Weekly Update: 1.25.26
It was a week of watching the weather forecast. What began as the possibility of snow on Saturday turned into a big winter storm warning midweek. The week morphed into a string of very long days: getting firewood, moving supplies, and stocking up on essentials before the forecasted snowstorm. It was tiring but also exciting — despite the inconvenience, our family loves a good snow.
We had a surprisingly chaotic week, with lots of small issues taking up our time. Our dad spent most of an afternoon dealing with a leak under our kitchen sink, with my sisters and I assisting as we could. We have had problems with the plumbing under the sink ever since we installed it — no matter how many times we tried to fix it, the same issue would reappear. We have a freestanding commercial sink, and this time our dad decided to begin the fix by attaching the sink to the wall. The sink isn’t designed to be secured to the wall, but our dad noticed slight motion whenever one of us uses the sink. We think that slight motion was causing the pipes to loosen over time.
Another surprisingly difficult task was fixing the heater in our folks SUV. It’s the vehicle we use the most out here, and we have all been missing the heater. With the very-cold weather coming this week, our dad picked up the part to fix it. He spent several hours struggling to take the SUV console apart, all to no avail. The hardware to remove it was in a tricky spot. Finally, Grace decided to give it a try, as she is smaller and able to reach under that part of the vehicle more easily. She had the hardware removed in minutes, and our dad was overjoyed. She helped him complete the rest of the repair, reaching tight spots whenever he couldn’t.
We also made several afternoon trips to cut firewood ahead of the snowstorm. Our dad used the chainsaw while Grace and I packed the wood back to the truck. I especially enjoyed the hard work outside, as winter living is much less active than what we are used to. It was a very satisfying week that way.
Bonnie-Jean usually loves helping pack firewood, but she hurt her knee in a wheelbarrow accident last week — of all the crazy things. She was running while pushing the wheelbarrow, ran over a root, and took quite the spill. It was a serious case of haste makes waste, though it is quite funny in hindsight. And I have to hand it to Bonnie-Jean’s physicality — she is the only one of us who would even try to run while pushing a wheelbarrow! Her knee is still badly bruised, so she did extra around the house — helping with cooking, caring for pets, and doing some extra cleaning.
On Thursday, we spent most of the day winterizing. We had our home canned goods and produce stored in the storm shelter, where it is cool for most of the year. When the weather drops to the single digits, though, we have had it freeze in there before. So, ahead of the winter storm this weekend, we moved all the food up to the bunkhouse. Then we put all of our shelving boards into the shelter where they won’t get buried in snow. It was quite the project getting everything moved and stored in a way that makes sense.
By Friday, when the temperature started dropping, everything was done. We took a sort of “day off.” Instead of our usual projects, we spent most of the day cooking a Spanish-inspired meal in honor of St. Vincent. We made lomo a la zaragozana (a pork dish), pan de cañada (a bread), roasted cauliflower, and tarta de frutas (a fruit tart). We served the dessert with a Spanish brut, a fitting nod to the patron saint of winemakers.
We woke to falling snow on Saturday. It kept falling all day, slowly covering our home with a blanket of white. Despite our efforts to keep the house warm, a few of our pipes froze in the night — specifically the ones that go to our shower. Still, we are so much better off than last winter, when we crammed into the unfinished bunkhouse to camp out during a winter storm. At the time, the only indoor plumbing that worked was our kitchen sink. We were mostly crammed into our living room at the time, which we kept too warm for comfort in order to heat the whole house. This year, we are all snuggled into a cozy, mostly finished house with mostly functional indoor plumbing. We have come a long way, and we are truly blessed. This life is a lot of work, but it is more than worth it. And now, we plan to enjoy being snowed in for the next few days.
