Loose Strife

It’s been a winter wonderland around here over the past few weeks. Locals say that this is the sort of weather usually reserved for January or February. There’s currently 16 inches on the ground with some drifts around the barn much deeper. Low temperatures have been in the single digits and we had wind gusts to 50 miles per hour yesterday. But really it hasn’t been so bad! (My biggest anxiety about moving to New England from northern California was whether I could deal with the cold. That’s turned out to not be a problem.)
That’s not to say that the winter hasn’t been without its surprises. I belatedly bought something called a roof rake. The long icicles hanging from the house seemed so pretty at first. Then I got nervous about the gutters. And then I got really nervous about water coming into the house. I’ve already lost some of the gutter brackets, but now that I’ve cleared the snow with the rake I’m hoping it won’t get any worse. (Our 100-year-old Northampton house never had these damn ice dams because the roof is pitched more steeply and any remaining snow melts due to poor insulation.) And clearing the snow wasn’t quite as easy as I expected, either. My snow blower would barely move through the snow and I couldn’t figure out why until my neighbor told me the augers weren’t moving! That’s when I finally learned what a shear bolt was… and how to replace it. (My father-in-law kept saying something about shear bolts on the snow blower blah blah blah… I wasn’t paying attention when he was visiting.)
The kids have been having fun outside. And now that the snow is too deep for Lily and Naomi to walk through, the driveway has proven to be a perfect sledding slope. To the right is Lily on her toboggan riding behind neighbor Ella.
Former neighbors from Northampton threw an ice skating birthday party for their daughter and invited Naomi and Lily along. (Thanks, Ann and John!) Lily loved it and has been talking about skating ever since. So Santa will be bringing a pair of ice skates for some skating on our pond. (Shhh!) Naomi will get little double-bladed strap on “skates”. Naomi had fun at the rink, too, but preferred to be carried… as always. I cajoled Laura to come along to the party, too, and it was a big success. Happy birthday, Ruby!
Julia and Debra, great friends from Holyoke (near our old home in Northampton), came up this afternoon with their children to visit and the kids all decorated gingerbread houses. Naomi and Lily were thrilled to see their old friends and couldn’t wait to eat their creations. Laura had another pretty good day and I think she really enjoyed the company.
In fact, Laura’s been feeling relatively good since she left the hospital and we’re both optimistic. She still has down times and a few migraines, but the headaches aren’t usually very bad — certainly not bad enough to cause her to throw up. Incredibly, there’s been no nausea and vomiting at all for several weeks except for headache-induced troubles that ended in the hospital. Her calorie intake has been pretty good and we’ve started brewing fortified milk shakes and such to give her lots of protein and calories. With the last chemo/cancer nausea several weeks ago, the even better news is that her appetite and willingness to try foods again has definitely improved. Eggs two nights ago. Cheese pizza (shudder!) at Country Pie last night. And she asked me for a chicken pot pie tonight.
Laura is now off all daily narcotics with almost no residual back pain. She’s been out of bed for most of the day during the past week. I took her to Ashfield to do some shopping yesterday, which was the first time she’s been out of the house except to the hospital for at least three weeks. While she’s very weak — I have to open doors and bottles for her, for example — and she’s usually slow and somewhat unsteady on her feet, all in all she has more energy and is more active than she has been for some time.
Two weeks ago I was worried about leaving Laura alone and this morning I left Naomi alone with Laura! So this is all good news.
One more photo before I finish. Sunrises during this time of year are gorgeous. I snapped this pic a few days ago.