Sometimes Stella likes to get in bed, snuggle under some covers, and read a good book.
She usually grabs one of her dolls to read to, but this day she was all by herself. Quickly flipping through the pages, and being quite adorable!
What was the book she was so intently reading?
It was Laura Ingalls Wilder's
The Long Winter. We just finished reading it, and it was scary. Poor Ma, Pa, Laura, blind Mary, Carrie, and Grace are close to death throughout half the book as they were under prepared for blizzard after blizzard on the South Dakota prairie. It gives me shivers to think about it. I started making sauerkraut and dehydrating apples.
Thankfully this trench is now covered...Stella made me very nervous when she was around it.
Tom figures he laid about 700' of pipe in this trench. It worked out well because right at the bottom we hit a nice sand/shale bed...that's the green you see in the picture. That will be very good for drainage. Why all the pipe you ask?
Well 400' was for the solar shunt, which is (simply speaking...because this is me talking and not Tommy) necessary mainly in the summer time to prevent over heating before reaching the house...or something like that. Then he laid the incoming solar hot water pipe and the outgoing solar hot water pipe, and the electrical wires to run the solar electric panel on top of the solar hot water panels to run the DC pump that pumps the hot water into the house and where it needs to go. Pretty awesome now that it is cooler outside and the house is staying a cozy 75F+ inside.
Reeve taking a flying leap over the solar trench...
The piping was then covered with sand from that sand pile. Kyle was very good at loading the sand into the wheelbarrow. He calculates that he must have filled 20+ wheelbarrows full...it was a lot of sand.
We had a wonderfully delicious crop of apples from our apple trees this year. Stella absolutely LOVED going out there and having her big brothers pick her an apple fresh off the tree.
Look at the look of pure joy and excitement on her face!
Then she was off to enjoy it in the very sandy black tub that was her pool...it was actually a foot rinsing tub before getting into the bigger pool, but Stella preferred this black tub to the clean blue pool. Ahhh...the days of summer! The pool is now drained and put away, but Stella (even in these colder temps) still prefers to go in the buff rather than wear clothes. She screams and puts on such a fit when we try to get her dressed, so naked she goes!
Today we are off to La Crosse (about 60 miles away) to visit the dentist for Reeve and Kyle. Both boys have a cross-bite and need to have spacers put on their teeth today and then on Wednesday we go back to have impressions taken of their mouths, so retainers can be made. Reeve is not happy that he will be missing school. We got his first report card...Straight A's...his lowest score was a 90% in math...highest was 101% in spelling. Go Reeve!
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