We received our first taste of winter over the weekend with a fast moving snow storm that left us with just under a foot of snow. As far as snow storms go, the timing on this one was about perfect. The snow really didn’t start accumulating until after everyone was home Friday evening and wrapped up so that I could have things cleaned up before lunch on Saturday. A cold snow covered weekend was great for wrapping up a number of projects.

Sissy’s New Bed

I’ve been working on a new bed frame in my spare time for Sissy for a few weeks. She liked the loft I built her, but was starting to out grow it. Since her mattress is still in great shape and she’s always looking for more storage, I decided to go with a captain’s bed – minus the drawers. The frame was based roughly on plans I found on the internet and this drawing:

Having the components built and painted, I enlisted the DW to help carry everything out of the basement and up two flights of stairs so I could assemble the frame in Sissy’s room. Once everything was together and squared, I added the finishing trim pieces. Lulu stuck around to tell me how I was doing.

I still haven’t decided on plans for the head board yet. I’ll have plenty of time for that if this winter weather keeps up.

Lights!

With the electrical upgrade we completed this fall we now have electricity to all of the outbuildings. The building we converted into a chicken coop always had electricity, so that was just a new line to the building during the upgrade. The machine shed had nothing. We installed the line, breaker box, and one outlet during the upgrade, but over the weekend I added additional outlets and lights. Lights! I don’t want to sound like I’m afraid of the dark, but I’m in and out of this shed a lot during the winter in the dark… the same shed that I’ve met a skunk in on several occasions. At least now I can see him coming.

Pumpkin

There was one last Musquee de Provence pumpkin left from the garden that needed to be pureed and put into the freezer for the kiddos’ pumpkin muffins. The first pumpkin I pureed this year I cleaned, pealed, sliced and boiled. This time, I just cut it in half, cleaned it out and threw each half face down in the oven. Once I could easily slice it with the knife I knew it was cooked.

This pumpkin made 23 cups of puree… that’s enough for 11 1/2 batches of pumpkin muffins… or 11 1/2 pumpkin pies, if you prefer.

Photos

We also had a chance to sit down and go through some old photos with Lulu and Peanut. The two of them could sit for hours going through old photos and asking questions. Peanut giggles nonstop at pictures of her older siblings as infants and toddlers. While we were flipping through our wedding photos, the DW stopped to laugh at a photo. The photographer caught one of our groomsmen with his hand in the perfect spot to give another groomsman two seats down a giant hand mustache. Instead of needing to explain it to Peanut, she immediately squealed and mimicked the photo. (Of course we had to recreate it for you.)