Today is Older Daughter's birthday!
We had nothing special planned for the day – we're not big on going overboard for birthdays – but we got her a French silk pie and a gift card to her favorite café, and that was about the extent of it.
But we're all together and all healthy, so that's what matters.
And here's the obligatory newborn photo, just to embarrass her (smile).
Well, yesterday's windstorm has come and gone. Rather to our surprise, we only lost power for about eight hours.
Don was listening to the radio drama on the sheriff's scanner, and let me tell you, there was mayhem all over the region. Every law enforcement officer, emergency response personnel, and power company lineman was on duty, trying to keep ahead of the chaos. There were trees and power lines down everywhere. Many roads were additionally blocked by falling rocks.
"Well, it's a good time for a little day drinking," joked Older Daughter at 7:45 am, putting a dollop of Irish cream in her hot chocolate.
The wind was positively insane. We expected trees down all over the place, but the only damage we noticed on our property was a tree toppled over in our tiny grove of black hawthorn.
The same couldn't be said for a neighbor, who had a massive pine come down just behind his pickup truck, blocking him in. Miraculously his vehicle escaped all but minor scratches, but he said it took him four hours to chainsaw up the tree enough to clear the blockage.
During the day, when Older Daughter's side of the house was getting chilly, she opened the connecting door and let Frumpkin into the main part of the house, where the woodstove kept things cozy. Darcy – who hates cats – understands this is one cat towards whom he must be respectful. He's a Good Boi, is Darcy.
Frumpkin was very curious about the Christmas tree.
Even though the wind was still shrieking, somehow the hard-working linemen managed to get our power back on by mid-afternoon.
Our pastor called in the evening to check in on us. Even though he and his family are at a higher elevation and had stronger winds, their power had stayed on and they were fine. However he told us an older couple in our church had part of their roof torn off. Another family had something like 40+ trees come down on their property, taking out most of the fences and causing them to scramble to contain livestock. They're still without power and are staying with our pastor for a few days.
Don and I told our pastor we're available to help re-shingle roofs or re-string fences as necessary. At this point everyone is still assessing damage, so we'll find out more in the next couple of days.
We have snow and rain moving in today and tomorrow, with wind (not as strong) predicted for tonight. You can see some snow flurries in front of the mountains below.
I guess it's winter.
We are expecting high winds (and a bit of rain) in the next 24 hours (Tuesday night into Wednesday morning).
The weather report is full of dire warnings about gusts up to 60 to 70 mph.
We're not the only ones impacted. It's being called a "coast to coast storm."
Ever since the "Windstorm 2015" ten years ago (considered by the regional power company to be the worst disaster in its 100+ year history), we've taken threats of wind very seriously.
I realize our weather is mild compared to the bitter cold they're experiencing in the northeast, or the catastrophic flooding hitting the Pacific northwest. Nonetheless, as with any winter weather, it's best to hope for the best but brace for the worst.
We're in a reasonably protected area, so I don't expect too much impact from the wind. What we do expect, however, is for the power to go out, perhaps for days.
The wind is supposed to hit overnight, so we spent today battening down the hatches. We cleaned up the porches, put things away in the yard, and moved hay under cover. We tied down tarps and coiled hoses.
The weather isn't particularly cold, but I brought in an extra load of firewood to store on the porch anyway.
I vacuumed the house and did laundry. We all took showers.
We tipped the porch rockers over, since we know from experience they'll get tipped anyway.
We charged all the battery backups...
...as well as our rechargeable lanterns.
We topped off the oil lamps as well.
Earlier we had drained our 1500-gallon roof-runoff water tank, predicting cold weather (the tank isn't insulated, so we drain it in the winter). However we decided to let it refill a bit, just in case we need livestock water or additional household water.
I made an extra loaf of bread.
I also tied the cattle panels to the diagonal poles around the peaches and blueberries. High winds tend to knock over the panels, which is annoying but not damaging.
In general, however, we're pretty well prepared for multi-day power outages. We've been through them before. Besides, for all we know, this whole thing will be a big nothingburger.
But then again, it may not.
In years past, often I made homemade Irish cream as Christmas presents for neighbors ... and oh yeah, maybe a lil bit for ourselves as well. This year, both Don and Older Daughter requested that I make a small batch for Christmas.
The recipe I use is found in the incomparable book Cheaper and Better.
Here's the recipe. The ingredients should be added in the order listed:
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups sweetened condensed milk
• 1 teaspoon chocolate syrup
• 1 teaspoon instant coffee
• 2 cups vodka
• 2 cups heavy cream
1. Beat eggs until thick and lemon-colored. Slowly add the rest of the
ingredients one at a time, beating well after each addition.
2. Pour mixture into clean dark bottles and let it rest for one week before drinking. Mixture will keep for up to 3 months in the fridge or 1 month on the pantry shelf. Yield: 46 ounces
The recipe multiplies very easily. This time, I chose to two-and-a-half times it.
Here are the ingredients:
Mixing the sweetened condensed milk into the beaten eggs. It's important to add the ingredients in the order listed, because the alcohol denatures the egg proteins. Mixing it incorrectly could end up with something like alcoholic scrambled eggs, eww.
Adding the instant coffee and chocolate syrup:
Mixing in the vodka and cream.
Whenever we come across dark-brown bottles, we keep them. Here I'm draining four cleaned bottles:
Filling the bottles can be tricky. In theory, shining a flashlight through the bottle will tell me the level of the fluid inside so I don't overflow the bottle. In reality, the bottles are so dark that the flashlight is largely useless.
Case in point.
A better technique is simply to use the volume labeled on the bottle itself (usually 750 ml), and measure the liquid as I pour it in.
After all four bottles were filled, I still had about a pint of Irish cream left over, so I just put it in a pint jar.
Then I labeled when the Irish cream would be ripe and ready to drink.
Here's the evening's loot. I put the bottles in a dark closet to ripen until Christmas. A couple of bottles will doubtless find their way into neighbors' homes.
True story: The first time I made homemade Irish cream (around 2005), we had no idea how it would taste. We tried it after returning home from a Christmas Eve candlelight service at our church. After tucking our
weary children into bed, Don and I decided to break open a bottle of the homemade
stuff and toast in Christmas. I remember we paused, glasses full, and wondered if we
were about to poison ourselves. Then we took a sip. Absolutely
delicious.
Honestly, this stuff is better than Bailey's for a fraction of the cost. Try it! It's easy and cheap, and it makes wonderful Christmas presents.
A word of warning: It's very strong. As in,
don't-you-dare-think-you-can-drive type of strong. One glass of this
and my cheeks are flushed. But man oh man, is it good. You'll never go
back to the store-bought stuff after tasting this.
