Ten Below

Minus ten on the farm this morning.  Will be colder tonight.   Stoked the stove in the middle of the night a couple of times and kept the drip on in the house.  The pot of wool skeins simmering in the milk room worked nicely, along with the oven door ajar.  The kitties huddle up against the pot and sit on the oven door.  Always amazes me.   The fire alarm went off in school first period with six little kids in my class.  A steam washer in the technical wing set it off.  There we were, piling out of the school with kids in tee shirts.  Really, moms, short sleeved tee shirts in sub zero weather???  The aides ran for their coats and brought them out but it was still a frigid ten minutes before we were let back inside.  My truck was in auto tech for a repair and I forgot all about it.  I almost went out to the parking lot to go home without realizing I had no vehicle out there.  Called over to the shop and they had gone home.  Luckily I caught Fawn, my aide, who took me as far as the Chobani factory where Matt picked me up.  Will hitch a ride with Jan across the road tomorrow AM, that is, if we don't have a "cold day."  I'm going out for chores early so I can come back in and hunker down with my dogs.  This cold makes everybody hungrier and thirstier, including humans.  My oven is shot.  Matt spent the afternoon working on it.  We thought the ubiquitous mice had chewed the wires but he thinks the computer is kaput.  Luckily the oven he brought home from the used appliance store that I hoped would heat my work room fits in the kitchen.  That one is not adapted to propane and flares up like napalm when I light it.  There is a way to adjust it and I hope he figures it out soon.  I cook every night and six months without an oven is inconvenient.  It's a long way to tiptoe out to the milk room to my dye stove with a casserole, nudging aside the cats and chickens.  Life on the farm.