Christmas on the Mountain 🎄

Our kids sent these two Christmas ornaments to us a while ago. Mine looks pretty close to the actual me but the male had white hair and a beard. They said that this was as close as they could find to looking like us, that this was, "Future Butch", but Butch wasn't satisfied. So he set about working on his Christmas action figure for 30 minutes, cutting off the beard, painting the hair brown and putting the ever-present cigarette in his mouth. When he was poking the cigarette toothpick into its mouth, I heard him mutter under his breath, "Gosh I hope this ain't one of them voody dolls."

Ha ha ha 🤣 He's so funny.

Country Boy and City Girl Go Off Grid, Oh Boy!

In a nutshell: 

-- Country Boy marries City Girl 

-- CB and CG move from hot, humid Texas to lovely, snowy Montana 

-- CB and CG look for gorgeous land to start new lives on

-- CB and CG drastically lower expectations and look for affordable land

-- CB and CG let ALL expectations go and look for land that no one else wants

-- CB and CG find severely logged land with no electricity for miles around

-- CB and CG go Off Grid

-- CB and CG bravely decide to build their own home ALL by themselves! 

-- CB and CG quickly realize that CB is doing all the work and CG is useless 

-- CB wonders why he married a CG

-- CG wonders why CB is so ANAL

And that right there is the beginning of wonderful love story. Ok not really. That right there could be a recipe for disaster.

Note to all young married couples: Starting out your holy matrimony by building your own home together, is (oh how do I put this?), going straight from the frying pan into the fire. It's a baptism by fire, a complete submersion, all in for better or worse, whereby in working together, you will quickly learn all of your partner's most annoying habits and worst traits, right off the bat. No honeymoon period for you! 

Oh. Ahem. 

You get the idea. It's just risky, that's all I'm saying. Building your own home together is a huge job and colossally difficult. And that's just picking out tile and flooring! It's ESPECIALLY difficult if one of you (I'm not telling who), doesn't know the names of tools or how to wield a hammer or how a tape measure works. 

It's even MORE difficult if people of completely different persuasions are trying to work together. Country people have their ways and city people have better ones. Ha HA! Just kidding! 

It began to seem as if the twain shall never meet. Country mouse and city mouse just have different ways of doing things. City mouses are practical and prefer to hire other mouses to get things done. Country mouses, weirdly enough, want to do it all themselves. 

They simply speak a different language. 

Allow me to give you a few examples if I may. 

When City Girl graciously offers to help build their new home by way of chronicling the exciting adventure, and follows Country Boy around with a camera, taking pictures of him working without a shirt on, Country Boy is not pleased or even appreciative! Ungrateful!

When City Girl is doing her best while sitting in the new tractor that she has just recently been taught to use, trying to follow Country Boy's confusing hand signals that look like a mixture of directional pointing, Japanese Sign Language, with some offensive gestures and a few friendly waves thrown in for good measure, while he's standing in the bucket of the aforementioned tractor, apparently hoping City Girl will move him up or down in said bucket, per confusing hand signals, and City Girl INADVERTENTLY dumps him out on the ground, and busts a gut laughing, he has the gall to get mad! Especially after the tenth time! So weird!

When CB and CG are in the freezing cold, dark barn trying to fix the snow blower on the tractor and City Girl wasn't complaining that much, and then Country Boy tells City Girl to go get a sledgehammer, the grinder, clamps and the 60-11 welding rods when he KNOWS perfectly well that she has no idea what any of these things are and she goes into the tool room and hopes the tools will just take pity on her and jump off the wall but they don't because they're a bunch of tools! (Haw!) And Country Boy then has the temerity to act put out because his CITY GIRL wife doesn't know tools?? Well he has no one to blame but himself. He's the one who married a City Girl. Maybe he should have married a Country Girl!

Am I right? Can I get a witness? 

And yet.

Even though the Country Boy and City Girl often misunderstand what the other one is trying to say, they still somehow manage to hear each other. They manage to build a house and a good life together.

And somewhere along the rocky road of trying to mesh two worlds, they discover, to their surprise, that they do in fact share a common language - humor - and realize that laughter makes everything more bearable and way more fun. 

And so...

-- Country Boy and City Girl live happily ever after.

                            The End 😉

A Day in the Life ♡

 (Author's note: This 'day in the life' did actually happen but I admit, it's not usually quite this difficult.  And my attitude has vastly improved over the years. I swear. 😏)

This is a day in the life off grid, in our particular situation, on top of a mountain, in Montana, where it’s cold and we have lots and lots of lovely, beautiful snow.

 My winter ‘day in the life’ is WAY different than my summer ‘day in the life’. In the summer I am deliriously happy. In the winter I’m a little crabby. Just sayin’.

4:15 – Drag butt out of warm bed. Trip over excited dogs. Start fire (in wood stove). Make coffee, breakfast and husband’s lunch. Send him on his way with a kiss and a pat on the hindquarters.

