Never Prepared For Everything

Did anyone else hear “when it rains, it pours” growing up? It is a phrase I’ve heard as long as I can remember and it always feels so fitting when something happens. I had such high expectations for myself to complete our kitchen project and cat room/office project with such ease, ease is not the word I would use looking back on everything.

Project delays happen in the biggest and smallest projects, and my projects were not spared. I’m not sure where everyone lives, and I feel like we’ve lived everywhere but it has been a LONG time since I’ve lived where there is snow. Like real snow. We have seen snow plenty of times in our various homes but it never sticks. Well…it sure does stick here in Wisconsin!!

The locals say this weather is unseasonable and that snow this early isn’t the normal for the area. We of course have no idea what normal is, we just have to roll with it and learn as we go.

That is something we have to do every time we move. Japan had a learning curve, California had a learning curve, and Washington had a learning curve too. It’s a bummer that Wisconsin’s learning curve is frozen. *Brrr*

What Could Go Wrong

Do you know when the worst time for the heat to go out is? I am not sure all of them, but I can tell you with complete certainty that having it go out when the temps outside are in the teens is DEFINITELY one of them.

Luckily our cats have always been our personal space heaters so that helped get us through until the oil boiler could be repaired the next day. If that sounds like a project delay, you would be right!

That wasn’t actually the first time we have lost heat since we’ve started getting snow. The first time we lost heat was because we ran our oil tanks dry. Whoops.

We are having the oil gauges replaced so we can measure how full the tanks are but that doesn’t do me any good when they are already empty. If you didn’t know that oil tanks sound the same full or empty, I am telling you now!

It worked out though because we had a LARGE oak tree branch break over labor day weekend (we posted about that on instagram if you don’t follow us there, you should) and we chopped that and had it for fire wood.

We have an outdoor wood burning boiler as a backup heat source. That is an amazing backup heat option to have!!! At least it is if you know how to work it. Which we didn’t. We figured it out eventually but it would have been nice to have that knowledge beforehand.

That wood burner helped get us through until the gas company could refill our tanks. Something I have learned since losing heat twice is that working outside is much easier when you know you have a place to warm up after. It takes a long time to heat a frozen house.

We were naive to think that when we were ready to switch back to the oil it would be as simple as turning it on. It wasn’t that simple which is why we lost heat a second time during below freezing temps.

Adulting Failures

Now we have our heat sorted, or as sorted as we can I guess. We are out of wood so we know we need to get that replaced for backup just in case. We have a pellet stove but no pellets. Honestly we aren’t even sure if it works, we only know we have it. The upstairs heater doesn’t work but the electrician gets here in a week and that should be repaired at that time. We have plenty of oil but only if the boiler keeps working. We have already talked to our boiler guy (it’s weird to say we have a boiler guy) about our options with that behemoth but most of it will wait until we are back in the warm season so we can be without the boiler to work on the boiler. Clearly that isn’t an option at the moment.

It’s also been a reality check about tasks that should have been prioritized before it got so cold that now have to wait months and months to be completed or become way more difficult to do now. We were considering turning our “corn crib” into a winter chicken coop but winter is already here and it didn’t get done. In some ways it could be a blessing because now we could really plan it out but the bigger blessing would be using it.

I predicted in the previous post about having to wait to re-fence our pasture area after the snow melts and I can see my landscaping flags again and that couldn’t have been more true. Although I can still see them well enough at the moment, I am sure the ground is frozen enough to make manually pounding the t-posts a quickly regrettable chore.

Farmstead Victories

The cat’s and the chickens have been eating good since the weather has gotten colder because the mice we catch goes back to the animals. The cat’s catch their own and any that we catch we feed to the chickens.

The chickens are little poultry velociraptors because they go crazy when we throw a mouse in for them. We have a particularly fat hen that must be the alpha because she claims dibs on the first treat every time. Doesn’t matter what the treat is either. She is always the first to grab what she wants and run with it. Although the other chickens will chase her down for some of that mouse.

Another victory is the amount of eggs we are getting per day! We are all getting a little egged out but I keep trying to find new recipes to make that uses plenty of eggs. As of today we are getting between 12 and 14 eggs per day. When I cook I typically use a dozen eggs in a day or 0 eggs. There is not much of an in-between with egg use.

Our favorite egg recipes currently are chocolate pots de creme, that uses 6 egg yolks per recipe. Every 2 batches leaves me with a dozen egg whites. Do you know what uses 12 egg whites? Angel food cake! I was pretty intimidated to make it the first time but I shouldn’t have been because I over cooked the first one and it was still delicious.

Pasta carbonara is a family favorite as well, its the most adult version I can find for “breakfast for dinner” because its basically bacon, eggs, and cheese pasta. Speaking of pasta, homemade egg noodles. I made lasagna the other day and took the time to make the pasta from scratch, the hubs proposed again. The saying a way to a mans heart is through his stomach is so true. At least in my house it is.

House Updates

Calling anything an update is almost laughable because the farmstead is so old anything we do is an update. Just cleaning is an update! Anyways, with the help of my brother I was able to do a mini kitchen update.

Mostly it’s just a little more pleasant to be in there with the paint update. Although I feel like it’s a little boring now. I just need more art, I just haven’t quite found what I’m looking for yet. After the electric is finished the next update will begin.

I know I should have waited to do anything to the house until the electric was done but it makes me happy to spend time in the rooms I changed. Happiness isn’t always practical in practice.

The other room I changed was our cat room/office. It makes being in there more relaxing and keeps the focus on the task at hand when trying to do anything. Even the hubs said it just feels better in here when he’s trying to get school work done.

I’m pretty sure the cats gave me a meow of approval as well. Although a disgruntled meow sounds about the same. I’ve never painted paneling before and I hope to never paint it again. I had a heck of a time getting good coverage. Maybe there is a trick like a certain type of paint or brush or something to make the job easier but I don’t know it if there is.

Christmas decorating has begun in the house already as well. Just a few things are up currently, it’s a very slow process because I don’t know where I want to put everything so it’s going up a little at a time. The few things that are hung sure are making me feel festive. It’s making me want to start my Christmas baking early but I know that wouldn’t be very smart this early so I’m waiting, impatiently waiting, but still waiting.

I’m so happy about everything that got done even with all the setbacks during the process. I am also excited for the future projects to come over this winter on the inside of the house because when spring gets here it will be outdoor time again. I can’t wait to share the next phase of this journey. See you then!