Company from Home

We got our first visitors from home Wednesday and the kids were soooo excited to see faces that they knew from back home come all this way to our neck of the woods.  We had a quick visit from my uncle back in December, and that was equally exciting, but this time the visitors were able to stay.  Four friends and relatives of ours and Tim and Martina came in to go sledding with Tim and Paul.  We went out for our usual mail day expecting the guys to arrive any time in the afternoon, and that they did.  Three of the four guys have come here in the past with Tim and Paul to go sledding at the claim cabin and were surprised to see what an easy trip they had ahead of them this year.  In years past they unload on the side if the road and load their sleds and skimmers and take off breaking trail in all sorts of deep snow conditions.  Sometimes they were even forced to unhook, take what they needed for the night from the skimmers and just try to get to the cabin so they could get some sleep.  Wearing snowshoes while driving the sleds because if you had to get off for some reason you sunk past your waist.  This year was quite a different story as the trail they are using is the trail we use on a weekly basis. And this one is not neglected in the least from the Drag Queen and is very nice to travel.  So within minutes we were all packed up and headed to our home.   They ate supper with us then moved on to the claim cabin for a few days of fun.
This mail day I also put in a grocery order and found out that my kids can actually get excited over fruits and veggies.  I have been trying to use up the frozen and canned that I brought in along with supplementing that  supply with a little fresh stuff from the store  But we all know that fresh is the best, and when you are over 3 hours from the nearest grocery store with an ample supply, we tend to go without a little more than I would have back home.  And taking it home here is a different story when travelling by snowmobile.  We have 3 of the good 5-6 day coolers that we warm up in the cabin overnight, then we put hot water bottles in them to keep them warm for the trip and to keep the produce from freezing before we get home.  And this grocery order was primarily produce and a little dairy, so I didn't want to see anything get ruined.  We were just talking about an article that one of us read that said 40% of produce bought is thrown in the garbage at home.  Well I can honestly say, not here.  The wasting of such a precious thing does not happen at our house, the kids have been eating nothing but the fresh stuff since we got it home.  They devoured the strawberries as soon as they spotted them and I could wash them, then moved on to the grapes.  I think I'll have to put in orders for freshies a little more often!