Christmas Day

Tomorrow is Christmas and we have a cold front coming in. My wife and have fetched my comfy faux-leather recliner (made from faux that were humanely killed, of course) from storage and it now sits in the addition to the cabin in front of the windows. I am quite content.

Tomorrow's cold front is supposed to bring high winds, rain, and extreme cold to my area. I'm not sure what will actually happen, but I'm not quite prepared. We have days worth of food but our water supply is limited. I forgot to go to town and buy the requisite 200 gallons on Friday and now the fire department (where I pick up the water) is closed until Wednesday. So I had to buy some bottled water at the store with which to make tea (and cocoa). We'll eat off paper plates until Wednesday and the boys will be happy to get a break from washing dishes for a day or two. The paper plates just get dumped into the compost bin to break down. They break down ridiculously fast too. Faster than the sawdust and humanure. It's weird.

We have plenty of wood but I have to get ahead by a few days in cutting it to fit our stove. Our big Magnolia woodstove only has a depth of 18 inches. Unless I cut it myself, I rarely find firewood of that length. I have two cords left of really good and seasoned oak but it's at a standard of about 28 inches. 28 inches! Really! I don't know what the guy was thinking. So I built a little stand to put it on and then I chainsaw about 10 inches off of 3-5 logs at a time. By this time next year we should be bringing in our own firewood so I don't expect this to be a problem in the future.

Tomorrow is Joshua's birthday as well as Christmas, so my wife is making some sort of gluten-free chocolate cake. Those are usually really good. There's been some bread and noodle disasters with the gluten-free stuff, but never a bad chocolate cake. I'm not sure such a thing as bad chocolate cake exists.

I hope the Christmas season finds you in warmth and comfort, with a full body, getting some rest and surrounded by happy loved ones. We don't know what the future may hold, so enjoy these days when they come.