Nice White

January 29, 2007 (12:32pm)
11º F, Light snow, WSW wind 7 mph.

Good afternoon,

Just finished an oversized portion of bean soup. It is one of the best I think I have made in recent history. This time a put half a link of smoked sausage in it and it sure worked and tasted good! I made it a few days ago, but today for some reason it just tasted really good. Had to have two bowls of it rather than my normal one. Only one meal left then I will have to build more again.

It has been snowing very lightly for most of the morning. Really small flakes, but persistent. Guess there is about ½" so far today. Yesterday we got about 1½-2" of snow during the morning. It is hard to measure, since it is so light and fluffy. Both today and yesterday’s snow is very pretty. The Good Lord is cleaning up the countryside again. The snowmobilers are not happy yet though. The trails in this area remain closed. Out in the open, the wind pretty much clears the ground. There are a lot of furrows showing through. Makes for a bumpy ride, let alone tearing up machines and the countryside.

Ice fishermen are happier, since the cooler weather of the past few days has really added to the thickness of the ice on the lakes. There ever are a few shanties out on the lakes now, rather than just canvas shelters. One of the guys at church has really been chaffing at the bit to get out. He is in a bit of a happier mood now and has caught a few fish to show for his efforts too.

A TV station in Milwaukee had their remote truck go through the ice, driving to make a report on the dangerous ice conditions for snowmobilers a bit west of Milwaukee. From the reports here, the gal driving thought she was turning onto a road and went about 150 yards before the van started to break through the ice. It was a channel, fortunately not too deep, up to the windows of the van. It will be staying there for a few days, until the ice can get thicker to support the retrieval equipment. I bet that is a very expensive deal as those trucks are filled with very expensive electronics. Wonder if she will be working somewhere else or just taking a driver’s education course somewhere. Wonder how she explained the incident to her boss? Especially when I see it hit the national TV news this morning. Hmmmmmmmm.

For once I feel really ready for Bible study tomorrow. Not only do I have all of the research finished, but also the workbook questions. A very, very long research paper this week. Something like 42,000 words or many, many pages of double, spaced typewritten pages. If is did it that way. Acts is an interesting book and one that is much different than what I was taught as a youngster. I find it is still hard to break some of those ideas from then. I am getting more from the research than the actual material in the workbook.

Margriet must be getting ready for another ride to the Amish store one of these days. She took inventory of our "dry goods" over the weekend and has a long list of "to-get" on it. I think she is hinting that it is time for us to take a ride somewhere in the near future. I think I can agree to that. Now that there really is some snow on the ground, might as well enjoy the beauty of it! Have a good time along the way too.

This is a pretty dry season without any automobile races on TV. There was a teaser of a program on the 24 Le Mas style race at Daytona Saturday. They showed only about an hour of the actual race, the offered to show us the rest on cable. Kind of like a 1½ hour infomercial. I watched it, then tried to follow it on the web, but with poor results. They really wanted me to go to cable. Even the results after the race today were very poor, at least by NASCAR standards. Oh well, NASCAR starts again in February I think. That isn’t too far off.

Did manage to get some of the bills paid. Most importantly is our property tax bill. Got that in earlier last week. One of the guys from church and I were talking before service about our mutual problems paying taxes in the past. He is an over the road truck driver, so is self-employed. His needs are different than mine were when I had the store, but we each have stories. Talking about it triggered for him the need to pay his property tax. He had set the bill aside and forgotten about it. They are due on Wednesday! He knew what he was going to do after lunch yesterday!

Tonight we are having pasties with Margriet’s famous mushroom gravy for supper. Sure am glad that she made a big pile of them to put into the freezer! I made a large pot of chicken and dumplings for supper on Friday night with enough leftovers for Saturday night too. Last night we had the leftover gravy over some homemade biscuits hot out of the oven. We sure had some good meals from that pot of food! I think we are about out of chicken, so will probably have to pick up more on the next supply run again.

The price of gas had gone up to $2.099/gallon again. Went up 4¢ late last week, then another 5¢ a day later. If it would go down another $1.00/gallon I would be happier. The below $2.00/gallon sure didn’t last long. Should have gone on a trip or something. Don’t think it will drop that much again in the near future. Cold weather has set in finally.

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris <><