The earliest I had ever seen snow was on Halloween a few years back, but that's right... it snowed on Tuesday. Hardly anything at all, but it was a bit of a flurry. It was quite cold this past week... below freezing every night with highs in the upper 30's-low 40's. I had to break out my long underwear, wool socks, and LL Bean Jacket in order to keep moderately warm. But this upcoming week looks to be quite warmer with highs in the upper 60's and sun. The days have become considerably shorter, at least when it comes to daylight. I wake up around 7 (during a staff week) and it is still dark out and then it gets dark right around when we're eating dinner at 6. It should be even more interesting to see what sort of changes daylight savings time brings upon us.
The past week entailed a bunch of odd jobs. I made trips to the scrap metal yard to drop off our scrap metal, to the recycling center, dug up the septic tank at the staff house so we could have it emptied (thank God - it had been 10 or 15 years!), and cleaned mattresses from our barn. I spent Tuesday and Wednesday helping the Wildman family by replacing some CPVC pipes throughout their house so that they could have running water again. They had gone without water for about a month and a half because of some slow drips. Without the fix they wouldn't be able to turn it on because they couldn't afford their water bills otherwise. Their house was in pretty sub-standard condition, maybe close to being condemned in any other area... but condemning someone's house like that doesn't really solve any problem because with such poverty these families have no other place to go. When I was home for Labor Day my dad taught me a bit about PVC pipe and how to put it together... that has come in handy since I set up the dust collector in the woodshop and repaired this plumbing at the Wildman's.
This weekend was our November board meeting (we have four a year - January, April, September and November). Its always great to see the board members and to share our home with them, they bring great energy to the Farm - especially since they care so much about this place. This weekend they even managed to update our mission statement among other things. Caitlin also came down for Saturday night. It was great to have her here (as usual), especially for a board meeting because I think it allows her to see even more of what goes on here and to form relationships with such great people.
This upcoming week is a bit of a staff week. Adult week begins on Wednesday night, goes through the weekend and ends on Monday. I'm not sure what all that has in store, but I know that we have about 7 adults coming to volunteers for that "week" so its going to be very similar to a staff week with guests. That will be great. After that a lot of our time becomes focused on the Christmas party on December 14th.
I have found myself having difficulty being present to those around me... that even in conversation with people I zone out, but continue to smile and nod. I know I can do a better job of that, its just that I have to catch myself in the act. I've also been intrigued to who reads my blog because I've heard from a few different people this week that they are keeping up with it. It almost makes me want to take a census or something of who's out there checking this thing... hello to all my loyal fans :).
