Friday was a busy day. I had a new helper as my helper friend badly hurt his knee and will be out for a month or more. The new helper didn’t know the house or the routines, or how to cook, so I had to supervise him a lot.
My helper who knows construction came also. He was to go pick up the repaired splitter with the truck, but the plow blade was frozen to the ground. I’d forgotten and the other 2 guys didn’t know to set it up on blocks. So no splitter. It’s to reach 50’s by the end of the week, so the blade will thaw out and he will go next Friday and get the splitter.
The new helper brought my plants up from the cellar and I set them on tables in front of the dining room window. Forgot to get photos and it’s too dark now…
Then I set him to peeling one of my kabocha squashes so I could make a big pan of roasted vegetables.
In the meantime the other helper (confused yet?) was hauling in LOTS of wood as it has turned very cold and windy again. Plus the Sillimans were coming for Pizza Night so I had to get the masonry heater fired up.
At 3PM the bake oven was at 575F so I decided to wait until 4 PM to put more wood in. If I started too early the living room would get too hot to use. They arrived at 4:15 and the oven had dropped to 475F, so I got the fire going. It climbed to 650F by 5:30 and I got my pizza in first. Mine was a gluten free one so it just had to heat the vegs and cheese.
Tom had gotten pizza dough for the family’s pizzas and everyone except Wiley (who was playing D & D in the office area) rolled out the pizzas. They then made their own toppings.
We had also prepared the toppings while we waited for the oven to heat up. We had mozzarella cheese, Monterey Jack cheese, broccoli, spinach, kale/garlic chicken sausage, pepperoni, and mushrooms.
Tom had brought their pizza stone and the pizza peel. I have 4 cookie sheets and they work well for making pizzas on.
Tom was the last to make his pizza as he was in the cellar looking through all the fishing stuff.
While we prepped the ingredients and waited for the oven, the kids got out these 2 games I had gotten last year. Which would you choose was the favorite during the work times.
Once we sat down to eat, a very popular one was What is your favorite book right now?. Oddly, 3 of the 4 favorite books had horses in them. Mine was The Chestry Oak by Kate Seredy
I told the story of the book, and the story of how I came to own a copy of the book. I loved this book for a long time but it was out of print. I would order it from the regional library here in town off and on.
When the regional library moved out of town to a new facility, they called and asked if I wanted the book. So I got my own copy!
Next my intern Arissa told about her favorite, The Land by Mildred D. Taylor.
Then Phoebe told about her favorite, The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. Tom mentioned his favorite, but didn’t tell about it, so I’ve forgotten. Willey was reading a lot of books right now and couldn’t decide.
The pizzas were wonderful and we had a grand time playing the games. Arissa had brought her dog Reba, which did NOT delight my old cat Bryde. But they pretty much left each other alone, so peace reigned.
I got some good news for a change on Friday and it will mean I can remove 3 piles of paper from the 8’ table. That’s only the second time I will have been able to do that since he died. There’s still a LOT of paperwork left on that table…
Not much planned for Saturday. I have to find paperwork on the rod shop equipment as my husband’s fishing buddy is coming on Sunday morning to help me figure out what things are and what to do with them. We also need to get photos of things so they can be posted for sale.