Things that go bump in the night

We spent the last night of February in the same way we have the last 59 nights of 2018, tucked into our sleeping bags under the stars. A light snow fell as we said our good nights and I love you’s to each other and the kiddos. While Erik never seems to wonder or worry about things that come alive in the night, I am regularly thinking about what happens if we have a middle of the night visitor. We have cans of bear spray and a couple pepper sprayers in our possession, but both suggest on the label that they should not be kept in temperatures under 10 degrees. Keeping them near us would mean slipping them into our sleeping bag, as we do with our water bottles so they don’t freeze. But there’s something about snugging up next to Erik, the smallest of our dogs Willie Nelson, a couple of water bottles and a few cans of bear spray that just seems a little busy. 

Up til now we have had no visitors. There have been many nights when Waylon, our Rottweiler, jumps the gate and runs into the woods in the middle of the night. Smelling, sensing, hearing something we can not. He always comes back breathless and chatty, ready to share his adventure. But I mean... that’s a lot right?  

As the weather warms up the truth is we are almost 100% guaranteed to have something, be it a fox, a black bear or god forbid, a big CAT sniffing around our sleeping quarters. And I just want to be, you know... prepared! Warmer weather will mean the cans of bear spray and pepper spray won’t freeze, so there’s some comfort there. But what I am really excited about is the opportunity to eventually make a sleeping porch that is a little more fortified. That’s a ways a way though. There are more than a few things on our to-do list to the house, the first of which is to BUY it! And before that even, we will be putting a new roof on it. Right now the house has wood shingles. They are old and dry and blow off when we have big wind storms. We collect them and use them to start fires in the wood stoves, which is exactly what they would do if there were ever a house fire. Insurance companies don’t like that.... but a new metal roof will be installed sometime in the next couple of months. We also need to replace all of the windows in the house. Currently they have the R-Value of a Kleenex. I think I mentioned in my last post that one of the storm windows actually blew off in a wind storm in January. The glass is thin and not tempered and broke into about 10,000 tiny little pieces all over the yard. Good times. 

Never a dull moment up here that’s for sure. 

But the promise of continuing to make this home the one we live out our lives in is worth every little bit of the challenges and opportunities it presents. Some of what is to come in the blog will be about this process. We love this home and the history it offers. It is filled the stories of the family that built it and lived in it for 40 plus years. We have grown to know and love them and feel truly blessed to share this space they created together. 

With that I leave you.

Be well and do what you love with those that make you happy. 

Until next time.