Crunchy snow!

I went out today into snow that crunched under my feet! Admittedly it was only the fact that the previous fall had melted, slightly, in the mist that fell yesterday, but it was enough to finally make me FEEL the beginning of the Yuletide season. 'Bout time, eh? LOL

We have outdoor trees up, but not lit yet and the indoor tree finally in place, but not decorated yet either. On account of Coffee (aka The Pup That Ate Corinth) I had to look to something much smaller than usual and placed on a table. I cut the tree at a friend's place where I tipped for wreaths a while back. These "free range" trees, not being kept in captivity and force fed, are much leaner and lankier than the typical "Christmas tree" and I often have issues with their trunks and my stand... and this year presented a unique challenge.

The very scrawny trunk on the tree (the top part of a taller one) was only a little over an inch in diameter, way too small for even the replacement bolts that I refitted to the stand to securely hold. In the end I cut a piece of pvc pipe, which the bolts did hold, and K whittled the trunk diameter to fit inside the pipe. The tree can still drink and it is held securely enough. Hopefully it will be decorated tomorrow.

Yesterday, "town day" ended up taking much longer than expected but in this case it was a good thing. We had forgotten to calendar a rescheduled doc appt. for K until the reminder phone call Monday afternoon. So that got added to the list, and while we were in that building we decided to stop by another office to see about the reschedule of a different appointment that we had canceled during the previous week's storm. The person he had been supposed to see just happened to be at their front desk, reporting a "no-snow" for that exact moment, so she pulled K into the slot. A good thing... all appts are back on track ... but set the day's errands later and the outside home work that I was going to do when we got back (other than bringing in the tree) sifted to today.

And is done... in advance of the coming "deep freeze" and despite a brisk, rather cool breeze. The main chores included:

...an attempt to repair a rip in the foundation's plastic "windbreaker" with duct tape (which doesn't like to stick in frigid temps, but was persuaded -- I think -- by judicious applications of heat from the heat gun. Helped me to work sans gloves as well... tearing duct tape with fuzzy gloves is not optimal. ;)

...topping off the coolant in the Subaru

...taking out trash and unusable cardboard

...bring in cardboard for packaging the last hex shipment of 2009, tomorrow

...crawling under the trailer to plug in the pipes heat tape.

Now I have a couple of hours until I have to leave for work, so I'll fuss a little more on that hex, hopefully get it sprayed with overcoat and wash dishes. Hopefully I'll feel like working on monkeys when I get home tonight!