Lots of zany things happen on the Fyfe farm and I’ve happily shared a lot of them with you all. When one goofy moment or accident has occurred during our more than 20 years together Alistair and I often said, “that’s a story for the Christmas letter.” This epic winter is one more story.

The tremendous snow load coupled with two heavy rain episodes over the past 2 months has made for extremely difficult and damaging conditions. Old time locals are quick to point out that they had snow amounts like this 20 and 30 years ago but what is drastically different is that back then it got cold, everything froze and remained frozen until late February or March. You can handle snow situations like that.

But when we got the first and then second rain events after dumps of snow this winter it created a horrid layer of soft slush that made plowing a real challenge.

And then more snow!

 

Sadly the rain also caused buildup in the troughs where sections of our enormous roof meet at 90 degrees and snow wasn’t able to slide off like other areas of the roof and for the first time in 11 years, we have ceiling, wall and possible floor damage.

As the snow melted it had nowhere else to go but inside our ceiling and then down the insides of the walls. This was discovered when I kneeled in front of the wood stove one night and my knee was sopping wet.

Enter the insurance company (I sent pictures more for record, not expecting them to leap into things so quickly.) Our adjuster was out the next day and within 2 days we had a restoration company as well as a snow removal company descend upon us.

 

And now we have a few of these bad boys scattered throughout the house with large fans surrounding them. It sounds like we’re living in an airplane hangar in most areas of the house.

 

Thankfully our house is large enough that we can escape quite comfortably to the main guest room which has no damage and no big, blue DriEaz unit and fans whirling away. The cats were put off the first 24 hours but they’re both curled up by the woodstove right now, which has its own DriEaz and fan-friend right there.

Unfortunately our landscaping took a hit with all of the heavy equipment that was up here to move snow from here to there. Part of the problem is the size of the house & yard but after 2 full days of rumbling, back-up beeping and hauling snow, most of the house was cleared  out.

Until this morning when another foot lay on the ground to welcome another wintery day.

And more snow is falling and Big Red’s engine block heater is dead and today it decided to get cold & windy and a part on the huge red snowblower broke and Alistair has had to widen the driveway back & forth with the tractor bucket and twice he’s got trusty Big Red stuck and twice Big Silver was able to winch him out and our back deck is completely busted under the weight of the snow from above as well as the snow from our roof and we don’t know what insurance will cover and Restoration Dude actually said, “those walls are going to have to go.”

 

My sister was checking in on me and asked how I was coping. She was giving me permission to lose my shit but I told her the truth.

I’m good.

That might not be the case if Alistair weren’t here, or if we had lost power for any significant amount of time, or if the pet food and my wine supply were getting low but, really, things could be so much worse.

And the Olympics are happening which is a huge part of my inner peace and happiness right now even if tears are streaming down my face every night I watch figure skating.

 

There have been awesome highs and incredible lows. The medalists themselves have not been surprising although there definitely have been some skating surprises!

The pairs event saw medal hopefuls, Aliona Savchenko & Bruno Massot from Germany in 4th place after their individual short program. She looked like she was going to rip his throat out with her bare hands during their interview and he was pale, obviously shaken and absolutely silent. Aliona has competed in 5 Olympics. She got 3rd at the last one and her partner wanted to move on to real life afterwards. She basically hand-picked Bruno and trained, no, groomed him to be an Olympian of her caliber.

 

And they won the long program with a touching, stunning, emotional performance and tears flowed and nobody was upset with them standing atop the podium. Sui & Han, the youngsters from China with their own tale of injuries, highs and lows were 2nd with a mistake in the long and Canada’s Duhamel & Radford finally stood on an Olympic podium by themselves.

While I never wanted to see that glaring yellow and black polka dot dress from the skaters representing Russia, it was heartbreaking to see Evgenia Tarasova fall to pieces as their marks came up after their long program. It was uncharacteristic to see them falter during their skate, particularly when they had been in second place after the short.

Skating is like that. Ice is slippery.

 

The world joined me in watching Nathan Chen struggle mightily in his second short program of these Olympics. Slips, shakes and wipe-outs, the quad king faltered so horribly that he was in 17th place after his individual short program and in obvious shock in his interviews.

He had had to wait to skate following Yuzuru Hanyu’s fabulous, perfect short program, the cheers and screams of his fans, the tossing of every Pooh-bear South Korea could sell onto the ice, the gathering of said Pooh-bears, the announcement of Hanyu’s 111-point score (!!) and once again, the shouts and applause from his pronounced fan base. Normally when you skate 2nd, you hang right around the ice surface, you keep your skates on and you don’t cool down. I think he started to cool down and it was too long, too loud and too amazing of a break when he heard that score.

 

He laid low and his coach, Rafael Artuniun let him work things through with gentle encouragement and the next night we watched him make history with a routine packed with 6 quads (5 were outstanding!), style, charm and finesse. He won the long program after being such a mess the night before.

 

Yuzuru Hanyu from Japan, the reigning Olympic champ after Sochi 4 years ago, stood on the top step on the podium again even though Chen’s freeskate outscored his. Hanyu has a quirky quality about him and his confidence, training and sheer talent got him through an injured ankle (kind of an important part of a figure skater’s body) and the media circus that followed him.

His teammate, Shoma Uno skated well enough but also made just enough of a mistake to win the silver medal, a first for him on Olympic ice. He still looked petulant on the podium at times; I’m not sure if he envies Hanyu’s following or his gold medal but Uno often appears annoyed at his placement unless he’s standing up top. I don’t know him, though, so maybe he’s just shy. Regardless, he’s a beautiful skater and deserved the scores he received.

 

Rounding out the top 3 is the talented, charming Spaniard, Javier Fernandez. This one got me crying again because of all that he has done to promote figure skating in Spain. He didn’t know how to train or even glide across the ice let alone project emotions to an audience when he signed on with Tracy Wilson & Brian Orser in Toronto but he worked hard and he never gave up. He’s won World titles so its no shock to see him here but its touching and its tender and he was just so. freaking. happy. to win bronze.

 

Tonight the Beautiful People will take to the ice in Ice Dance. Everyone skates to the same beat and one pattern of their routine will be the short-pattern Rhumba but the routines will all vary significantly. The men will all likely have low cut tops and the moves will be sexy and flirty and we’ll all hold our breath as the twizzle sections begin. I can’t wait.

Alistair continues to move snow from here to there as I type and hopefully we’ll get Big Red into town for his new engine block heater to be installed this week.

We will wait & see what our restoration crew says tomorrow after these dehumidifiers and fans ran all weekend and then we’ll wait & see what the insurance company says and where we go from there.

 

Through it all we’ll continue to share on social media (@tanyafyfe on Instagram) with grins and smiles and Aloha music playing in the background. There’s no point getting upset with the weather- there’s not a damned thing I can do about it so might as well have some fun and just be patient in moving snow from here to there.

Maybe if they made snow removal an Olympic sport, Alistair and I would be favored gold medalists. Would we represent Canada or the US, though? Now THAT would be a story for the Christmas letter!

 

Think positive thoughts for Tessa & Scott, the ShibSibs, Cizeron & Papadakis, Hubbel & Donohue and all the great skaters who will Choctaw, twizzle and sizzle their way through their short dances tonight. I’m sure I’ll be crying.

 

Enjoy the heck out of the ice dancers and then the ladies afterwards later in the week. Congrats to all the athletes in every sport for making it to the pinnacle of sport in PyeongChang. The Olympics are ON!