Weekly Update: 1.6.24
Christmas is officially over. Almost all of our holiday decor is packed back into totes, waiting to go to our storage unit. Most of the candy is gone, eaten until we tired of it. Our Christmas germ seems finally on the mend, after weeks of symptoms. The 12th night of Christmas found us all tired from our festivity as we curled up to watch "The Princess Bride". We woke today to a new Church season -- Epiphany -- and what feels like a new life season, as we turn our attention back to the regular business of living.
We started the week with our family New Year's celebration. It began with a New Year's Eve breakfast of our mom's Belgian waffles. The rest of our meals were made up of snacks and finger foods. Since our projector only works when it is dark outside, Levi set up his new TV -- a gift from his wife for their bedroom in the bunkhouse -- so that we could complete a two-day "Mission Impossible" movie marathon. My nieces and I worked on the Christmas jigsaw puzzles I received for my birthday, plowing through all three of them. Watching so much TV felt like a real treat, and the foods were all easy and delicious. We munched on salami and crackers, Wisconsin cheese curds (from North Country Cheese), salsa and chips, and we filled the slow cookers with lil' smokies, meatballs, spinach artichoke dip, and chili cheese dip. French onion dip and green olive dip with veggies filled out our spread. We washed everything down with glasses of banana slush, a New Year's tradition we have had since I was a kid. It was a nice reprieve from the demands of living, even though both days we still had hours of camp chores to keep us from feeling too extravagant.
It has felt like a busy week, despite not working on the bunkhouse. Most of the family has still been off work, so the tent has been full with everyone under foot. Most of my days have been filled with cleaning, holiday cooking, and computer work -- managing this blog, organizing pictures, doing bookwork. The cold weather has meant we have kept our dogs inside most days. The Jack Russells seem to enjoy being tent dogs, and the German Shepherds have handled it well -- though we can tell they miss being as active as they used to be. Jeremiah and Bonnie-Jean are always thrilled when it gets warm enough to take Dagger and Tilde out for some afternoon exercise. Grace and Jeremiah have also enjoyed practicing their archery skills when the weather allows.
If we have learned anything during our break from the bunkhouse, it is that winter is going to be different. I have felt almost as busy as when we were building, as the freezing nights make life that much more challenging. We have running water for just a few hours a day. Things seem to thaw out around noon, and we feel blessed when we are able to get everyone showered, our dishes washed, and our essential laundry done before it freezes again. Watching the weather apps to decide when to turn off our hoses doesn't work. We had things freeze surprisingly early one night this week (despite the weather app saying it was yet to freeze outside), damaging several fixtures and breaking our inline water heater. Thankfully, we had a back-up water heater for just such situations. Since that experience, we have made sure to unhook our hoses and drain our water heater early in the evening. Looking at the forecast, we realize there will soon be days when it will be too cold to use our hoses and water heater at all. We will have to make do with the cold water from the little sink in our office and water from the well spigot.
Drying laundry on the line works on sunny days, but depending on the wind, it can take up to 24 hours to finish. We have taken to hanging what laundry we can inside the tent -- putting large items on a clothesline full of hangers while turning small items on a rack beside the wood stove. We also have an overflow clothesline up in our house, so we can hang things inside when it is raining.
We have been especially thankful for modern conveniences like paper plates, paper bowls, and slow cooker liners. These have kept our dish count to a minimum, even while we have been eating quite well. The longer we are out here, the more we are flexing our slow cooker skills. For example, slow cooker butter chicken has become a staple (it is especially delicious served with Bonnie-Jean's naan). We enjoyed chicken and dumplings this week, and we realized we could make our beloved date bars in the slow cooker (look for our recipe coming soon).
Despite the challenges, we have again and again relished the joys of a wood stove and down comforters. On most days, we stay quite warm in our tent -- though high winds tend to make us a tad chilly. The only complaint I have about our tent regards the windows. They seal on the sides with zippers but on the top with Velcro. When the wind is high enough, it blows the Velcro tops open, blasting us with frigid air. So far, we have been able to manage the issue by hanging plastic up in front of the worst window (the one facing west), and just re-closing the others whenever it happens. As winter advances, we may take more permanent measures to keep the windows closed.
Even with all the inconveniences, we are enjoying the new winter season. We loved watching the snow fall yesterday as we nibbled on Racine Danish Kringles -- a surprise from my folks for the 12th Day of Christmas. We sampled Kringle (a Danish pastry) when we visited Wisconsin several years ago, and we fell in love with the flaky treat. I didn't know you could order the pastries, but my mom had a couple shipped. We enjoyed both the Almond and Merry Berry Kringle, warm and crisp from the air fryer.
Winter camping has been an adventure already, and we are just getting started. In spite of the difficulties, I find the new challenges rather invigorating. This whole experiences has shown all of us how much more we are capable of than we realized. Pulling frozen laundry off the line beneath a clear sky of twinkling stars is an almost savor-worthy experience. Brisk morning trips outside in a sparkling, frost-covered world under a pink sky is a pleasure I will miss once the heavy air of summer returns. With just living taking longer, I wonder what our bunkhouse progress will look like over the winter. The forecast for the next weeks promises snow and rain on days we had hoped to work on the roof (when all the men are off work). As with every season in our project, we are trusting God about our progress, knowing He will give us the ability each day to do what He wills. On especially challenging days, that is the greatest comfort.
