It took some nagging to get the kids outside, but some snowmen people were begging to be built.
Natalie & "Frostette"
Cale & "Steve the Snowman"
This morning I sent online letters to our 2 youngest Compassion kids (Gael in Bolivia & Sandrah in Uganda, who both share exact birthdates with our kids) and included some of these pictures so they could see the snow because I’m guessing they may never have seen it before.
This was the view out the front door on Saturday. It was blustery out, so we stayed in. Kit Kat was as close as he could get to being in.
By Sunday morning, the wind had calmed for the start of a new day. I was out early in the stillness, but unfortunately missed the shot I wanted. By the time I brought the dog in and grabbed the camera, the sun had moved. The rising and setting sun never waits for people who don’t have their cameras. 🙂 Mere moments before this, the lower and “oranger” light was streaming across the cat-tracked snow.
Snowdrops – 2/23/12 – now buried in snow a day later.
Squirrel tracks – 2/21/12 – seriously cute little “hand” prints.
Homemade orange sherbet – 2/20/12 – last scoop.
caleshoot – 2/19/12 – 7 seconds of Cale shooting a milk jug full of water (which I just realized doesn’t look as cool in low-res).
I’m a sucker for light and trees. Throw in a dusting of snow at sunset and I won’t mind. 🙂
It had been a very gray afternoon, so this momentary brightness at the end of the day caught my attention and I didn’t want to miss it.
2.17.2012 – 5:50 to 5:56 p.m.
The garden catalogs began taunting us months ago, but now it’s almost time to start planting seeds! We’ve got the seeds and trays and cups and are nearly ready to go, except that our wire shelves that were loaded with trays of seedlings and stationed in front of the sunny windows last year are now occupied with other stuff and we have yet to figure out how to block the pup from knocking them all to the floor. The whole set-up may have to go downstairs, but it’s much cooler down there so we’d have to run a heater, or else create a makeshift greenhouse somewhere.
(Editor’s note (a.k.a. post hacked by Steve): We started about 300 plants last year, but have capacity for about 500 this year. Will be mostly tomatoes and peppers, of course 😉 )
For now, here’s a look back at the beginnings of last year’s garden, the first here in the forest:
I spent some time strolling
with Sadie, who snuggled with KitKat,
in the sunlight
on Saturday.
I noticed these popping up about a week ago, but just today took a camera out with me. They are a welcome sight, standing out against the brown dirt and leaves.
They must be the snowdrops that I was so surprised to see in full bloom last March when we first moved in. Last year, they had even bloomed buried under the snow.
This year, the weather can’t make up it’s mind, most of the snow is gone for now, and these clusters of green are all around, already coming alive, rising up from the cold ground.
This morning the kids, dog, and I started out on our usual trek to the bus stop.
More often than not, it’s an absolute circus between competing children, with the smaller unable to keep up (especially in boots and snowpants), and a mother being dragged behind a zealous pup who is trying to chase after those children. This truly becomes a sight to see on Thursday mornings when the trash container comes into play, not to mention the days when the driveway is icy.
Anyway, back to today. Something new happened.
It all started with my comment about how I liked the way the plowed snow looked in the garden area. Natalie said it looked like powdered sugar, which transported us into our Candy Land adventure walk. If we were in Candy Land, the snow would be powdered sugar or frosting, and we could just scoop it up and eat it. (Not too much, though, or we’d get tummy aches, I made sure to point out. It didn’t even cross my mind until now that there should be no such thing as eating too much or tummy aches in Candy Land.)
The packed down tire tracks became the paths when we realized Cale had been already walking on one of them.
The exposed driveway was a chocolate river. Come to think of it, we never did determine how you would get out if you fell in, but the topic did come up.
s
The color was clearly missing from Candy Land and Natalie was about to draw the “Plumpy card” and have to go back almost to the beginning for her moment of impatience, but we did eventually make it to the castle (a.k.a. bus stop) in a more interesting way than usual.
(Photos were taken 4 hours later on the way to meet Cale’s bus while I was pondering this post.)
Once upon a time, I had a serious nightmare with a freight company shipping something big to me. It involved seeing it for the first time tipped over on the pallet, questioning the driver about it, being talked into just accepting it and “dealing with the shipping company” later (which is the wrong approach, FYI). Well, that all ended well enough, but needless to say it tainted me when it came time to pursue getting a super-mega-awesome woodstove from the Woodstock Soapstone Company. This time around, the shipping was flawless, but it didn’t come to our house, it went to a trucking depot. So, Dad and I hopped in the Jeep (which just a few days before received a new motor due to woes that date back two years…) on a snowy Friday afternoon, racing to get to the landfill to empty the trailer full of crap-that-the-previous-owner-left-in-the-barn by the time they close, so we could then go to the depot and pick up this crate. Well, we didn’t die nor even go into the ditch, so all was good!
Not being the patient type, and not having a) the basement ready to receive this b) a way to back the trailer down a precarious hill through 1.5 feet of snow or c) telekinesis, I decided to just crack into the crate while it still sits on the trailer to make sure it arrived in good shape. It seems as though it did. In the not too distant future (though perhaps “next year”), we’ll be pumping out many BTUs of heat thanks to the ample supply of trees worthy of being Hanlonated–er, I mean, turned into firewood.
I was on the east side of the state for about 24 hours last Friday – Saturday after the first round of snow, so I missed round two. While driving back, it was noticeably snowier when I got close to home. From the looks of the deck, the snow had doubled, about a foot altogether. On Sunday, Steve and I trekked through the forest to check things out. Luckily we took some more pics while it lasted because yesterday it warmed up and the the trees are bare once again, though it was quite interesting to see all the snow melting and falling off the trees.
