Mornin', y'all!
Our first Christmas since my mother passed away . . . Dad and the brother I call "the Ubergeek" did a great job of hosting; while Mom was sorely missed, it wasn't as painful as I feared it might be. Mom really loved to decorate, and though she had scaled back in the last few years, when my brother was digging through the Christmas stuff, he was like, "why do you need 3 nativity sets? You only have one mantle to put them on" - I'm not sure even Mom could have explained that one.
I think I'm beginning to understand why, when she was at the hospice, Mom kept apologizing for leaving so much "mess" for us to deal with, though. Love you, Mom; though we may grouse, it's a labor of love, and we really don't mind at all.
Chainsaws. Why did it have to be chainsaws? Between 2018 being so wet, 2019 starting off so dry, and two hurricanes (Florence and Dorian), most of the pines on our place have been lost. Some got blown down, but many are standing dead. A few days ago, my husband decided to try to deal with a few of the most worrisome ones. Trees #1 and 2 went pretty much where he wanted them to, but #3 was determined to be a problem. For one thing, it was leaning slightly. We moved the cars out of range, and I also shifted a bench seat - but not far enough. Hubs tied a rope to the tree to try to encourage it to go the way he wanted, but I had a really bad feeling about this one . . . I figured, I could stand and argue, or go in the house and pray that I was wrong. I chickened out and chose the latter.
Long story short(er), the tree went the wrong way on the "hinge." The rope held, but it didn't pull the tree the other way, it caused it to swing sideways as it fell, so it landed squarely on the bench seat and even clipped the house slightly. When Hubs saw which way the tree was heading, he jumped back out of the way, but the chainsaw was stuck and the bar got mangled beyond repair (the case got cracked, but it's otherwise still usable). Hubby dug out his battery-powered chainsaw and tried to rescue the gas-powered one, but his valiant little electric finally gave up the ghost - the motor burned out. Fortunately, it managed to hang in there just long enough to free the other chainsaw, and for some reason, Hubs had a spare bar and chain for it, so the tree did get cut up and removed from the front of the house. When it became clear that the electric was no longer among the living, Hubby found a beefier version on eBay. When it got here, it was already dark and cold out, so he assembled it on the kitchen counter (*sigh* "You might be a redneck if . . . .") After correcting whatever the previous owner had done to mutilate the chain, he has declared the new one a total upgrade from its predecessor. Merry Christmas, Hubs.
Thank you all for your compliments on the ornaments.
as requested, here are some of the others: cardinals
and the chicken gang. I've done a few one-offs of other colors and breeds, but this is the basic flock.
And
@Mini Horses you asked about goats. I tried this yesterday - do you think it works?
Carpet and heat for the pigs room? I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at memories. My exGF got me into this animal thing (then left). The coop has linoleum floors, curtains on the nest boxes, curtains on the ventilation windows, they have a swing. And I finally drew the line when she wanted me to make them a couch! (She was serious).
Even he was amazed.
