Winter Musings

Progress is continuing on the Nichol house. Many of you may not be able to believe that it has been a year of trudging work but I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. As you can see from the picture, a new front door has been added to the house and that is the excellent work of  Dr. Mark. I call him that as he may not want his name used on the internet. Mark is a guy that Philip hired to help us finish up with the house. And the guy is a God send. Everytime I turn around he has fixed something else. And done it with a great - no problem attitude.

It's snowing again in Indiana. It has been the "deep freeze winter." I call it the deep freeze because most of the time in winter, we'll get a couple of  35 - 40 degree days. Not this year - so far. It's been difficult at times - like the other morning when I opened my car door and it popped when I pulled on the handle and then wouldn't close and then I tried the door lock and the door closed so I crawled in on the passenger side because I was afraid that if I opened the door, I would never get it to close again.
     We had a pipe freeze up in the Lincoln building at the end of a really tiring day and I thought I would just lose it fortunately my son, Barnaby was working in Anderson and worked without complaint to save the day.
   But Phil and I have started trying to walk at least 30 minutes each day and it has made all the difference. Something about turning off the tv, the computer, the business, etc. and bundling up to go out there into the world of nature, does something to a person. It invigorates. To be out in this God given world, with all it's sounds of wind, snow falling, dogs barking in the distance, birds singing out from their hidden places, the water trickling in the creek through Rash Ditch, calls to something inside a person. One day we saw a red fox running across the northern most pasture, along the creek. It was a sight to behold as it's flame orange body made it's way through the snow! We've seen squirrels fighting/mating/playing in the trees. A sort of high wire, trapeze, clown act. One day, I saw about 6 or 8 of our black cows running/dancing in a field full of snow as more snow poured down. They were throwing their feet up in a beautiful, bovine conga line. It is undescribable just how that looked!  And the experience of just walking along with my best buddy in the whole world is gravy on top!