Weekly Update: 1.18.26
Winter finally arrived on Wednesday this week, billowing down in frigid winds from the north. Thursday began with a frosty morning, Friday with snow flurries, and Saturday was cold in the most wintery way. It slowed us down with our outside projects, and I was rather glad.
Going into winter proper in the Ozarks, we have been very impressed with how warm the bunkhouse is staying. Last year, we kept our woodstove going and still needed space heaters at the extremities of the house. Now that our internal and external siding is (mostly) done, as well as our last couple windows installed, the bunkhouse stays very warm. Due to our 15 south-facing windows, we gain a lot of passive solar heat during the day — to the extent that we tend to be too warm on particularly sunny afternoons. The heat lingers, even over nights where the temperatures drop below freezing. We often go days without lighting a fire, which means we are using way less firewood than previous years in the tent and the unfinished bunkhouse.
Our big project this week was finishing our exterior tote storage cleanout. Grace and Bonnie-Jean particularly worked hard on this process, sorting through all of our tools, garden supplies, work clothes, and more. I couldn’t believe how much better everything looked when they were finished. We were able to recycle a bunch of old, broken totes, and our dad took a load to the landfill of items we couldn’t recycle.
The last part of the clean-out project was sorting through all of our mixed screws and nails. These fasteners had all been spilled or simply not put away correctly. Grace did most of the sorting, though I helped out as well. It took two days to go through several gallons of fasteners, but we ended up with boxes worth of nearly all sizes of screws and nails. We made the project more fun by drinking too much tea and coffee and watching TV while we worked.
While my sisters worked on the tool totes, I did some interior sorting and organizing. I also finished fine-tuning our lower kitchen shelving plans. One day, I sorted all the lumber we have already cut and sanded for our upper shelving, arranging it in piles so that we can finish the shelving modularly on our kitchen table. As we finish each portion, we will hang it up.
It wasn’t an exciting week by any means, but it was successful, I think. We leaned into our new post-holiday winter routines, and we all made improvements on productivity. We also all found time for more personal pursuits than in recent months. Each of us sisters have found more time for reading. I did some morning writing and evening piano playing. Bonnie-Jean took a couple recreational hikes with her dogs. Grace took a couple extra photo walks.
It has felt good to spend so much time with each other this week. As I’ve written before, despite all living together, we often all go different ways on the homestead during the day. It’s been fun to do so much work in proximity with one another. The ladies in the family have enjoyed reading aloud as a group while working. We’ve discussed current events while watching the news together — some of us cooking, some of us doing bookwork, and others doing cleaning and organizing. While I miss the long green days of summer, the forced indoor togetherness is something I’ve learned to love about winter. I’ve enjoyed much about this week, and I’m excited about more cozy weeks ahead.