Older Daughter's new digs

Older Daughter has been living in her new digs – a studio apartment in an older building – for over a month now.

A month is enough time to figure out whether you really like a place or not. And I must say, Older Daughter stinkin' loves this studio.

Except for the stairs.

(We actually gifted her with a three-wheeled grocery stair-climbing cart popular in places like New York City to make the trek up those stairs easier when carrying loads.)

But aside from that, she's happy as a clam. There is a lot to see from her massive ten-foot-wide window, and a lot of things to do in the immediate area.

As with any relocation, the first couple weeks were rough. Where to put everything? What to keep, what to donate? How does such-and-such fit into this new space? Arrgghh!

But then, gradually, order came from chaos. And then comfort came from order. Next thing you know, she has a cozy home.

Also, Frumpkin ("The cat who fell upstairs") is also settling in, and has claimed one of Older Daughter's thrifted chairs as his new throne.

I mean ... lord of his domain, am I right?

She says the kitchen is one of the nicest aspects of the studio. It's spacious and has loads of storage. Older Daughter has become something of a gourmet cook, so having adequate space to prepare nice meals is a bonus.

Here she made a lemon-blueberry loaf.

She has a desk for her computer. This will become especially needed when her coursework starts.

And that window simply dominates the space. It's stunning.

Here's what it looks like from the outside.

So yes, her new digs are wonderful. She's so pleased that she actually baked some cookies and brought them to the property management's office to express her satisfaction. If all goes well, she'll be living here for the duration of her schooling ... and maybe even beyond, if she ends up getting a local job after graduation.

So for now, she's settled in.

All that fur...!

Older Daughter snapped this picture of her cat Frumpkin and sent it to me with the caption, "Guess whose winter coat is coming in?"

She also wanted to assure readers that "He's at a perfectly healthy weight underneath all that fur."

A cat in the house

Older Daughter was away for a week, house-sitting for some friends several hours away. This meant Frumpkin, her cat, was alone on her side of our house. (For those unfamiliar with the story, we partitioned our house several years ago when Older Daughter took over our woodcraft business. Her suite has the two tiny bedrooms, a bathroom, and a "catio" porch with her own outside door.)

Anyway, normally when Older Daughter leaves for any length of time, either Don or I will go into Older Daughter's suite to play with Frumpkin and give him some attention and affection. But this time, since she was going to be gone for so long, we took the easy way out. We opened the connecting door and just let him out into the main part of the house.

We figured it was easier to just let Frumpkin be part of the household (during the times Lihn the parrot was in her cage, of course) than to spend time giving him attention on his side.

Both Frumpkin and Darcy were both gentlemen about the arrangement. Mr. Darcy hates all cats, but he knows by now that Frumpkin is the exception, so he tolerated him very well.

After spending the first hour or two exploring, Frumpkin – in typical cat fashion – spent the rest of the time sleeping in various locations.

Here he's curled up on the leather welder's gloves we keep next to the woodstove. No spot in the house is warmer!

For a full week, he just luxuriated wherever his little heart desired.

I think he tried out every chair.

Yet another chair.

Darcy and Frumpkin came to a truce during this time, and the lion laid down with the lamb quite often.

Interestingly, I wondered if we were creating a monster during the week. Would Frumpkin yowl and scratch at the connecting door, demanding to be let out once Older Daughter returned?

In fact, no. He's so thrilled to have Older Daughter back that we haven't heard a peep from her suite. I guess all is right with the world once more.

Snow whomp + power outage

If I've been silent for the last couple of days, it's because we finally got our power back on. It went out late Tuesday night after we got a snow whomp. It looks like winter arrived at last.

I mean, seriously. While the rest of the country already had their snow whomps, we were mild and snow-free. Sure, we had some chilly temps, but otherwise bare ground.

All that changed this past week. At first it was just a soft and picturesque snowfall of a couple inches.

The cows didn't seem overly fazed.

Most of the snow melted off over the next couple of days. And then, overnight, WHOMP.

Unsurprisingly, we lost power during this blitz. Out here, the power grid goes down for seemingly any reason: a heavy snowfall, a wind, a Tuesday. We knew this was likely to happen and had everything prepped just in case.

The cows were a little more fazed by this snowfall. We decided to keep them in the corral for immediate access to shelter. Filet, our stand-offish formerly-range-cow Angus, is due to calve sometime in the next month (probably less), and we don't want to be chasing down a new baby in deep snow on the far side of the pasture.

I took a yardstick into the yard and measured how much snow fell overnight.

Twelve and a half inches of new snow, and we've gotten more since.

It almost came over the tops of my boots.

The effect was very pretty...

...especially after the clouds cleared and it turned into a strikingly sunny day.

The snowfall was an opportunity for every man in the neighborhood to climb onto whatever equipment he had available, and work to clear the road. I counted at least six different neighbors on six different pieces of equipment, not counting Don's efforts.

I kept the bird feeder filled, since I knew the feathered ones would have a hard time finding food under such conditions.

The quail had to literally break trails in the snow.

Since Older Daughter's side of the house isn't heated during power outages, she let Frumpkin (her cat) into the main part of the house (making sure Lihn the parrot was safely in her cage, of course). Frumpkin was fascinated by the activity at the bird feeder. Cat TV.

Toward dusk, we took Mr. Darcy for his afternoon walk and noted a large herd of elk, at least 25 animals, spread across a neighbor's field.

We lit the oil lamps and settled in for an evening of reading. Frumpkin was perched on Older Daughter's lap, looking quite pleased with himself.

The power stayed off for forty-eight hours, through clear sunny days and very dark nights.

Don used the back blade on the tractor to plow the lower driveway.

Frumpkin stayed in the main part of the house, looking very cute...

...while Darcy looked very worried. "That cat isn't supposed to BE here."

The power came back on early Friday morning and life got back to normal. And the elk? Well, they went strolling by right below the house. Gorgeous.