Building "My" House.

I have to admit, I pay a lot of attention to the weather these days. I mean, like, a lot of attention. Our goals for the week depend on what the weather is doing so we check and re-check the forecasts and adjust our plans accordingly.  And there are delays. I mean, it's winter. We expected delays. It was either that or wait until spring to start building. Our line of thinking was that even if we don't make that much progress over the winter, we'll still be that much further ahead come spring. Makes sense, right? So why do I resent it now for being winter? I think I am just going to continue to work on being thankful. For whatever weather we have. Snow, rain or sun.  And I think we've had them all this week.

Was I kidding?

This snow fall caused more than a few days delay in getting the floor finished.

The cows don't seem to be bothered by the snow but I'm sure even they are longing for the long, hot days of summer. 

The result of having a metal roof. This happened at 1:30 in the morning and shook the whole trailer. The weather has been very mild the last couple of days and the snow wasted no time in coming down. We can't usually walk from the ground on to the roof.

Someone has some work to do. 

We had a couple days of intense rain as the temperature warmed up. 

Drilling a hole into concrete to secure a post that will support the floor.

 

Hopefully, now when we shovel the snow out of the basement, it will stay out of the basement.

The larger space in between the joists is where the stairs will be.

The finished floor. 

Now we have switched from snow and rain to fog.  Believe it or not it was a gorgeous, sunny day in town today. 11 degrees and it felt like spring. I wish I had taken some pictures. On the drive home, the farther we got from town, the darker it started to get. As we drove up the hill toward home, the sun disappeared completely and we could barely see the road. Yesterday, we were driving on the highway, doing 20 km in a 90 km zone. The road just disappeared.

There is a tree line there, somewhere. Hard to believe it's a sunny day just 15 minutes away.

So, we've turned our attention to things inside this week. We are getting caught up on some things that we have got behind on (I'm thankful for that!) and we've started a few new projects. We usually make soap  in the summer but we ran out and we didn't want to wait that long.

Hannah is mixing up some Pumpkin Pie Spice soap. Yum, it smells good. We also made Coconut soap. For those of us who don't mind smelling more... fruity. 

This was the first time we used the tallow from our own cows. The grass fed fat turned the soap a little more yellow than we are used to (you can't really tell from the picture) but other than that, it looks great. Now to wait for it to cure!

The Spice soap needs some more trimming but we'll wait until after it's cured and safer to handle. It has lye in it so it's caustic right now. We love the Homestead Blessings series, if you are interested. We used the recipe from The Art of Soapmaking.

The lesson for me here, is that if I change my attitude, it is easy to see that there is lots to be thankful for. My attitude, even about things like the weather, speaks volumes to those around me. Whether I choose to be thankful or if I choose to complain, I'm setting an example for those around me. Proverbs talks about a wise woman building her house but the foolish woman tears hers down with her own hands. Did you miss that? With her own hands. In all I do throughout my day, I am either building my house or tearing it down. What a sobering thought.

The weather might not be co-operating with us outside but that means we can turn our attention to other things and for that, I am thankful.

The wise woman builds her house, 
but the foolish tears it down with her own hands. 

Proverbs 14:1