Winter Seems To Be Here

It has been snowing non-stop for pretty much 4 or 5 days. Not the lake effect snow, where it builds up at the rate of an inch an hour, that would be a lot of snow (and how cool would that be???). But this little piddly flurry stuff that just floats around and finally lands. It will do this now pretty much all winter long. There isn't a lot of snow on the ground, but it's there. As is the cold. This, I don't like. I love the snow, bring it on, but the cold brings with it a whole host of "stuff".
For one....the water in the barn is now officially frozen. When I lift up the handle to the pump, nothing happens. Well, that's not true. This following is what happens:
Lift up handle to pump.
Figure out nothing is coming out.
Go find the heat lamps.
Set up heat lamps to try to get the water thawed out.
Get bales of straw to stack in and around the pump house.
Get old blankets and sleeping bags to wrap around pump.
Come back a half hour later to see if the pump is thawed yet, (which last night it wasn't, so the heat lamps have been on all night.)
I hope it is thawed this morning. Otherwise I'll be hauling water for horses and cows again. That's a lot of water.

I know what you're saying. "Um, excuse me, doesn't this happen every year? Wouldn't you think you'd be ready for it? Like, already have this plan in place?"
Oh come on! You know better than that!

All of this brings me to a comment I had to make on another's blog. (I have no idea how I made that leap, but I got there, so can you!) Apparantly the cost to feed Thanksgiving Dinner to 10 people should cost around 44 bucks, acording to the Farm Bureau.
Let's see, my turkey, vegies and pumpkin (for pies) are all home grown - not much cost there because I DO NOT count labor of love.
The pie shells, and rolls are home made, the pumpkin for the pies is home grown and the berries are picked out of the woods.

The butter and whipped cream are home made, just because I can!

I suppose it's doable, but in today's society, not every has those skills or the opportunities that I have. (a 1 acre garden fertilized daily by just about every critter known to man, except water buffalo).

This life is great! In a time when the world around us seems to be collapsing, we are safe, warm, well fed and now that gas has gone back down, not really noticing a whole lot in the cost of food.

Oh, wait a minute, there is the cost for toilet paper for all of those people! What was I thinking!