JUST PLAIN LUCKY

I hadn't realized that I hadn't put a footnote onto my last entry announcing the happy news that we had solved our water problems. After a mere two days of hauling water to the feeders Glen decided that he had nothing to lose if he should take a few old flax straw bales down to the dugout, position them over where the pipes are and set the straw on fire. If the heat actually made its way down into the ground and thawed the pipes out he would be the happiest farmer in the country, if it didn't he was out a few old, crumbling bales.

It was kind of tricky getting the bales to where they needed to be - he even had to drive the tractor (weighed down with the extra 1200 pounds of bale) out on the ice of the dugout to position it on the bank where the heat was needed. I didn't go down to watch that operation - I'm a scaredy-cat - but I kept telling myself that with the intense cold we've had this winter, surely the ice was a foot thick, at least. He burned the first two during the day, put two more down there to burn through the night and called me the next morning when I was at work to announce that it had worked and we had water again!

Then he went back down to the dugout, kicked all the smoldering straw away until he was sure that the fire was out and spread some more straw on top to act as insulation for the pipes for the rest of the winter. He acted a little too quickly, though. The wind picked up, unseen sparks were fanned to flames, and just for a little extra insurance those bales burnt as well. The whole area is now covered with straw and everything seems to be fine. I know we talked about doing that last winter, but we didn't give it a try. I asked Glen why that was, and he said "Someone told me it wouldn't work." Glad we didn't rely on that advice two years in a row.

The sun is shining bright this afternoon, and the sky above is a brilliant blue, but horizontally speaking, you can't see a thing. We received a few inches of snow late last week and Mother Nature has been blowing it around ever since. The wind came up last night and it's been howling around the house all day long. The yard was a little hard to get out of this morning when I went in to church, and harder still to get through the snow banks when I came back home. I almost side-swiped the gate sign on the way in - that would have been a pity! I've told Glen he'll be clearing a path for me so I can go to work tomorrow morning but there is no use to do anything now - it would just blow back in again.

There seems to be a general countdown going on these days as to how many days there are left before spring. I don't think there is an area of Canada that doesn't feel like enough is enough this year. I sat down and filled out my seed and nursery order yesterday - it's just time to think about things that are green. I also have to get planning what will go where to spiff the place up with Jesse and Andrew's wedding coming closer every day. It's just been this past week or so that I've begun to get excited about seeing everyone who will be coming to help us celebrate.