Busy Weekends

Most weekends feel a little full but every now and then there’s one that just seems to ‘take the cake’. Last weekend was one such weekend for us.

It all started on Friday. We had plans to spend the day shopping since Luis was getting an extra big paycheck, I needed groceries, we were nearly out of dog food(21 sled dogs…), and we wanted to get the supplies for putting up our living room ceiling(yay!). Luis’ sister is also around for a visit right now and we wanted to visit her at the home place, plus our church had a Valentine’s supper in the evening. We got up in good time, the children and I ate granola, I dressed myself and them, combed hair, collected all the extra clothes that we would need, packed snacks for the road, filled water bottles, and packed the food for the Valentine’s supper. Meantime, Luis milked, fed, and watered the goats, fed the dogs, ate his own breakfast and helped load the suburban. Whew, it was 8:30, half and hour after we’d been aiming for but not bad! Now keep in mind that we had an hour and a half to town, then we had to go to several different stores to do all our shopping, then 45 minutes or so to Luis’ folks house. We arrived there between 2:30 and 3:00. Just enough time to comfortably catch up with the sister, me to grab a shower (you have no idea how good a shower feels after months of sponge baths in a 17 gallon galvanized tub), change the children into clean clothes, and finish prepping my food for the party before we needed to leave at 5:30 to drive the hour back down the road to the location of said party. The party was a success and we headed home around 10-10:30 only to arrive home 45 minutes later to discover that our road was rapidly drifting causing us to worry if Luis would be able to get out in the morning to go to work. The children were sleeping so we quickly unloaded all of our purchases except the dog food and I followed him in the suburban as he drove our Subaru back out to where the road is maintained and parked it there. Then back to the house, put the children in bed, tend the wood stove, and off to bed ourselves at well after midnight!

Saturday morning found us crawling wearily out of bed once more at 6. I packed Luis’ lunch , etc while he tended the wood stove and cleaned off the snowy suburban then we bundled up the still pajamaed (is that a word?) children and drove carefully out to where we’d parked the Subaru. Luis got out to clean it off, started it and managed to lock it with the keys inside! So, back to the house and back out again with the spare keys. Luis finally got left for his 24 hour fire department shift and it was probably 7:30 till the children and I got back to the house again. At 8 we had breakfast then I was cleaning up the kitchen and wondering why it just couldn’t stop snowing already (we had 10-12 inches of fresh powder at this point, thank God for a 4 wheel drive suburban and good snow tires!) when I heard a racket from the dog lot. I ran upstairs to get a good view and, sure enough, there was a dog loose, now a loose sled dog pretty much guarantees a dog fight so I threw on my winter gear and rushed out to apprehend the freed canine and managed to rig up a temporary fix that I intended to make more permanent later on. In the meantime I noticed just how deep the snow was and decided since I was already bundled up I may as well do some shoveling. So I settled my children (still in pajamas) on the couch with a video, and shoveled out in front of both doors, created trails to the shed where our animal food is stored and then on out to our goat shed since the next job on the agenda was the milking. By now it was a bit passed 10 which is milking time so I put away my shovel and proceeded with the milking, stopping only to catch and chain another dog who’d somehow gotten loose. Afterwards, with the children still happy I continued shoveling snow outside till the neighbor showed up on her four wheeler with a small plow blade on it and sweetly helped me by pushing open the lane, leaving me to just finish up with the parking area. Lunchtime arrived and then nap time, after naps I bundled the children up so we could go out to care for the dogs but once outside I realized it had snowed another 3-4 inches and showed no sign of stopping. I decided I should do some more shoveling to stay on top of it . After awhile I went inside for a drink and realized it was nearly supper time and I still hadn’t fed the dogs! I rushed to complete that chore, hurried in, made supper, and we finally ate a bit late. Now, all day long I had been bringing snow in to melt in my big stockpot on top of the wood stove and I had managed to fill two five gallon buckets, plus part of another, with snow water. The final stockpot full was to be hot water for baths and I realized rather belatedly that it wasn’t getting hot fast enough so I popped it on my regular stovetop’s quick boil burner to hurry it up. Meanwhile I made bars for Sunday fellowship meal and washed up all the dishes that had gotten neglected all day(and discovered that somehow I had forgotten to strain the goat milk and put it in the fridge, so it was all wasted…). The water for baths finally boiled, and I swept the floor, placed the tub close to the wood stove, and prepared the bath water for the children. It was now 8:30, and I was very tired. I swished them through as quickly as I could and got them off to bed so I could take my own bath. It was passed 10 till I was done, put everything away, and realized that I hadn’t fed and watered the goats for the night. I got dressed again, went and did that, came back in, put a ham in the crockpot to cook overnight for fellowship meal, and went to bed. I honestly have no idea what time it was by then…

Sunday morning I dug myself out of bed at 6 and thanked God that the children stayed sleeping long enough for me to have some quiet time and devotions. They got up between 6:45 and 7, I got breakfast for them, milked the goats, and fed the dogs. Then it was time for everyone to get dressed and combed for church, and I needed to pack clothes since we had a supper invite. I cleaned off the suburban, loaded up the food and clothes, chucked the wood stove full and shut it down, loaded up my children, and left at 8:45 to meet Luis out nearer the end of our gravel road, which we had agreed to do to save time. He works 40 or so minutes south and gets off work at 8:15. Plus, we have 50 minutes north to church and it was Luis’ Sunday to preach so we for sure didn’t want to be late. After church, we headed another hour north to spend the afternoon with Luis’ family, went to and enjoyed a fun evening with our other extended relatives. Left around 9:30 to head home, which got us home around 11:00. I’m am so thankful for an amazing wood stove that holds fire for that many hours!! Luis has off work on Monday and we slept in!(well, at least until the children woke up, which was around 7 AM…)

If you made it all the way through that epistle, congratulations! Thankfully our life isn’t always that hectic!:)