Some Days are Diamonds and some are

Lumps of Coal.  Today was a coal day for me.  STUCK both vehicles trying to get out.  Hubby even plowed at 5 am but the road drifted shut right after he left for work......

Sigh!

This was the road last Friday ... before the most recent snowstorm this Tuesday.  Me thinks we need to relocated our road elsewhere (like maybe Florida??? ROFL)

Tonight both cars are at the highway.  I will WALK out tomorrow morning.  

And what's crazy is the temperatures are in the 40's and upper 30's and I've been stuck....

Having FUN now!

How High can it GO?

Well I THOUGHT it was a good plan.  Do an end run through the pasture, around the drifts, and then JUMP THE HUMP and voila! I was back on the road at the Gate, and at the Highway......but I did not have enough steam going and FAILED .... slid to the fence and was stuck......

Know what the say about close only counts in Horseshoes?  Its TRUE!

Here's the road after it was plowed .... I stuck the car the day before this picture.

You can see it in the distance at the end.

Are we having Fun Yet???????

Fun on A Cold Wintry Wyoming Night....NOT!

6 pm - Dark out, snowing like crazy, wind blowing.  Animals are all fed and watered.  Hubby & I enjoy stew and homemade bread for supper.  Watching streaming TV on the Roku....fire merrily blazing in pellet stove.

7:04 pm - power flashes 2 times, goes out.   Hubby groans, pellet stove automatically switches over to back-up battery.  No TV, No radio, I forgot to charge my kindle, so no reading either.  Hubby says mild swear words.  Calls power company so we are on the call back list with updates on power status.  Told power will be on at 11 pm.  We sit and stare at each other in the dark, and sleep .....

Hubby is a Master at Sleeping in Place

8:45 pm -  I give up and go to bed with lots of covers.  Hubby sleeps on couch in living room to man the pellet stove, our only source of heat.  Stronger swear words about power company as I go to bed.

Use bathroom and flush the ONE tank of water we have down the toilet and hope power will be on Soon.

11:00 pm - I wake up to flashlight coming through bedroom.  Battery out on pellet stove.  Hubby coming in for some more clothes as he has to go out with battery to charge it up on pickup.  Calls power company, finds out restoration time shoved back to 3 am.  STRONG words about power company.  Hope power will be back on soon.

11:30 pm -  Hubby comes back in with battery partially charged.  Pellet stove back on,  Temps down in middle 60's in house.  Pray power will be back on soon.

3:00 am - NO POWER.  Battery out again.  Hubby looks different and language is barely understandable other than he his MAD.  Refuses to go with battery yet again.  Says power is suppose to be back on shortly.  Curses....repeatedly.  I go back to bed.  Realize we never may have power again----EVER.

4:30 am. -  NO POWER.  Temps in mid 50's in house, it's damn cold.  I put on my coat, and head scarf and call power company.  Restoration  time now 8:00 am.   Check gun locker and make sure it's still locked.  Inform hubby.   WORDS.  Hubby goes out and charges up battery again. I've given up and wonder what my fate will be. Death at the hands of this mad man or simply freezing to death.

5:00 am -  Pellet stove going again.  Still cold, cannot catch up.   I stay in coat, scarf and sit on couch.  Hubby has many many words about power company including 'grenades', pieces of s..., etc.  Plotting revenge.  I say nothing.  One wrong word and this guy will kill ME.

7:00 am - Hubby goes out and gets propane tank off BBQ grill and Little Buddy Heater to help pellet stove catch up.  I turn on gas oven and stare at mound of dirty dishes from supper and guess water is probably froze up.  Don't know, power out, no water. Hubby Struggles with tank, heater for quite a while.  He calls Power company, restoration time now 1:00 pm.....words under his breath, not discernible.

7:50 am -- Hubby has Little Buddy lit up and heating.  56.8 degrees in house.  Still in coat, scarf, and non verbal as threats are flying fast and furious.  Power company will be toast when this guy catches up with them.

