How do you spend a rainy Sunday?

Try sticking your feet out (similar to putting your feet up) and taking a snooze like Sam.

Make a delicious Salad Lyonnaise for lunch. (Made with fresh croutons from bread baked on Saturday.)

Simmer a tomato sauce that will be used in your dinner.

Play Alan Wake on the Xbox 360 and finish it.

Enjoy a fireside (and much needed) massage. Sorry, no photo of that ...

Sit down to a dinner of braised lamb shanks with parmesan polenta, just right for a rainy day! Yum, yum, yum!

Mother Nature is a fickle sort. She’s been toying with us. Saturday was a pretty nice day for a change and I was able to get out and do a few things in the yard that needed to be done.

Yesterday and overnight we had 2.6 inches of snow-melting-get-rid-of-that-damned-old-snow rain. The weather was warm-ish yesterday, topping the chart at around 58 degrees F, but still we had a fire going to keep the dampness away. Sometimes it was just a gentle rain, but at others it was a downpour. The dogs did not want to go out. Every time they went to the door and I opened it, they just turned around and looked up at me as if to say I am NOT going out in that and turned around and walked away. This morning I awoke to a covering of snow and it was still lightly snowing at 29 degrees F. Just when we were looking at bare ground! Our new little white cover won’t last, but still, forward progress was temporarily thwarted.

March can never seem to make up its mind.

Fresh covering of snow on my deck this morning with morning shadows and dog prints. Yesterday was the first day it was completely clear of all snow and ice.

As we make the slow transition to spring here in northern New Jersey there isn’t much to photograph. The snow is melting and what is left is dirty and ugly. Not a pretty sight.

I walked down into our woods to see if the skunk cabbages were popping their funny heads up yet, and they are just starting.

Then I walked outside our fence and down to the little stream. It’s moving along pretty good right now with all the snow melt and the recent rain. It was still cold enough for some ice to accumulate on a few things. Kind of pretty!

I’m not quite sure just how these “swizzle sticks” form but I think they are cool.

We are enjoying our second batch of lettuces from our AeroGarden. The first batch we started kept going and going and going for several months. Every time we picked some it grew back so fast we could hardly believe it. It’s so nice to have fresh lettuces to eat whenever we want. We “planted” three arugula, one mesclun, and three salad greens. In just one week from the time we started the seed pods we were picking lettuce!

Who needs soil?

Today it’s raining. Over one inch has fallen so far. I just realized that one year ago today was the day of our “snowicane” and here we are one year later having another large-ish storm, only this time it’s rain instead of snow.

Even stranger is the fact that in that blog entry I talk about just having made pork chile verde which I made this morning too without realizing I had made the same dish one year ago today. Very weird! You can’t plan things like that!

Looking out the window at the rain something looked off to me in the back yard. The trees were tinged with color! Wait. It can’t be. I ran for the binoculars and sure enough, one species of tree has popped! Lots of them! Little droopy catkins all over the place! I think they are beeches but I’m not sure.

What can they be thinking? We still have snow on the ground. Silly trees.

Hurrah for spring!

That light at the end of the tunnel I was talking about in my last post just turned out to be another train, or should I say another storm. Sunday night into Monday morning we had 8 inches of snow. Officially I heard on the news it was 7.5 inches, but here at the house I consistently measured 8 inches with my trusty measuring tape. It was only supposed to be 1 to 3 inches, but it turned into 8. Just when we were beginning to see patches of ground that have been covered for nearly two months. Now it looks like it did before the melting started. I was even starting to let myself get excited about spring.

It hardly seems possible that last year we had just purchased Mia and were driving around with the top down on March 20th. Will that be happening in a month? Somehow I doubt it this year. The prediction I last heard was for up and down temperatures through the end of February and into the beginning of March, but they were worried about the storm track and low temperatures that they foresee for the end of March and into the beginning of April. That does not sound promising! Especially when as I look out my window, all I see is a blanket of white.

My neighbor Kim blames our winter on me. She said I kept wishing for (and wanting) snow. So therefore it’s all my fault. I wished too hard. Wanted too much. I had to tell her that I stopped wishing (and wanting) about four storms ago! I am ready to move on with the seasons!

So just in case you missed it the the first time: I’ve had enough! Did you hear me this time Mother Nature?