Clark, Wyoming

It's not always easy to get blog posts in on my 3-on, 3-off schedule, and it is going to become harder in the future as our department is going to experiment with a 2-on, 2-off, 3-on, 2-off, 2-on, 3-off schedule with everyone shifting from day-to-night or night-to-day every 14 days.  We will be starting this schedule on April 4 and the test runs through June 30.  Ugghhh.

Last weekend we purchased inexpensive unfinished oak cabinets from Lowe's.  We brought these home and I sanded them down and applied a stain to the face frames and doors.  Bob put three coats of wiping poly on while I was at work.  Today we installed them on the mudroom wall above the freezer chest.  The job isn't perfect, but I know that these cabinets will not be coming off of the wall in an earthquake either!

These cabinets add storage to the mudroom and provide a place to store things that land on top of the freezer lid.

We are having a few warm days here.  I guess our winter weather is very different from what is being experienced on the east coast.  It's hard for me to feel sorry for those folks - they have the snow and ice only every couple of years, but that's an annual fact of winter here.

Bob is looking into ordering a couple more packages of bees.  The man we bought from last year has already sold out.  The next closest apiary selling bees is in Polson, MT.  That's about a 7-hour drive, but I will take time off of work and we will make it into a spring trip.

On Monday evening I begin six weeks of night shift.  It will almost be a relief to be on nights again.  During the day there are lots of eyes watching and lots of needy people in other departments asking us to do their jobs.

Happy New Year !

I worked on New Year's Eve until 2:45 PM, I stayed until after the company-provided lunch of chicken enchiladas and salad.  Then I came home.  Bob made split pea soup with the bone from our Christmas ham.

The days are slowly starting to lengthen.  We have noticed that it was getting dark at 4:30, but it is staying light until after 5:00 PM now.

We had a good fire going in the stove and went to bed early.  We sat up and watched Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin in Times Square for the New Year's Eve special.  We fell asleep before the new year came in.

Today was a beautiful sunny day.  There were zero clouds in the bright blue sky.  Temps eventually warmed up into the 30's today.  The chickens enjoyed their time outside in their yard and they gave us four eggs today.

I have to work tomorrow and Sunday.  I am not sure what we will be doing.  Since the shutdown has not officially ended, I am not sure if we can clean or do any other kind of work.