A few things around here got a little slack during the first half of the winter.  Finally, all these little projects are getting out of the way.  In celebration of the photo gallery getting fixed, I noticed that we never posted our last few pictures of progress from the fall.  Click HERE to see them.

For no real reason, I attacked the side of the corn crib with a circular saw, and hung up a pair of storm windows I had found in the barn.  I guess they are a little more solid then the slat wall, but having a view is real nice.  I used another window to cover the hole on the east side that had a piece of metal covering it.  The top windows were plugged with plywood to keep snow out this winter.  I’ve visited a few times, and things are staying nice and dry.

We did frame out the 3 door openings we wanted in the greenhouse.  While I was at it, I also planned and cut the framing for the big bank of windows on the west end of the 2nd floor.  Come spring, all these will be installed and we can look out at the bike path.  My last project was to figure out the stairs.  I got the first stringer cut, and 3 others traced.  The first one got hung so that we would know the height that the landing would be at.  Most people would have this planned out on paper first, but we changed the pitch of the stairs slightly after seeing the actual hole, and the center concrete floor did come out higher then we originally plan on paper.  We did end up saving a few steps.  The nice part is the fact that our staircase will be 4 feet wide.

Winter happenings….besides blizzards and ice storms?

-Mason and I did good at the Pinewood derby.  The cars were fast, but not quite fast enough.  Mason did take home the ‘Best Themed Car’ award.

-Bought a restaurant grade stainless steel set of pots and pans.  Oh, they are nice to cook with.  More of our home kitchen keeps upgrading.  I’m never buying consumer grade stuff again.
-My resume just got a little nicer looking.  I started working for StorageTek about 6.5 years ago.  They got bought by Sun Microsystems. This week it became official, that I now work for Oracle due to the last purchase.  I did get paid my Microsoft for a small project once. If I can add Apple and Google I think I would score some sort of Bingo or Yahtzee for listing all the biggest and best tech names out there.

-Greene Bean Coffee is still growing great.  Next is an upgrade to the license for ‘food plant’.  That will allow us to wholesale and let people re-sell the coffee for us.  I think I’ll start construction on that tomorrow.

-Reagan is taking Master Gardener classes.  Mason has marked everything he wants in the seed catalog for us to grow next year.

-RAGBRAI towns were just announced.  Short and flat.  442 miles, 14,500+ feet of climb.

-Finally saw Avatar 3D today.  Most amazing!

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Wow what?

First, the counter…..9966.  I bet by the time people tune in for this update, it might roll over.  Thanks for reading!
Picture gallery has been fixed.
Iowa Winter:  Snow, Blizzard, Blizzard, COLD, Blizzard, ICE, Warm, Blizzard.  Spring, please come.

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Mason and I found a new activity.  Drifting.  No, not the dumb, car-sliding around corners kind.  Snow drifts, we got some big ones.

In a recent house project, I realized I had just the part we needed.  However, it was at the farm.  It was a calm Sunday afternoon, with a couple hours of sun left.  Let’s go trek to the farm.  Mason, who had been out sledding for days was told to come along, and to bring his sled.

The ground out here was either nearly bare, or 5-8′ under snow.  I didn’t even need snowshoes to reach the crib from the road.  All hopes of getting into the shed were squashed by a huge drift.  The crib door was a little icy, but a full tour inside showed that it was holding up rather well.  There was a surprising amount of snow in the corner of the greenhouse.  It must have blown in during the blizzards.

Mason was outside and sledding down every snow drift he could find.  From little 1′ ones, to the big 5′ one in front of the shed.  He got some good distance on ones behind the shed and another one next to it.  I finally joined him outside for a walk around the property.  There was a large 5′ deep drift behind our small hill, and a monster 8-10′ deep and very long drift between the barn and trees.  It was over out burn pit and the remaining barn roof.  Mason played out here for a while.  To my amazement,  I was able to walk on top of almost everything, except the deep section behind the hill.  

We found some really neat waves and textures in the snow out there, including a drift that formed around the barn without touching it.  It made a good 4′ tall wall.

The good news, is that I found the part I needed and it worked perfectly.  I also gathered a few tools and supplies that were left behind that would be useful for another project.

