It's a Beginning

 It was only 66 degrees in the house when we woke up this morning. Mark got busy building a fire in the wood burner then went to find the problem. It turned out to be a simple fix. When we lost our electricity yesterday Mark turned the furnace off so it wouldn't draw any power away from what the generator was generating for the rest of the house then forgot to turn it back on once we had power.  I saw lights out in the barn around 6:00 am and thought I must have forgotten to turn off the lights last night but I was wrong. Philip was in the barn and fixed the kitchen sink hot water faucet. I was so thankful for that as the barn is rented for a wedding reception for over 100 people on Friday and Saturday. I took a box and the golf cart over to bring home all of the dishes from last night and once those were put away made Mark a nice breakfast. 

On the way up to the barn I had to take a picture of Lea and Blueberry out grazing.

It is so nice the we had this small break from the bitter cold. The ground is no longer frozen and the grass is even growing a bit. Lea saw me and came right up to the fence for attention.

Mike and Diane made it  home from Gulf Shores last night so Mike went right out to check on the horses at Middle Grove and sent back the next three pictures.

They all seem to be doing fine. Phil and Anna came back later this morning and put down the lines for the rest of the basketball court and the pickle ball court. The gym now has a regulation size volley ball court, full basketball court complete with the 3 point arc and the free throw line and a regulation size pickle ball court.

Best of all it also comes with all the balls and equipment to play the games plus plenty of roller blades and other fun rolling things.

They all had a lot of fun today playing pickle ball.

I was looking for an extension cord in the barn and found the battery lights we used to decorate the horses manes and tails for the shows so took some packages over to put some in the barn. The star that was going to go on the Christmas tree was just too heavy so Anna put that in the kitchen window.

I had just put the lights on the desk when someone sent a message about taking mom to the deck to see the strange birds huddling in the lake. They would take off flying then come zooming back in. They look like a flock of sea gulls but we have never seen sea gulls in this area.

I took the golf cart over to see them and took the video below off mom's deck.

They were gone by this evening. John was at mom's visiting, Diane stopped in to visit and then Joan stopped in to show us her war wounds. There are actually 3 different breaks in the radius. Two probably wont need much to heal but one looked pretty bad and Joan may need to have a plate put in.  

Diane told me she put a nativity scene on the barn desk so I stopped in to see that on my way home.

That inspired me to do a little decorating myself and put those battery lights in the windows in the form like a candle.

My mistake was turning them on to blink. I took the video below to show how annoying those are.

Tomorrow before church I will turn those off, it is too late to go over tonight. Hopefully they won't bother mom or Karin too much tonight. Those are the only people that can actually see them. 

The extension cord was plugged into the lights that I put on the bushes two years ago. Those bushes have grown and the lights need to be redistributed but not tonight. 

I was just pleased they were still lighting up. It's starting to look like Christmas.

Dan finished another song last night. This one is different from his last but I really like it. It is The Cross to the Throne