Weathering The Storm

I'm just going to skip over January. I mean, it was pretty uneventful, right? No cataclysmic or historic events *cough*insurrection*cough*inauguration*cough* or anything, right? 

Okay, I'll just mention three things about January.

First: Lady Gaga has become a major presence in our household since the inauguration. We now have regular dance parties in the kitchen, on the porch, in the driveway, in the car... really anywhere... to Lady Gaga. We especially like the song 911, though we are mystified by the lyrics, "pop a 911 then pop another one." These are the actual words, not a case of misheard lyrics. I have no idea what she's talking about. Is 911 a drug euphemism? Who knows. I'm afraid to Google it after searching for the meaning of another phrase from a different song. I looked up "disco stick," which it turns out is exactly as dirty as it sounds. I thought (hoped) maybe it had a different meaning (pogo stick?), but no, turns out my children and I have been singing along with a song that's talking about penises. So that's embarrassing. 

Second: Amanda Gorman is amazing. 

Third: We switched from remote learning to homeschooling. We are officially on our own! It hadn't been going very well for the first semester, and then after winter break they switched programs they were using, and it got markedly worse. I ordered some homeschooling books for the kids and now we don't have to navigate maddening online learning platforms. Jeremy is still in charge of this endeavor, and it's going better than the remote learning was, but we are still excited about the possibility of in-person learning in the fall. Come on, vaccines!

Now, let's jump to February. That's where it gets really fun, because we had a major winter storm come through, the likes of which I have never seen in Arkansas. Texas got all the press because of all the power outages, the utilities companies price gouging, and Ted Cruz heading to Mexico for a totally coincidental vacation. But here in Arkansas we had about 8 days of very cold temperatures and multiple days of snowfall. By very cold I mean, it was eight-below-zero one morning. With two small electric heaters and a wood stove, it was 37 degrees in the kitchen for most of that day. The upstairs is always warmest, so it may have been around 50 up there. The kids dressed warmly, I dressed in my insulated Carhartt overalls and Sorel boots from my Vermont days, and Jeremy was in SO many layers. When it did warm up to be in the 20's later in the week, it felt positively balmy! 

On the farm, Jeremy had to haul water to the animals, and we lost one kid goat to the cold, but other than that, everything fared pretty well. Our sow Lucy is getting up there in years (we guess she's around 10 years old) and I would have been worried about her, but she got cozy with two pigs Granddaddy is raising, and between body heat, a hog hut, and some straw, she was fine. 

Breaking ice to get water for the goats. William and 
Taiya fought over who got to use the hatchet.  

We had lots of fun playing in the snow. For the first half of the cold week it was powdery snow, but toward the end of the week it warmed up and made good snowman snow. I had so many flashbacks to my childhood winters, helping the kids deal with all the layers of clothes, sympathizing when they got snow in the gap between glove and sleeve (it's the worst!), teaching them the ways of snowperson-making. Nagging them to pick up all their layers and not leave them on the kitchen floor after they come in. Hot chocolate. It was annoying not to have running water, and we were all grateful for that first shower when we got it going again. But in spite of that inconvenience, it was a magical week. I had forgotten how beautiful the world sounds when everything is buried in snow. Soft. It turns the world soft. 

Back out in the sun - Taiya getting kisses from Skye.

The funny thing about the storm was, if it had happened prior to the pandemic, it would have meant TOTAL upheaval to our routine. No school, no work, everyone stuck at home for a week! Gasp! As it was, the only thing that was dramatically different was we had no running water, we had to wear more clothes than usual, and we had to keep the fire roaring around the clock. 

Now we're back into more normal weather for this time of year - it has been sunny with highs in the 60s this week, and it's been wonderful. The kids play outside for long stretches of time. We all are sun worshippers now that we have had a startling reminder of what winter can really be like.