HighButtonShoethe farm updateNovember 22, 2008...looking at the calendar I see that winter begins December 21st. Wrong. We are now in day 7 of winter. The snow started last Sunday and continues. Today we got a reprieve. Yesterday the sun shone, and minutes later it was snowing so hard you could barely see across the road. It did that all day. I am waiting already for the January thaw. My yearly thoughts on the first snows, besides grumbling and an occasional observance of the sometimes often beauty of it, but more the nuisance of boots, mittens and driving on snow and ice... are that after a few days of snow cover, it seems like we never had spring, summer or fall. It's like we skipped them and it is still just winter. One 12 month season. I mention this to anyone who will listen each winter after several days, sometimes only hours of snow. This year Ronnie said it before me. Unusual for him, as he doesn't mind winter. I had the snow tires put on, on November 14th, with some premonition of the impending snow perhaps, but probably more the weather prediction that it was coming. My beautiful white truck doesn't like to drive in snow without those tires on. Me either, for that fact.So I dug out my snow packs, my ski cap, and am searching for any gloves that might match. So far I have only found the brown jersey gloves that we use on the farm. Mine has a hole in the thumb. Each morning at first light, the birds want breakfast. I try to get at least one cup of coffee in me first, and put my contact lens in, then I am off with the snow shovel to clear the walks, the porches, and the path to the bird feeders. With the bear still around, the feeders must be brought in each night or they are destroyed. Razzle-frazzle. Today, after those chores were done, Ronnie asked me if I wanted to go get the Christmas tree. After following the bear tracks last time in my tree search, and rethinking that fiasco, I agreed. It is deer rifle season here. Besides the bear, it would be wise to protect yourself IN the woods, against any stray bullets. The hay fields are now in snow up to the top of my artic packs. I am no longer allowed to cut a tree myself, as one year long ago, I used one of Ron's good saws to cut a tree. This man just simply does NOT forget my short comings. So now we cut the tree together. Probably a good thing.Anyway, I start off walking back thru the hay fields to my tree I selected before. And Ronnie has the saw, and is driving the New Holland tractor back to load the tree in. The field is full of deer tracks, and as I passed thru the barn yard going up the hill, I saw tracks I assumed was Abbey's ( our golden retriever grand dog), only to find out they are coyote tracks in the fresh snow. 4 coyotes. One big. This is between our house and the chicken coop. I am becoming a better tracker. If I could throw a stone better, I would have been able to hit one from the house. One of my non-talents is my inability to throw a stone straight...or far. Nobody asks me anymore to play on their team for a game of softball. I don't like the varmits moving in so close. The yard and barn yard was absolutely full of rabbit tracks, so I suppose the coyotes were after them.Thinking if I were to get the tree myself, I would have to take my cell phone, the hoe, and a whistle... and probably some old saw with a few straggled teeth still evident that I might find, that would NOT be one of Ron's good saws.. that I would be better hacking the tree off with my hoe... this worked out good with Ronnie along. Ronnie had on his orange hunting coat. All I can find orange is one glove. One!Why IS it in this house, there is always only one glove? I did find two other what used to be dress gloves, one black, one grey and had them on, and tucked the orange glove into the brim of my ski cap. Looking good here.So I am plodding along thru the field, over the hill and back down the other side where the trees are planted, and thinking perhaps the bear (unlike a hunter) would not be able to recognize I had hunter orange in my hat, I was grateful for the sound of the tractor, that would probably deter him more than my orange glove.We found the tree I had marked, got it cut, and Ronnie drove it back up to the house, while I backtracked thru the field again and came home. From the 16 degrees we started with this morning, it had warmed to about 28, so I while correctly decked out with some hunter orange, decided to go to the 40' pines that still ring the hill above my flower gardens and cut my fresh pine boughs that will be all over the house for the holiday season. So that is done. I love fresh boughs and have used them for years to decorate with. This year my decorating will be simple. I say that, but as we all know very well, Christmas decorating can never be defined as simple. I will tell you more of my plans for that in the next newsletter. I know. You wait, in anticipation.Many months after telling you I would share my painting technique of the cupboards to make them look old, I finally have some pictures and the how-to's up on the website.http://www.highbuttonshoe.net/painttech.htm follow this link and it will show some pictures and tell the technique the new Country Home tells, and how I did it which varies slightly, but is basically the same concept. Keep in mind my bathroom vanity, the dark sage green was supposed to be sage green and PUMPKIN, not the Pepto Bismol pink the paint actually looked like. Thus the need for all my coats. I was also quite soundly told by a paint expert after reading my post of it that you CANNOT put a (black) water based wash on after using an oil base stain. "Nothing" will stick to it after doing that when I want to repaint it. I don't want to repaint it. I am happy with what it did, making the cupboards look older yet. However, to be correct here, I will advise you, you will probably not want to put black wash over your oil stain. I did and would again. But you have been advised. And quite honestly, IF you don't like the water based wash, you only have to WASH it off. Duh?As it is time to think of Christmas cards, we are offering new cards for this season along with the former one of the building before the renovations started, featuring the original old door and a simple greens wreath on it, covered in the first snows. They were photographed in the Gundrum Mercantile top floor. The 1882 building top floor has had nothing done to it, so the years of dust and neglect only add to the old wood walls, and the pictures were taken with natural light from the old windows. The carved Santa was made for me in 1989 by dear friend Larry Raab, before he died the next spring. I treasure it. The photographs are the property of HighButtonShoe and cannot be reprinted for personal/commercial /card use. http://www.highbuttonshoe.net/cards08.htm They have a simple message handwritten in them. I could cheerfully spend hours in the top of this old building and often do. It is not heated so the cold often creeps into your bones after a while, but it is so mesmerizing to be there and mentally envision all the memories this old room holds and if its walls could speak. To me, they do speak. I listen to their stories, and try to capture them in photographs. While I am usually poorly attired for work in this building, as my job for the time is more in construction, and my clothes fit that description, I am so blessed to work in this building. Like coffee on my front porch, sitting for a spell in any of these rooms takes me off to another time, another era. I wish you could all spend time with me there. Hopefully you will see some of it in my photographs.Ok, we have to be off early, back to the Gundrum for an unusual Sunday 7AM delivery of the table tops (that will go on the cast iron pedestal bases that came Friday) and then off to breakfast with the owners. We are working feverishly with deliveries trying to ready the eatery for its first dinner there next Sunday to honor Ron's sisters birthday. I will be working all week getting things together and cleaned. We are hoping for a December opening. My heart smiles.I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. We are celebrating with the kids on Friday as Cheryl has to work at the hospital on Thursday. With my small oven, I can no longer cook a turkey. Am I dumb, or what? so Beulah is hosting us all.Thank you for asking to be a part of our farm and life.Should you not, merely reply with remove and I will kindly do so.in fond regard,Tilda,no matching gloves,the tracker,have to buy new tree lightscomplainer of snow