Quiet Day

[helwen]

Foot of snow, now raining. Yesterday I canceled my chiro appt. for today, and thank goodness for that. And of course, we didn't go to kungfu today either. We did go into town in the early evening, as the plow had been by. Word from one perso there was the roads in Conway, down the hill from us, had been plowed badly and rather unevenly. Although she may have been through there before they'd finished plowing, hard to say.

Also somewhat windy earlier in the day, but at least not whistling by the house. L had a work day, plus doing things that needing doing outdoors. I did mostly cleaning here and there, so that in case we lost power, at least we'd have plenty of dishes and clothing :D

Also put up a few more containers of water in the pantry. I'd saved some 1/2 gallon juice containers and just hadn't gotten around to finishing the job. Sharon Astyk says to add a drop of bleach per quart of water -- probably because it's hard to sterilize the containers or maybe the water, depending on what your local water is like.

Helped the folks sort out their artificial tree a bit -- the lights were a little crazy-looking. Tomorrow, ornaments go on. Fitzw will be sorting out the star that goes on the north side of the cupola on the barn tomorrow. I might even do a little decorating, at least of the stairway. The folks like a bit of decoration, especially this time of year.

Comments

[freya46.livejournal.com]

Will you take a picture of the decorations when they're done? I may hate the constant music, but the decorations are pretty. Usually. Of course, there's always the idiot at the corner who just goes nuts.

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

We can certainly do this.

The star is usually the only outdoor decoration that the farm has these days; we used to put lights on two of the evergreens on one side of the house, but we haven't done that for a while.

[oakmouse]

The rule of thumb my dad taught me about stored water is simple: if it's not distilled, it will grow bacteria, therefore if you store your own add bleach or iodine in small amounts to minimize the risk.

We're probably going to buy distilled water to stash. Our local water has an odd smell and taste, and the occasional minute bit of coal (no surprise; this is coal country, after all, and JM ran into an inch-thick coal seam in the back yard while digging the garden bed), so we run it through the Brita before drinking. Not sure how safe it would be to store.

[fitzw.livejournal.com]

Was that coal seam horizontal? It may be a clinker layer (people up our way used to use clinker from the coal stoves as filler under the lawns).

[helwen.livejournal.com]

What he said :)

[oakmouse]

IIRC it was angled, and he only cut a little way into one edge of it because most of it sloped up and under the alleyway. Don't think it was clinker; it was black and fissured into distinct seams and shiny-ish, not grey and gnarled and lumpy. Still, might have been coal waste or something. I could see the point to using it; it cuts down on certain types of pests.

On the other hand, we can see coal seams in every cut rock face in the entire area. *g*

[freya46.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :-)