No Saturday Blogroll Today, Instead. . .

A Visit From Saint Nicholas by Clement Moore

ILLUSTRATED FROM DRAWINGS By F.O.C. Darley.

Twas the night before Christmas,when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her kerchief,and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap—

When out on the lawn there rose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter,
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon, on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of mid-day to objects below;
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen!
On! Comet, on! Cupid, on! Dunder and Blitzen—
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall!
Now, dash away, dash away, dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,
So, up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With a sleigh full of toys—and St. Nicholas too.
And then in a twinkling I heard on the roof,
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack;
His eyes how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry; His droll little month was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke,
it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face, and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly. He was chubby and plump—a right jolly old elf;
And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle;
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!" more Christmas stories available free at Project Gutenburg


Enjoy your Celebrations or your weekend, and I will see you all on Tuesday.

Dome domedome dome doooome

Sorry I am late this morning, I have a house full of the sick.

Yesterday I was looking around at the monolithic homes. This is something we had thought of before, but the size of house we need will run us $100,000 USD. We can't do that. I began following links and stumbled upon Dome Kits. A DIY lovers dream. The same sized house done in wood will cost us $27,000 USD. A whole lot better. But still the use of an all wood structures isn't part of our dream. We want a berm house.

I e-mailed Dome Kits. info last night about what we are wanting and if they could help us. I got a response this morning. Monte informed me of some other sites to look at, who have some pictures of the berm/loft/green house domes we are wanting. {Still have to go look at those}

A build-it-yourself dome seems like a wonderful idea, until I found this link to a Domebuilder's blues. I hadn't thought about all the coding and what those square homes coding could mean to a GEODESIC DOME. WOE IS ME!

I really think that these domes would be perfect for our needs/wants. Now because of the Domebuilder's blues, I need to investigate this even more. This will require many phone calls and library trips. I will need to get the correct coding for this county {though according to the county we don't exist. There are about 20 homes in this area that do not exist} I will need to talk to building contractors about coding and how I can comply with a round house.

It's not easy being green.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

I have been having problems commenting on some blogs. Just to let some of you know, I am reading, I just can't respond. Can I blame dial-up, blogger?

Winter Break has started for my oldest boy. He will be out of school until after the New Year. My husband will be taking his first vacation from work, ever in the almost 20 years he has worked. That doesn't mean I get a break here, with both of them home, that means I will have more work to do. I know my husband, and realize there will be a new project to take on this coming week.

We celebrate Christmas on the secular level here, with the exception of my eldest boy who is a Christian.Stockings have been hung by the door with care, above our little graffiti artist's work {why do they always seem to find that one permanent marker in the house?}

My Christmas shopping has been done for a week now, actually two people are left, and my husband will be picking them up gifts from the motorcycle shop. {all gifts, except one, have been bought from local craftsmen and stores, or were homemade}

The Christmas get togethers will start on Saturday. My boys are excited that they will get three days of gift openings. I felt that this year I'd rather spend the day at home with my kids then rushing about to everyone's house on Christmas Day. This year every grandparent will get a full day of us. How can they stand it?

And Cheryl, I will take that as a compliment, and I will also agree, I wouldn't want to be left in a room alone with myself either.

Have to run back to the bathroom

Your comments on the incinerating toilet were great {as well as just plain funny} The compost potties, well. . . I just can't go along with it. Maybe it's the years of changing diapers, but if I don't have to deal with poop, I will be one happy gal.

As for losing power, with solar we should always have a backup supply, and we will be getting a generator. The thing is, we lose power on the grid now, and really can't flush our toilet when we lose power. Oh we can, once. But after that, the bowl won't fill up because the water pump runs on electricity. So either way. . . it stinks.

We do have another problem, with a traditional toilet we will have to pump the refuse slightly up hill {as you do in all basements} this will require more electricity, and possible back up problems. I am trying to find away around all that. So far the incinerating toilet looks the best. We haven't decided on it quite yet, if there are other options out there, I will gladly investigate them.

My mother has a friend, she claims that country folks don't get sick because "we eat a spoonful of dirt every day". I need to go eat some dirt, for I caught a nasty bug. And on top of that it's raining. So I will be going back to bed. Hope you guys enjoy the rest of the day.

Time for a Bathroom break

When we first bought our homestead, we were told that we could not put in a septic tank. I found this strange, why is a lagoon ok, and a septic not? No one could answer that. After a few years, our neighbor put in a septic system. He just happens to work for the county and informed us, that someone got it wrong, lagoons were not allowed. What? Well there's not much most of us can do about that. The lagoons had been there for awhile. I understand not allowing lagoons as we are close to two rivers {One is actually a flood control river} The county extension office has a program that will pay for most of the costs of re-digging an old lagoon or replacing it with a septic system. We are going the route of a septic tank.

We have already decided on a gray water system for the house, never thinking about the toilet, as it would go to the septic. But as I was looking at the ads in some of those DIY/homesteading/big brother is watching you magazines, I spied an ad for the Incinolet.

The thing reminds me of an airplane toilet {how comforting} but what does it do? It uses electricity to incinerate human waste, turning it into ash. It uses no water, {we have a private well so don't pay for water, but we do pay for the electricity for the pump} no water, means no septic {but I feel that the county will make us do that anyway}

Now to justify the expense, we are going solar, so don't have to pay for the electricity, won't have to pay someone to clean out the septic, and then there are several environmental reasons to get one {or two} Ok, so I can justify the expense of one. I also know that there are several plants that like wood ash, but would they like poop ash? More research needed.

A nice weekend

I think I will be staying with the compacting blog. It's not so much needing to as wanting to. Somewhere along the way, people have decided that we need their old suff, as well as buying us items that they know we need. Sometimes I feel like they consider us a social experiment. But, I do have things to get rid of as well as figuring out different ways to reuse these things.

Now, about my weekend.

My husband and I got a sitter and headed out to Yoder for some Christmas shopping. It was a very pleasant day, no work, no kids, just the two of us. There is one store there I love, it's an old fashion hardware store. I could have spent hours in there. My husband bought a few things, and we decided on what types of oil lamps we wanted for the new house. {We need to match them with the ones we already have}

Unfortunately, we can not get a goose for Christmas dinner this year. {Next year we should be able to hatch out our own} So we stopped at Yoder meats and picked up a smoked ham.

On the way home, we decided to drive through Mount Hope, a small little town half way between our home and Yoder. We just wanted to see what kind of shops they had there. Only one of the three were open, Jewel's Antiques. We went inside and had a look. This place is incredible. Books everywhere, things we can use when building our new house. It seemed more like a junk, catch-all, type shop. The older gentleman that owns it had tried to organize at one point, but still, it was fun to rummage through everything. My husband was looking at something, and called me over. He moved a Christmas reef, and beamed me an ornery smile. I returned that smile when I saw it.

"Is it all there?"
"It's all here, you want it." You know I did! It was beautiful, and if the world goes to hell, I can use it {Of course there are many uses for it now that doesn't involve disciplining the children} . And it was only priced at $45 US. Even the proprietor of the store couldn't believe he priced it as such, and told us this was a great deal.

Oh, you want to know what I am going on about? Why my Christmas present of course.

He bought me a scythe. All the original hardware is there, only a little wear and tear and the bottom of it. The blade is intact!
I am very thrilled about this find.

We plan on going back to that shop in the near future. He even had a wicker Sarcophagus in there.

Psst, while looking up a link for the scythe,I found a supply store. Looks like I could get a brand new one for around $100 US