Sunday morning, Tara asked me if I’d help her move the dining room rug.
“Sure thing!” I said. “Where do you want it? The living room?”
“The backyard,” she replied.
“There’s, like, five inches of snow on the ground,” I pointed out.
“I know! That’s perfect!”
I had no idea what was going through my wife’s head at this point, but I have learned never to question her. Instead, I rolled up the area rug, threw it over my shoulder, carried it downstairs, and tossed it onto the snow-covered yard, as requested.
A few minutes later, curiosity got the better of me, so I took a peek outside to see what Tara was doing.
The doing turned out to be Swedish snow cleaning, a traditional, eco-friendly method of cleaning wool and rugs using snow, which absorbs dust, dirt, and odors. You lay these items on top of fresh, cold, dry snow, beating them gently and then brushing off the snow. This magically refreshes the fabric.
I can’t stress enough how my better half surprises me sometimes. IKEA is the closest either of us has ever gotten to Sweden, so I have no idea how she ever stumbled across such a thing. All I know is, I wanted to put on an ABBA record and crank “Angel Eyes” as loudly as I could to inspire her further.
Damn if this Swedish snow cleaning didn’t work wonders, too. The rug, which hadn’t been cleaned properly in a couple of years ever, looked clean and smelled fresh, all without the use of chemicals or detergents. A few hours later it had dried out completely and was back in the dining room, looking brand spankin’ new.
You know what Taras doing right this instant? If you guessed “peeling the skins from a bag of frozen tomatoes she harvested from the garden this summer to stick in the food dehydrator and turn into tomato powder for seasoning,” then, gold star for you! She’ll also be canning the tomatoes for sauce.
Apparently, I married Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman.
Mounds of snow
As you may have surmised with the Swedish snow cleaning, it has turned pretty cold here. This morning’s low was -4° and it’s barely gotten above zero, even with the sun shining for the first time in a week. It feels like -25° with the windchill. Way too cold to shovel the driveway, which is fine by me. I’ve done it four days in a row and, quite frankly, could use a break. We’ve had roughly 7.5″ of snow since Wednesday, and there’s lots of blowing and drifting, so the roads I’m sure aren’t great. Not looking forward to the drive to CheeseGov tomorrow.
Friday wasn’t too bad, and knowing we would be housebound for the rest of the weekend, we decided to get outside and do some exploring. Our first stop was Aztalan State Park. I took my folks here when they visited in August, but it looked a tad different this time around.
Nevertheless, we did a loop through the park, admiring the ceremonial mounds and reconstructed fences of this once-bustling Middle-Mississippian settlement on the bank of the (partially frozen) Crawfish River.
By then it was early afternoon and we were famished, so we ducked into a little pub we found a few miles down the road. The portions were ginormous and the prices, cheap. We couldn’t have finished our plates even with a gun pointed to our heads. All-day Friday fish fry FTW though! Walleye, no less. The Cadillac of freshwater fish.
Afterward, we zipped up to Watertown to stroll through an antique market. Didn’t come home with anything save for a planter, which is pretty much par for the course. The only real surprise would be if Ree, I mean Tara, didn’t come home with a planter.
The rest of the long weekend was uneventful. We did chores, I knocked out some pages in my book, we watched the Broncos beat the Bills (Bo’s injury is heartbreaking), watched The Long Walk. Oh, and made sure our birds were well-fed, saving them the hassle of foraging in the snow.
We might not have to go out into the cold, but our feathered friends don’t have that luxury.
Mark My Words 
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