Stupid weather.......

We are in the midst of our first cold snap...... so snapping cold that the temperature went down to a snapping 28 degrees last night. (This is not what we moved to Texas for.....)

Keeping in mind that we had frozen pipes during last winter's hard-freeze, and also the hard-freeze of the winter before that....... now we have a winterizing plan. Heaters get turned on in the barn and in the cottage..... we drip-drip-drip water into the sinks..... electric blankets cover the water pump..... a heat lamp is warming up the filtering system coming into the house.... and no, we don't have an army of little elves to do all of that.

This is the time of the year when I look at this house and wonder if country living is all that it's cracked up to be...... (The answer is always no.)

However..... tonight isn't going to be as cold as last night..... and hopefully it will be getting warmer and back to normal temperatures by the end of the week.

Yesterday, during the cold-cold afternoon, the neighbor's cows got out of their pasture and were walking up our hill.... right in the road, going past our mailbox as if they were coming to visit. That's happened before, and I guess I'm getting used to seeing livestock in the road..... I called up to my husband to tell him to look out the window...... and that's all I was going to do. I wasn't going to track down the neighbor and tell him that his cows were loose. (Again.) But my husband did just that.... drove down there to let him know that his cows were headed away from home...... and the neighbor drove down his hill and then up our hill, and with his two dogs and his truck, he managed to get his cows to go back where they belonged. Funny thing about cows..... when you see them off in the middle of a pasture, they look big, but not that big. But when you see them out on the road, or in your yard, they are truly that big.

I have finally stopped re-arranging ornaments on the big Christmas tree.... and I've quit moving all the little trees around. Every blessed thing looks like it's in the right place, and everything looks as Christmas-y as it's going to get..... unless, of course, I happen to find just one more Santa. And you can never have enough Santas....... just ask my friend V.... she is Queen of the Santa figurines....... I couldn't even begin to count all of the Santas she has in her house.... and I'm sure she has lost count herself. And I didn't help matters much, by giving her a 12-piece Santa band for Christmas last year. They were miniatures, but a 12-piece band is still a lot of Santas to add to a Santa-filled house. V's Santa-cup runneth over...... and mine is getting right close to doing the same.