It is official. E has come to the dark side. He is now getting up at 4:30/5 am with me. He has had his coffee, read the sports scores,and eaten his breakfast and it’s only 6 am… Two more hours until it is daylight when he will take the dog for a walk.. I have a few ideas for what he could do with all of that free time?

We have had crazy winds this week. It hit gusts of 67 kmh at one point the other night. The same speeds are expected for tonight. The snow started at 2 am this morning and it is still coming down.. Very pretty on the trees.

E was up at 2 am to stoke the fire and wash his hands. The water in the house was running fine then but when we got up at 5 am the pipes were frozen. We have lots of water in jugs for this situation. They are currently in front of the fire to thaw, as is the hose and the humming bird feeder.

We have this boiler tank (read: bomb) in the living room. If it over heats, which it does when we are keeping the fire really hot, it will normally overflow into a pipe which goes to our rainwater collection system. Cold water flows into the tank to take its place. The cold water is frozen… so the tank can’t refill and will explode ..(says me, E scoffs)

The garden hose is in the house to thaw so that we can empty the boiler tank into our rain water catchment system (so it isn’t wasted) and we can turn the tank off and keep it empty til the temperatures warm up and the pipes thaw.

Living a bomb free life is one of the primary goals we had when we moved here.

We turned on the back deck light to watch the pretty snow fall in the dark of winter and we immediately had a group of birds hanging around the light at the door for warmth. I will keep that light on and the back porch one also for the little guys.. I am all about helping them stay warm outside but am tired of them feeling they can come inside whenever they want.

Although E has given up staying in bed til the respectable hour of 7AM, Piper has not. He refuses to get up until

it is daylight