8:05 am - POWER COMES ON.  Blessings, water is not froze in kitchen sink, I do dishes, fix breakfast.  Hubby returns to normal and goes to bed.  Cranky, but not a zombie anymore.  

And so goes life without power at 60 Miles North of Nowhere.

Hope it stays on - lows of -4 tonight predicted and -12 Sunday Night........Keeping fingers crossed.

Winter Moon

Oh it was a Memorable Christmas...

The Grand kiddos got a new puppy for Christmas...a minature schnauzer.   He is the 3rd family schnauzer that our #2 son has had.  First he had his little boy Schnauzer, Harvey.  Then when #2 Son was in high school, we got Charlie after Harvey had passed on at 14 years of age.

Charlie in 2011

Charlie passed over the rainbow bridge last winter at the age of 15.  Our place has seemed awlfully quiet without a schnauzer to keep the rabbits in line on the farm.  We are thinking of trying to obtain a new 'farm' schnauzer from rescue but first want to get a radio controlled dog door and yard fence up.  Somehow I do not think it would be cool to come home and find out Mr. Skunk or Mr. Racoon had invited himself into the house through the doggie door.

The grandkids combined the names of the first two schnauzers and have named the new one Herley.  Herley seems to be thrilled to have 2 kids of his own for Christmas also.  Course Herley will only get to visit us out on 60 Miles North of Nowhere.  Hence the need for another schnauzer still.

We spent Christmas Eve with the kids and grandkids and sure enjoyed it a LOT.  We were surprised to receive a new 32" LED TV so we can get rid of the Nine Ton Tessie television we currently use and have had it for almost 10 years.  So it's probably at the end of it's use anyway.  Christmas Day was spent with Hubby's family and we got to meet Herley over there.

I find I don't post as many posts to my blog because I only have Windows 8 which I absolutely loathe.  It's hard to find my photos or just navigate.  I bought a 'new' old desktop with Windows 7 and am going to get it set up.  I think I will be much more comfortable.

I sewed fleece bathrobes for the grandkids this year, and a matching one for their little cousin.

The Girls Robes

The Boy's Robe

Fleece sews up so nicely into something like a bath robe.

I did discover mid-project that once you break a needle on your serger, getting a new one into place without the proper needle inserter tool is NOT an easy task!!!  I finally gave up and just used a three thread overlock instead of a four.

I also made four matching stockings which match a tree skirt I did years ago for my daughter-in-law.

and then last, but not least, made a jacket and dress pants for my special little fifth-grader girl....

She had chosen the material and the McCall's pattern and I thought it came out cute as a bug's ear.  So I will probably make this pattern sometime again for the granddaughter.

And I sewed right up to we almost left for Christmas Eve!!!  I need more sewing time I think or less procrastination time.....ha.

Have some projects in mind for next year already.

Hope your Holiday was as great as mine was!

Onward to 2014 and Spring!

Veteran's Day Musing

Today is a cold gray day in Wyoming, and it's Veteran's Day.  Both my hubby's dad and my father were World War II vets.  I have a nephew right now who is deployed, something like his fifth deployment.

We salute our Veterans and remember their service.

Which brought Hubby and I to a conversation center around the Cold War era.  They gave all us kids 'lessons' in surviving a nuclear holocaust; quite literally.  I remember taking classes in PE on how to treat radiation sickness and managing a shelter, making sure those who went outside were decontaminated before coming back in. etc.

Holy Smokes!!!  It was sure nightmare stuff.  I was in junior high school during the Cuban missile crisis and we never knew how close we came to Armageddon then.  Turned out not only were all those Cuban missiles ready to go off--they were ARMED!!  Yikes.

Which brings me to the question, would they give those classes to our kids now?  I know it was pretty scary stuff.

One of Hubby's friends said we would all stay in those shelters 90 days, come out and take one look and decide we were sorry we lived through it.

Maybe.  Hopefully, we will never see a nuclear war....ever.  Not our grandkids nor their descendants.

Well enough of this morbid musing....not a pleasant subject.

When a Good Deal isn't to Be.............

We'll intersperse the genealogy posts with others.

