Catch up on November and December

The weather favored us in November, with beautiful, warm, sunny days. We got the walls finished downstairs on our house, thanks to help from my mother, stepfather and uncle. We even had our first family meal in our house on November 7. Ma and Scott were here to help put up plywood wall cladding, so Aunt Bev brought Uncle Steve, Scott's mother Juanita, and a pot of chile out to keep the workers working. After the walls downstairs were done, we started working on framing the upstairs walls and putting up the beams that will support the roof.


Ma and Scott returned for a second weekend of work in November, and we tore down a couple of old sheds so our electricity pole and transformer could be installed. That was my birthday present from the electricity company - one very tall pole and a shiny new transformer on top!

The weather in December was not as cooperative, but Charles soldiered on, getting most of the roof rafters up before Christmas. On December 19, he had to stop working because his cutting jig froze to the board he was cutting. That was also the day I went to St Louis airport to pick up my cousin Joe, who flew in from Minneapolis. He came to the farm to work for the week before Christmas to work off his airfare. Charles and Joe did a lot of work on our Uncle Paul's house getting it ready for Christmas guests - fixing the outlet to the septic tank, installing new heating ducts, and building new steps and porch off the front door.

Christmas was really nice, with family split between Paul's house, Dad's house and the Morganfield Hometown Inn. I cooked roast mutton for Christmas Eve and roast turkey and ham in Coca-Cola for Christmas day. All of my father's brothers and sisters were here Christmas eve and morning. There were 16 of us for Christmas Eve supper, including Ashley (my Girl Scout/farm help). She spent all of Christmas eve with us, and really had a great time with my family, especially my cousin Sarah from Minneapolis. Now, they're the modern version of pen pals - they text each other!

The week after Christmas, with everything done and everyone gone, I didn't know what to do with myself!