Yesterday was a snow day. I love them more as a teacher than I did as a student. I read “Pie” by Sarah Weeks and would have made a buttermilk pie, but I was out of buttermilk. Then I finished up “The Cupcake Queen” by Heather Hepler. I did make cupcakes – Valentine’s Day cupcakes to be specific. Mostly, it was a quiet, lazy day. Just what a snow day should be.
When John got home, we had to head out in that same snow to fix the stock tank. It froze on Sunday. We knew this because there was no water in the house. Apparently, the pilot light that keeps the propane heater fired so the pipes don’t freeze, had gone out. John shut the water to the tank off, and water returned to the house, but we didn’t have the parts to fix the tank that watered the horses.
The horses got moved to a lot with water, John bought a new fitting in town, and that meant we had an evening of plumbing in store.
While we worked by flashlight, we could hear from the depths of the woods to the south, the soft calls of a barred owl. You can learn more about them (and hear audio clips of their calls) at the Missouri Department of Conservation web site.
Perhaps this was the same owl haunting our yard.
Waiting for Thoreau 
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