Thankfully, we have gotten a break from the constant cold and snow.  It broke 20 degrees today, with a week ahead with the forecast hovering around 30.  What a heat wave.

If you haven’t been around Greene Bean Coffee in a while, I’ve been busy getting a few new coffees on the menu.

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If you have seen the news, the entire Mid-West is in another large cold front.  Apparently, this one is big enough to make frozen iguanas fall out of trees in Florida.  Around here, we don’t have the risk of falling lizards, but we’ve been seeing temperatures between -10 and -20, plus large winds.  Today the high was 1.

No new farm news of course.  With all this new snow, I doubt I could even find it at this point.  The wind here has been crazy.  Just in town, the drifts overnight fill any shoveling gains.

Greene Bean Coffee is starting the year strong, we added several new Coffees from Africa and South America.  Yumm.

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Well, it was a white Christmas for sure.

In the past month, there was a statewide blizzard warning.  It left drifts from waist deep to neck deep all over town.  Luckily, just days before, I brought the tractor up from the farm and put the big snowblower on it it and parked in my garage.  Lifesaver.  During the first big storm, I went downtown at 11:00pm to clear off the first foot or so from the storm.  I figured getting more off now, meant easier going in the morning.  I found one of the sidewalks downtown almost bare.  Few wisps of snow.  The South side of the building had a knee deep drift running the entire sidewalk.  It took nearly an hour to clean this off.

The next morning, I saw a huge plow tailing at the end of the driveway but I could see tire tracks from last night in the middle of the driveway.  Nice….until I saw the back window and could not see the front of the car.  It had all drifted waist deep from the door to the car and to the garage.  I cleaned out the driveway and needed to take some coffee to People’s Bank, our downtown neighbor, customer, and bank.  Remember the knee deep snow I moved?  It was replaced by a drift that was neck deep on me.  The wind-swept side was a solid waist deep.

I refused to take the shovel out of the car and went back home.  It took nothing to swallow my pride and decided that it people drive their lawn tractor to the gas station in the Summer, I could surely drive a snowblower to where it was needed.  7 blocks up, and 2 over, it really was a quick drive.  There was a few intersections that I needed to turn the blower on to get past the piles of crud in fear of getting stuck.  Still, even with this power, I could push my way into a drift, hop off, then use the shovel to knock down the edges and try again.  It took a good 2.5 hours to clear this little area.

Fast forward to Christmas.  The Moon family came the weekend before to have Christmas and celebrate Mason’s birthday with us.  This was the first time in I don’t know how many years that we didn’t travel for once.  Instead of the usual camping experience in our house, they rented the hotel from Trailside Lodging and loved it.  We also met them for a great gravy covered breakfast from the Uptown Cafe.  We had a great time, and a nice low-key Christmas.

Nearly a week later, the forecast had another ‘epic’ storm on the way.  The predictions changed daily, but it sounded icy and deep.  I decided to fire up the generator, get fresh gas and find the cord.  I had plans for wiring in the furnace, I still should have gotten the connection ready.  Luckily, the power never went out.

During the first few flurries, I kept up with the driveway and sidewalk.  On Christmas morning, there was at least 8″ plus drifts.  I got our driveway done quickly, helped my dad clear his then went downtown in fear of the sidewalk again.  At least, the drift was narrow, but still about chest deep.  Most of the sidewalk was quite low, as in the max height of the snowblower.  I got on the sidewalk, and had to start at the Uptown’s door in order to reach my spot.  I got quite a good path going before I hit the drift.  Had to hop off once and knock it down.  After that, I was able to get through it and reach the corner.  From there, I was able to do laps up the sidewalk, even clearing the path past Uptown more.  During this, Wayne had shown up with his snowblower as well.  I had moved around the corner to avoid blowing snow then found him helping clear the last of my sidewalk in appreciation.  I had the same issue on the East side, I had to work my way down the sidewalk, past a pair of businesses from the curb cut to get into my area again.  Luckily, about an inch more fell during the rest of the day.

It is deep, the farm is at a standstill.  I did recently burn a large amount of barn out in the cold, the day before the first snow came.  Bonfires do keep the chill off.  Things are buttoned up and stored for winter.  Once spring and warmth returns, we’ll be back at it.  The next wave of crib work will make sure huge and noticeable improvements.

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