21 November, 2010 Cold and more snow...

The snow keeps coming down although the total accumulations aren't much.  We've had a cold front move in so the last couple of days the temperature has been about 20 degrees (f) for the high and it's been down to around 6 degrees in the mornings.  It's supposed to keep getting colder the first part of the week and warm up into the 30's by the weekend.  (That's as of last night's forecast.)

Every morning (and sometimes during the day if it's snowing heavily) we go out and brush the snow off the solar panels.  We use a soft bristle broom with a handle extension.

The garden blanketed in snow.

The unused hammock...

The marsh in winter.

You know how some people always have it together and get things done ahead of time?  They aren't talking about me.  First snow of the year?  It's time to put the snow tires on.

This is my Harbor Frieght Tools tire mount/dismount tool I bought a coulple of years ago.  Here I'm breaking the bead loose.

You roll the tire off the rim one side at a time then reverse the procedure to put the new tire on.  It's usually pretty simple and the tool works good for tires up to fifteen inch.

I seated the bead and inflated the tire in the wheel barrow to keep it out of the snow.  Next I'll put it on the car and go to the next one.  I was going to replace the front drive axle U-joints but when I got the front tires off I found out the ball joints are beginning to get loose too.  Since I have to disassemble the front end almost to the same point to put ball joints in as to replace the front U-joints I decided to to do them both later.  I think I can use our son's heated shop and do it there.  He has my ball joint press at his house too.

We took the time indoors to do a few projects.  Here I'm repairing some wool pants I use when tromping around in the snow.

We bought a couple of used wool coats at the thrift store last time we were in Kalispell. I didn't like either one by themselves so I bought them both and am making one coat out of the two.  When I'm finished I'll have a decent wool coat for less than $15.00.

Susan is making soem things to sell at the Christmas Bazaar in Eureka.  Our son had his generator running so she took advantage of the electricity to do some sewing.

The two pictures above are some of the things she's making to sell.  She has some other, nonChristmas,

 material she's going to be using also. 

The buffalo still think they should be fed as do the chickens, cat, dog and goat.

Susan is emptying the last rain collection (half) barrel.  It will be dumped in the kettle and boiled then added to the dish/wash water.

When we have snow we melt it on the wood stove for water.  

After the snow water is brought to a boil we pour it from the kettle to the storage barrel.

We use a coffee filter to filter out the debris.  No matter how clean the snow looks there'll still be bits of lichen and moss from the trees and often a little soot from the chimney.  The funnel is for canning and has an extension at the bottom.  We sandwich a coffee filter between the tow halves.  If you put it off center you can get several uses out of one filter.  Simply rotate the filter to a clean spot for each use.

And of course, cold weather and snow is also gives you a good excuse to relax and do some reading.