A Cold and Windy Canyon Morning

On a cold and wintry morning, I got up early as I always do. Tried to write a blog post after breakfast, but didn't feel inspired so instead I read a few blogs and left comments. 

Outside, the sun tried to break through the clouds with little success and the wind was howling. Early. The wind here usually comes up around ten in the morning, but yesterday it started around seven. Not a good sign. 

After hubby woke up and had his morning tea, I put on this: My favorite wool scarf, my new earmuffs that I found at K-Mart on my one shopping trip last year. I know how much my ears hurt in the wind and when I spotted them I knew I had to have them. And they really help in the cold wind with my little hat and big, old, Swedish mittens. 

I got Soldier ready with his raggedly leash and followed hubby and the other dogs out for our walk. Soldier came cantering through the dog yard when he saw me come, so excited to go for his walk. And how he walks. His recovery is remarkable. He is now able to stretch out his hind legs, where before he could only sort of hop along. You can see the good stretch in the picture here. Soldier, Angel and I walked for over an hour. 

My husband always takes Samson for another half an hour or so, since he is the young one and needs to get exercised. I really felt that more than an hour for Soldier and me was fantastic and I've sort of gotten used to Angel's old age  feats. She is just remarkable and I'm so happy she's having such a good old age.

After I got back, it was time for some morning chores. First I had to run around after some recycle stuff that was not secure in the trash cans as the lids had blown off. Some cans and bottles managed to blow all the way to the bottom of the yard, down by our field. After that, I cleaned the dog yard and filled the water bowl.

Most of the laundry that had been on the line all night was dry. Remarkable, since it was still early and very cold. That's what a good wind does up here. We don't have an electric dryer and I really don't feel a need for one. It's amazing how much I am enjoying this sort of primitive life here in the canyon.

I brought the dry laundry in the house and folded it. Then my husband made a fire to warm up the place. We have two really good heaters now, but a fire is nice and it has been so warm this winter that we haven't used the fireplace much.

We heated up some of last summer's vegetable soup for lunch. It's so good this soup my husband made last summer with veggies from our garden and some more from the store added. Hot and spicy and just right on a cold winter's day.

And in the afternoon I worked on cleaning out my files and purging. I actually finished the job and reduced stuff in the two-drawer filing cabinet by about a third. I so wish I could have done better. I feel like I'm drowning in papers and stuff and wish I could just burn it all. But at least part one of my purging project is done. Now I move on to the next step. More about that some other time.