Of Freezing Cold and maybe other things~~~~

Oh Darklings!!

It is so cold that the outdoor pond froze over, Doyle was out there this morning cracking the ice, so we've put up a plastic cover over it to prevent that from happening again for the next few days,  the pond in the green house with the Koi, is fine and some potted plants have been moved in there when we got the freeze warning. 

Even with the heat on there is still cold spots in the house,  we've been checking for draft spots and have found them,  all we can do is put up old moving blankets over the doors and along the bottom of the doors to keep the drafts out. 

Of course we are wearing our warmest clothing, sweaters, socks and in some cases fingerless gloves for indoors, even Belladonna and Weiner Dog are wearing two sweaters each and do not object to being covered with throw blankets.

Some of the suculents have been frost bitten, but we hope to save them, and other more delicate plants have been covered,  this is the coldest it has been in this area in over 104 years,  fortunately no problems with our water pipes, even the outside garden ones have been wrapped to prevent freezing.  There are birds in the area so I've put out food for them, but we found a squirrel this morning in the garden, we fear the cold may have killed it.  I was sad to see the poor little thing but Doyle said that this winter freeze will prove which one's are the healthiest and hardiest,  I will put out sunflower seeds and walnuts for them, at least give them a fighting chance. 

We've had Brian come over and stay with us, that way he doesn't have to contend with the heating system in Sis's house, which was going to be replaced anyway. 

Coralline's school closed early today and we have her and we'll be bundled up to go and do our tree selections, it will be a tree for the formal parlour, a smaller one for the family parlor and a tiny one for the entrance hall, plus yesterday evening I stopped at my favorite hardware store just across from Bed, Bath and Beyond, to pick up a few things like curtain rods and there I saw it.

Yes Darklings, you can find Black Christmas Trees.  There it was in all it's 7 foot glory, of course its artificial, but I was thinking that the Library is large enough for one, and this was perfect in its Gothicness, I was able to buy, are you ready for this?  Black ornaments and I offset it with red one's as well,  so with red and purple lights on it and a red velvet tree skirt it will be just perfect for its strangeness,   I had been wanting to get a artifical black tree anyway for Halloween and this will do just fine.

I have to laugh when I think of in the 1960's and 70's those aluminum christmas trees with the little pom-poms on the tips, and you had to use a rotating light to light it up.  Thank Goodness our parents didn't fall for that fashion, some of my friends parents did with a few of them having a problem of their tree's going up in flames, well some of my friends thought it was fine to put lights on those trees,  Opps!  Didn't know it could burn.  And there was some sad Christmases because of that. 

When I told Coralline about the Black Tree she was excited about the idea, so this weekend we will be busy, putting on lights and decorating.   But we are going to the Dickens Faire first, must get that in.

But tonight it will be a good hot beef stew, with crusty french bread, and hot spice tea to drink, and hot apple pie.  I think we'll be able to at least put the lights on the trees with all of us working together.

So we'll have a total of 4 trees, 3 fresh cut and one artificial.  And we'll spend the evenings putting up the decorations, nothing could be more fun and in a way relaxing.   We are going to have Coralline for the weekends for this month and for the week after Christmas.  She is looking forward to that, even though her brothers have been much nicer to her, no more tricks or anything like that.

Right now she is tugging my sleeve, yes time to go Doyle has his van ready with ropes and canvas and we have blankets in the van to keep us warm,  so Tree selections it is.

Later Darklings