I realize I should not be so happy, but I am, and I apologize. It is clear and cold and we are able to get outside to work in the fresh air and I am sorry, but my life is fairly perfect at the moment. You have to understand we spent the majority of our forties and early fifties in hospital rooms and doctor offices. Knock on wood, pandemic and all, we are healthy and happy. I know the world is suffering but for fifteen years we went through a lot of shit and now we are safe and together. Selfish sure….but I just need to focus on our world.

We got up at 5:30 this morning and it was 12 degrees in the house. Someone insists on sleeping with the window open in our bedroom and she is at fault. “She” also sees no reason to heat the living room while we are sleeping so she, as my mother would say “reaps what she sows. It is supposed to be unusually cold this week so it is unlikely to be any different tomorrow morning.

At 5:30 am, I put on an extra fleece while I wait for the coffee to brew and stoke the fire. As we wait for the stove to do it’s thing, we close the bedroom doors and snuggle under blankets with the dogs for an hour or two. At eighteen degrees I can leave my blankie to think about breakfast. These days breakfast is always hot porridge as it warms me inside to out. E makes it for us cause his porridge is better than I can make.

The greenhouse has begun. E has two walls finished and up and one more to be raised tomorrow. We called a friend down the lane to help raise the walls cause I am neither strong nor tall.

It is going to be a fairly tall greenhouse as they go. It will be 12 X 7. Eight foot walls and the peak inside at 11 feet. I cannot tell you how excited I am to sort out the interior once it is built.

While E constructs, I continue to dig around the property for debris to burn. There is a never ending supply of wood on the property, which we have saved for projects, which now needs to be discarded. Fortunately, I love to burn shit up! So while E

builds, I burn.