Letters From “The Old Manse” #13(feb 8\15)

Lucky 13………. theme this letter is snow……..snow……more snow…and where do you put that snow.

So in the past say 9 days we have received about 5ft of snow……..that is a lot of the white stuff!  My last post this past Tuesday was a snow day and a power out day.  We had another snow storm Thursday night into Friday and we received another 20cms……can you see Rusty smiling?…nope not at all!  That is a lot of snow to take care of and thank God for our awesome neighbors Orville and Charlotte……Orville has been gracious enough to clear our driveway of some of that big snow:).

I am not complaining as I was saying to Rusty in the car on the way home from grocery shopping last night – it doesn’t feel as bad this year even though we have received a lot more snow (to date) then we got last year – which was a record breaking year for snow.  I guess the big difference is that we are not having 2-3 storms a week and I guess I became well seasoned from last year.  Although we have had some very powerful nor’easters with wind gusts over 100km it doesn’t bother me as much this year as it did last year.  Not sure just where anymore snow is going to go as its not going to melt anytime soon but at least we don’t have the worry of it melting and filling the basement with water as we have our new foundation in place.  But it is a lot of snow and Rusty goes out when he has the engery to chop away at the snow banks to make our driveway a little more wider:)

So we had one official snow-day and one late-start-to-the-work-day on Friday.  We had to take the main highway all the way to Borden-Carleton  which was down to one lane due to the very bad snow drifts (going east bound in the west bound lanes is not nice)…..but then again driving on our roads out here is nothing compared to get 5cm of snow and driving on the roads in the city in Ontario.  It simply did not add 2 hours to our commute only about 10-15 extra minutes and the fact that we only see a handful of cars in our travels is awesome.

I have to say that the beautiful scenery as we travel is something to take in.  Picture it with me…….the heavy laden snow on the evergreen trees resting low for the weight of the snow….its out of snowy Christmas pictures. 


We put out oiled sunflower seeds for the birds cause they are all scavenging for food now that there is so much snow around…..its so beautiful to wake up listening to the birds chirping outside looking out the window and seeing blue jays, juncos, chickadees, ravens – and some other birds that I am not sure of their identity yet.  This is such a simple life that I wouldn’t change.  It totally beats the traffic of the busy city we came from with cars, trucks and sirens daily.

We may not have lots of material possessions but opted to have what we feel is important for us to live and actually enjoy each day.  We are not bogged down with trying to work harder and longer to pay for an expensive big house fully loaded or a fancy car that is only going to be expensive to fix when it breaks down.  We don’t wear designer clothing as i don’t think it would be practical doing some of the chores around the house because $200 fancy heeled leather boots won’t get me through the snow in the backyard to the chicken coop and barn:)  My Mark’s Work Wearhouse warm boots are just fine.  As well there is nobody I need to impress with fancy clothing when we go to church because we fellowship with blue collar workers, farmers, and just average people and that’s more important ……… fellowshiping, friendship and being real:)

Now I know the life we choose to follow our dreams is not for everyone but it is perfect for us and we find that we have conversations with people that wish they could do what we do.  Guess what? You can!  You can have a more simpler life….. it is available you just need to decide what is important to you.   I don’t have flowers in my garden to stop and sniff just yet but that’s coming and besides it’s winter right now….just a little cold for flowers…… he he.

But I am glad that what motivates Russ and I is time spent together, renovating our old house, growing our own veggies and having chicks to cluck with and having a deeper relationship with Christ and with each other.  We pray together daily we talk about God a lot and how He leads every aspect of our lives we trust God more with everyday living….this is the important “stuff” that we didn’t a lot of time to do when our lives were so busy with working everyday to afford things we thought were important, material things that you can’t take with you.  We have the time to discuss life and we give each other the respect to our attention as we are not bogged down in our minds with so many distractions.  I love my husband Rusty so much and I have learned so much more about him in the past year and three months being here that I didn’t know before.  We spend time together listening to each other and lets face it there are not a lot of places to escape too in the country so if we haven’t hurt each other with all the time we spend together, which we haven’t …..we have definitely gotten closer.

Rusty is an amazing strong person and I love to laugh at his funny musings and stories and tidbits he learns and shares with me:) even the videos of bad lip reading in football plus the funny dreams he has at night whereby he sets his brothers front porch on fire:).  I hope that you all get a chance to spend some extra time with your love ones and get to know them better and discover what is important in life:)

So onto more everyday stuff…..its cold today but warm by the fire and we are gonna have spareribs for dinner tonight…… and please continue to pray for my health and for the job at the GST office to open up really soon:)

Thanks everyone for listening to my thoughts:)