5:15 – Flush toilet, power goes off. Stumble down garage stairs in the dark to generator. Try to start generator. Discover that it has no gas. Fill with gas. Spill everywhere. Start generator. Let run for 30 minutes while changing gas-soaked jammies. Check weather. Curse imminent snow.

5:45 – Put wood on fire, put burning log that has rolled out of stove onto wood floor back IN stove, put salve on blisters.

6:00 – Eat breakfast, clean kitchen. Realize you have no water left. Realize you have to go get water today. Ugh.

7:30 – See that it is snowing, a LOT. Wonder who in HEPSHIBA is praying for more snow. Vow to find them and beat them senseless. Put more wood in stove. Bring wood into house from garage wood bin. Pick out evil, mitochondria-sized splinters. Scream and do freaked out spider dance when discovering granddaddy long leg on shoulder.

8:00 – Feed dogs, let them all out, pray there isn’t a hungry mountain lion in vicinity.

8:15 – Get dressed for going outside. Decide that putting coveralls on over warm jammies is totally understandable. Who’s gonna know?

8:30 – Realize you have to go pee. Sigh….

9:00 – Now that you’re all dressed, AGAIN, put more wood in stove, shut down wood stove so house won’t burn down. Shovel off 3 porches, solar panels and truck. Feed and water frozen chickens. Fight off mean rooster. Put frozen solid eggs in pocket so dogs won't get them. Feel sorry for them (the chickens not the dogs).

9:30 – Get gun. Fill back of truck with water-getting paraphernalia complete with shovel and ice-breaking tools. Start to drive down to spring. Realize that snow is too deep to get through. Realize with sickening thud you have to plow first. Drive back to house. Mutter a lot. Rain curses down on the person who made up the “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” song.

10:00 – Walk down to barn, get tractor. Plow out of barn, drive to house, fill tractor with gas. Oops! I mean diesel! Phew! That was close! Rest for few minutes after contemplating what husband would have done to you if you’d put gasoline in the tractor. Laugh nervously.

10:30 – Wonder if you remembered to shut down wood stove. Go back in house and check. Have a quick snack.

10:45 – Plow 1/4th mile to spring. Since it’s windy and snowing, stop a thousand times to wipe blowing snow off windshields. Sweat and grumble profusely. Tear off hat and scarf and throw into snow. Watch dogs run off with them.

11:00 – Look at pretty view while plowing. Almost run off road. Wonder how many people have hurtled snowball-style down mountain in a tractor. Be relieved you've never heard of such. 

1:00 – Drive back to house, proud of job well done. See that fire is dead. Start over. Eat lunch. Feel sleepy. Resist urge to take nap.

2:00 – Drive truck to spring, shovel your way into spring house, pray water pump works. Look for bears. Look for dogs. Watch as lovely brown water fills up tank. Feel glee. Drive back home up scary, icy hill, hyperventilating whole way. Quickly put water into house tank before all hoses freeze. Fish ice chunks out of tank with bare hands. Wonder why hands don’t work. Put everything away per husband’s (anal) explicit instructions.

3:00 – More wood in stove. Realize wood bin in garage is low. Remember that snow and really cold temperatures are coming. Decide that mature, responsible person would go get more wood NOW. Realize there is no rest for the weary. Decide to thaw out first. Have another snack for strength.

3:30 – Get RE-dressed. Shut down stove. Drive good ol’, hard working truck to wood bin in yard. Shovel out covered-in-three-feet-of-snow wood pile.

4:00 – Fill back of truck with wood while fighting dogs away from pack rat homes built in wood pile. Drive to house, unload wood into garage wood bin. Wonder if you can tell when you’re getting frostbite.

5:00 – MORE wood in stove. Realize you have no power since sun has decided not to make an appearance today. Turn on generator. Make dinner. Feed dogs. Notice that road you just plowed is already filled back up with snow. Can't it just stay clean for five minutes??

5:30 – Husband home safely. Thank God! Someone to talk to! Watch as husband shovels food quickly into face, gets dressed, heads out to plow road until midnight so he can get to work the next day. Feel proud of husband who isn’t complaining one bit.

6:00 – More wood in stove. Realize you don’t have enough power to watch a DVD. Decide to spend evening alone with good book by the fire, feeling sorry for husband who is out in dark and cold and snow.

7:00 – Dogs barking furiously. Heavy footsteps on porch. Door opens. Husband standing there looking pooped and breathing hard. Flat tire on tractor. Needs your help. Get RE-DRESSED, go out in cold, dark, snowy night. Help husband with tractor. Dream of lovely hot, humid, mosquito-filled days in Texas.

8:30 – Walk back to house alone in the dark.  Sing loudly to scare away any Sasquatches who might be around. Try to take cold, frozen coveralls off. Realize zipper is frozen shut. Thaw by fire. More wood on fire. Sit down on couch to read. Fall asleep immediately. Snore cartoon-sized snores.

12:00 – Husband back from plowing, frozen to death. Get fire going again. Fix coffee and sit with him while he warms up by stove.

12:30 – Off to bed to much-deserved rest and warm snuggles.

4:15 – Alarm goes off. Sigh…..

My momma said there'd be days like this. 😉