felt like heating the first floor in a half-assed manner. We didn't want to pay for an emergency call over the weekend, feeling sure we could tough it out til Tuesday. Luckily we had just stacked a cord of wood and were able to fire up the woodstove, which helped the first floor, but didn't do much on the second floor. It was 54 degrees in my bedroom last night. That is kind of cold. My Chessie girl (who also does not appreciate cold) was under the covers with us this morning. Emmett was blissfully stretched out on the cold wood floor (he could sleep on ice I believe). Thank God for down comforters and thick flannel sheets is all I can say. I feel like I will be cold now until spring. That is a sad feeling.