I had a strangely rough night last night. I wasn’t able to sleep, so when I heard my older daughter taking a break from work at about 3am, and we grabbed something to eat. Just as I settled down, I started to sneeze.
And sneeze.
And sneeze.
For the next hour, at least, I was either sneezing or fighting off sneezes. I have no idea what I was reacting to! Yes, I took antihistamines, but they made no difference.
I did finally get an hour of two of sleep, waking up as it started to get light out. I messaged with my brother and SIL a bit about tomorrow – though that may change – and meeting up at my mother’s apartment, then headed outside to do the morning routine.
The wind was brutal. We’d had a bit of snow during the night, which was actually appreciated, as the paths I wasn’t able to spread ashes over, plus the driveway were not as slippery. On the down side, the paths were also starting to fill in and drifts starting to form. Nothing to complain about, really. As the storm moved across the prairies, highways were being closed all over the place. The local highways group had people posting about poor visibility and road conditions, but they were still passable.
Once I was done, though, I had enough energy to grab some instant oatmeal for breakfast and then crashed for several hours, completely embedded by cats. I think they were cold!
We had a couple of packages we ordered that had reached the city, and my husband got a notification that one of them had arrived at our local post office. I decided to wait until the post office closed then reopened at 2pm, though, and sure enough the second package arrived from the city, too. So I headed out after the post office reopened.
Straight into a brutal wind. Conditions had definitely worsened. A drift was starting to form in front of the garage door that I had to shovel out before I could leave. The wonderful plow job on our gravel roads was being drifted over, and visibility was poor.
Thankfully, I only had to go a few miles.
One of the packages was a new office chair for my husband, to replace his broken one. He’s been using a small armchair for the past while, and it’s brutal on his back injury. Picking up the chair was not something that was going to wait!
As I write this, we are still at -15C/5F. When I got home, the wind chill was -35C/31F, but it has since dropped to -37C/-35F.
Tomorrow is supposed to be colder, and almost as windy.
Hopefully, my brother’s schedule will allow him to postpone going to my mother’s for a day!
As soon as we got the box inside, my daughter immediately started to assemble the chair for her father. While she worked on that, my husband got to check out the new “toy” he picked up, as something to keep in the truck.
Or for me to keep handy while working outside after the snow is gone.
My husband does like his unique multi-tools!
Yeah. It’s a hammer, axe, multi-tool, with holster.
The second picture shows it opened up.
We were pleasantly surprised by the quality, to be honest. That axe is sharp! The knife is really good, too, and the screwdriver/file/bottle opener is also solid. The pliers don’t seem to be as strong, but it’s not going to be seeing heavy duty work. The hammer has surprising heft to it, and is actually useable.
I didn’t spot where they opened as I quickly looked at it, but there are several screwdriver tips in the handle that fit into the top of the axe/hammer head. There’s also a magnesium rod tucked in there somewhere, with a built in whistle.
I’m going to have to grab it from my husband and look it over again!
The “snowflake” that came with it is also surprisingly strong. Each tip is a different screwdriver tip or hex key and each space is a different size wrench, plus a bottle opener. One of the tips doubles as a box cutter. There’s a hole for the key ring, but the ring is flimsy. My husband will probably add a cord to it, instead. That’s something he will probably keep handy and find more useful.
The whole thing is absolutely hilarious, adorable – and may actually be useful! A lot of these multi-tool gadgets look great, but once you try to use them, their designs are not practical at all. I look forward to trying this thing out.
Meanwhile, it looks like the worst of the weather system has passed by. Wind will still be an issue, and any new snow expected isn’t supposed to show up until night time.
We’ll see how things are for my brother. His schedule is far less flexible, so I will adjust to what works for him.
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 