What a Difference a Day Makes

January first began warm and wet.  It was above 40 degrees--remember we're talking Michigan on January first here (40 being very warm for January)--and the ground was muddy.  DH had recently been up north to the cabin on what was once part of the old family farm (his great-grandparents?  or was it the great-greats? who lived there first).  Anyway, because the weather was so unseasonably warm, he dug up some overcrowded young pine trees and brought them home for transplanting. He grew up just a few miles down the road from the cabin, in Michigan's northwoods, and with 30 acres of field at this little place here, he's always willing to add more trees. 

After we got home from church on the first, he and I went outside to plant those little trees.  It took all of about half an hour, and when we were done, the gray sky was spitting rain, and a wind was kicking up from the west.  We gladly went inside and snuggled up on the couch to watch the Lions/Packers game on TV.  Across the bottom of the screen, winter weather advisories were scrolling, warning us of winds 45-50 mph, falling temps, and the possibility of 1-5" of snow in the next 24 hours.

Shortly after half-time began (and I was making chicken wings in the deep fryer), the electricity went out.  It proceeded to stay out for the next seven hours.  Not a huge deal at this little place here (other than missing the second half of the game), as the cabin up north has neither electricity, nor running water, nor indoor plumbing.  That's where we go for "fun" and "relaxation", LOL.  So we just adjusted our dinner plans to something that could be cooked on the gas cook top, went into water conservation mode (ie no flushing), and when the sun went down, we lit a few oil lamps.  Instead of TV and Internet, we had an evening of board games and euchre with the teens.  Family fun for everyone!

The next morning, DH and I were extremely glad we'd planted those trees when we had.  The ground, which had been so soft and spring-like the morning before, was now thoroughly frozen.  So frozen, in fact, that DH was able to drive the tractor out across the field without making even a tire track.

He and the two DDs took the trailer and chainsaw out to the edge of the woods, where late last summer we'd felled some dead trees and left them with the intent to haul them in once the ground froze in the fall.  This was the first time since then the ground had been frozen enough to drive the tractor over (it's been really rainy/warm this fall).   They spent a couple of hours outside in single-digit wind chills cutting up those trees into firewood, which they loaded onto the trailer and brought back up to the stack near the wood burner.

heading across the frozen field

DD2 piling brush (small limbs), DD1 loading trailer, DH (orange hat behind trailer) cutting up tree trunk

to give you some idea of distance from edge of yard to edge of woods

What a difference a day makes!  In just 24 hours we went from planting trees in warm, soggy ground, to crossing the frozen field with a tractor and many hundred pounds of wood.  (And as you can see, we didn't get the snow they were predicting.)