First snow of the season

After having the warmest October on record, and an unseasonably warm November, the real winter weather is finally here. This does not exactly make me happy. I know if my children were still small, they'd all be outside sledding and building snow people. But they're all grown, and single-digit temperatures and snow just make me worry about what's going to go wrong. Sure enough, this morning we woke up to learn that we have no heat. Luckily we have a wood stove in the basement, so we have it blazing, as well as a space heater, so we're not freezing, even though it was 5 degrees outside when we woke up today.

Julia the pig is due on Thanksgiving day, and I kept worrying that we'd go outside this morning to find a bunch of dead and frozen piglets, but I'm happy to report that she is still keeping those babies warm inside her big belly. We opened the door to the kidding barn a couple of days ago, hoping that she'd go in there because it's warmer than the pasture shelter they normally use. If she doesn't figure it out today, we'll lure her in there with some goat milk. The size of those teats is making me think she may not wait until Thanksgiving.

I'm excited that all three of my children will be home for Thanksgiving. Today's photos were all taken by my youngest. She arrived at 11:00 last night, driving across some pretty treacherous roads to get here. She counted at least 15 trucks in the ditches along I-80 and I-39. Everyone else will be arriving on Tuesday, including her boyfriend from Colorado, which is where she is going to graduate school.

I wish I could share all 150 of her pictures with you, but neither you nor I have the time for that, so these are a few of my favorites ...