I shuck out cars -- fast.  Commuting 120 miles a day racks up the miles.  So I always look for good buys in used vehicles.  We've found that we really like the old luxury models with big engines -- they get decent gas mileage on the highway (which is what all our miles are) and are so C-O-M-F-O-R-T - able to go down the road in.  Real Road Lizards.

Several Months ago I spied a real buy in the classifieds.  2004 Lincoln Towncar, low miles, good condition. $Low Bucks!!  YES, this I gotta go see.

So I call and the lady says the car is in the lot where her husband works with a For Sale sign on it.  Drive by.

Alrighty then.

And there it sat in all it's glory - the buy of the year EXCEPT

IT was a deep purple.....and I do Mean Purple!!!

AND

it had........

AMERICAN FLAGS on both front fenders!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  What the heck????

It was positively the most gawdy ugly thing I've ever set eyes on.

Hubby looks at me.  I look at Hubby.......Hubby says "you could paint it"........"Sure, I could paint and when I found out what it will cost, we won't do it.  And I will be stuck.  Not only NO but HXXX NO!  Not even if it's FREE."

And the last I Knew it was still there with it's For Sale sign.

Even a Bargain Hunter has to have her Standards.   I'm still driving the Yaris so you know mine are not all that High.......

La Grande Recrue de 1653

The first of my ancestors set foot in the New World in 1653. (A previous post about Pierre DeSautels dit la pointe can be found HERE) I recently discovered some of the motivation for a young 22 year old man to pull up roots in France and sail to Montreal, Quebec Canada.

Prospects for young men in Malicorne France must have been dismal indeed for our Pierre the Pioneer to have thought prospects in New France were better.  The 30 Year War had recently ended and it had decimated Europe.  Germany lost half of it's population to the war.  France was bankrupt in 1647 but did not announce it until 1648.  Pierre's father was a tailor and since Pierre listed that as his occupation he was more likely an apprentice to his father - who probably could no longer afford him in tough economic times.  Prospects must have seemed to be non-existant to young Pierre

By 1650, the village of Montreal had been decimated by the Iroquis Indians.  One in five residents had been killed by them and the village was on the verge of folding.  It was well known that torture was in store if the Indians captured you. Roasting the prisoner alive over a period of several days was one of the preferred methods, followed by cannabilism.

Huge land grants had been given to the first settlers who were to recruit more settlers to work the land; but the original pioneers were more interested in fur-trapping than farming and the venture failed to recruit more settlers.  Slightly more than 100 settlers were living in the Montreal area by 1650.  Collapse of the colony seemed imminent.

The Maison LeBer-LeMoyne built in 1671 in Old Montreal

from Wilkepedia here

In 1651, the head of the settlement , M. Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, went to France to recruit One Hundred souls to bolster the population of Montreal and keep the settlement from failing.  My ancestor, Pierre DeSautels, was one of those pioneer recruits.  He was one of four people on the boat who could write his name and had an education.  After Pierre's boat set sail, it began to leak and they had to turn around.  To keep the new recruits from abandoning ship, literally, they only came back as far as an island off the coast of France to make repairs.  I have to wonder if Pierre did not begin to question his decision to emigrate to the New World!

Pierre the Pioneer was one of the few of the original volunteers of the La Grande Recrue de 1653 who survived the rigors and brutalities of the New World and thrived. Eventually, the long awaited land grant was given to him on Longue Point, and he acquired the surname of dit (from) la (the) Pointe.

An old map of Montreal - Longue Pointe is on the southern side of the Big Island jutting out as the 'bump' on the northerly central end just above the little island. - Hence  Longue Pointe.

Wisely, Pierre did not live on Longue Pointe as the outer settlements of Montreal were easy prey for the Iroquis.  Generations later, however, the family still lived there as my Great-great grandfather, Joseph Maxime DeSotels (DeSautels) was born in Longue Pointe in 1834, as was his father, Joseph Basile DeSotels in 1808.  

Joseph Maxime DeSotels

NEXT:  Coureur Des Bois -

The early French Canadians make their living trapping and followed the rivers helping to settle the Mississippi River country.