First

First snowstorm of the winter.  Daughter #2 and I were going to go shopping together in the afternoon, but wisely chose to stay home.  We lost power at about 9:30 Thursday night and I decided not to bother hooking up the generator.  The hog houses have their own automatic generator, so I suited up and braved the storm to make sure it was operating properly. It was, so I knew the hogs would be OK until morning.  However, in the house, with the strong wind outside, it got a little nippy by morning.  Our inside thermometer had the temperature in the fifties when we got up.  I had the tractor generator hooked up and running by 8:00 A.M..  Without electricity to plug in block heaters or use the battery charger, the first two tractors wouldn't start.  Finally the third tractor I tried did start (with ether) and I used it to jump start the one I wanted to use.  Without power we can't use our diesel pump to fill the fuel tank on the tractor, so I had to use the tractor that already had a full tank.  Power was restored at about 1:30 in the afternoon.
We only received about 2 inches of snow from the storm.  Because of the high winds, I think all of the snow in the section ended up in drifts between our buildings.  The biggest drift was about 7 feet deep.  Gus loves to romp up and down on the drifts and play in the snow.  Once the wind died down, I spent some time moving and clearing snow for company.

We had our first Christmas gathering Friday evening (Schlipf).  We had our annual soup supper (chili and potato), 5 flavors of ice cream for desert (plus goodies), family reading of Luke 2, and gift exchange.  We followed by singing some of the little known Christmas Carols that never get sung.  It was an enjoyable evening and a good way to start the festivities.

Today, the first two seed catalogs arrived in the mail.  Not even Christmas yet!  I'm not sure who would be interested in gardens in December.  Maybe late February.

I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits:
Ecclesiastes 2:5