Weekly Update: 1.13.24

As I draft this week's update, it's hard not to sound repetitive. It's very cold. We were sick again. We didn't get anything done on the bunkhouse. We are doing our best to trust God about it all. The end. How many recent updates could be summed up this way? And yet, here we are again, in what feels like some sort of weird loop that we can't get out of.

We are sick with what is, we think, our third or fourth consecutive germ. As with the other bugs we have had, some family members have been really sick with sore throats, high fevers, and body aches that land them in bed. Others have had more mild symptoms. I feel like I have a cold, but I haven't had a fever. We don't know if my dad brought this home from the clinic again (he had cold symptoms last weekend) or if our niece brought it home from a Springfield outing (she was the first to have a high fever). Or maybe we have two things - the flu, and a more mild cold. I feel like I'm getting tired of even trying to figure it out.

All I know for sure is that we haven't been sick this often since my sisters and I worked in childcare years ago. I remember people telling us it would get better, but it really never did. After several years, we slowly found our way to other jobs -- in part because we were tired of always being sick.

At least we aren't alone. We know of other people having the same experience. It seems like a really bad year for germs.

As with other weeks we have been sick, those of us well enough to function are lucky to get all the camp chores done every day. With the cold weather, there is a long morning and evening process of hooking-up and then draining out hoses, the gas water heater, and the washing machine. Laundry has been difficult, though we have managed to get the necessities done and dry. Cooking is always time consuming out here, involving trips to the office refrigerator and the storm shelter -- where we keep most of our food (it doesn't freeze there, and it is cool enough for produce). And then there is always wood that needs cutting.

Despite so many being sick, we did what we could to prepare for the coming near-record-low temperatures (tonight it is supposed to dip down to -5 degrees). One Sunday afternoon before everyone was sick, Grace, Mom, and Dad cleared a part of the field for a sled run for the kids (though we have minimal snow forecast now). Levi, Erin, and Bonnie-Jean spent most of Wednesday getting us stocked up on firewood. We know we won't have hot running water or a working washing machine for about a week, so we did what we could to clean as much as possible and do all of our laundry. Since everyone is sick and the weather is so bad, we ordered most of our groceries online and picked up what we could locally.

Even with all our efforts, the wind was so bad on Friday, we struggled to keep the tent warm. After a loud night of thunder storms (in January, of all things), the temps started dropping Friday morning. We were under a wind advisory all day, and 28 mile gusts felt more like sustained winds as it pelted the tent all day. When it dipped down to the low-forties inside, we scrambled to seal the windows better. As I said last week, the windows in our tent only close with Velcro along the tops. When it is windy, air leaks through and sometimes blows the windows open. On Friday, we added more plastic and over the west facing window, some plywood, to hopefully minimize our heat loss. Our efforts paid off, though it still wasn't as warm as we would like. We survived until the wind improved, but we will be researching how to make windy days more bearable.

Despite not working on our bunkhouse, free moments are rare. We filled what downtime we had with board games, movies, and reading. I have started working my way through Amy Fewell's "The Homesteader's Natural Chicken Keeping Handbook" again. I started last winter when Erin bought it for the family, but life got too busy. Grace picked up crochet again and finished a couple wash clothes. Bonnie-Jean has stayed busy taking care of Tilde and Dagger. Dagger got an infected thorn in his foot, and Jeremiah had to take him to the vet this morning.

The whole experience of winter camping feels like a real adventure -- testing us more than any of us expected it would. We are taking life one day at time, letting go of our expectations and just focusing on doing our best. The bunkhouse will get done in God's timing. We don't have to worry about it. We are all so thankful for our cozy tent and down duvets. We have praised God over and over for our large woodstove. It's amazing how He prepares us for things we don't expect.