But in this case it’s “the snow melts faster over the septic tank.” Look! A small patch of bare ground! Isn’t that exciting? This is our first glimpse of it since December 26th.

The icebergs on my deck are slowly melting. The ice pack is shrinking daily. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be 60 degrees F!

I know we’ll have more cold weather and probably another snow or two, but I think we are finally beginning to see the light at the end of this winter tunnel!

I’ve been meaning to post for days now, yet I haven’t. Maybe that’s because not much is going on.

I can’t really talk about the weather since it is behaving itself and as I type it’s a balmy 44 degrees (F) out there this morning at not quite 8 o’clock! Not the single digits; not even below freezing! We’ve had a few flurries of snow but no real snow now for well over a week. I think the spell over our winter-enchanted piece of Earth has broken. The snow is slowly melting but it’s still treacherous to walk on. Maybe today it will be warm enough to slush up that icy crust.

Should I talk about my bra fitting a week ago at Intimacy on Madison Avenue in the city? No, you probably don’t want to hear about that.

Or should I tell you about my bird rescues? Bird Rescue #1: a blue jay rescued from the mouth of Bella that didn’t turn out very well, or Bird Rescue #2: a junco that flew into our sliding glass door that did turn out well.

Maybe my topic of conversation should be about our Colorado cabin and #1: the beleaguered Board of Directors of the Homeowners Association and all the problems associated with that mess. Or #2: the neighbor who lives back behind us and can’t access his property until mid-June because of a very deep snow drift that occurs on the road that goes through our property asking if we’d let them cut another road on our property to go around said drift or build huge ugly snow fences on our property that won’t help anyway. No, you probably don’t want to hear about that either. (We said no to both proposals, by the way.)

I suppose I could talk about why I am dusting off the old Rosetta Stone Spanish software and brushing up on my español. PANAMA (and quite possibly Nicaragua {Granada} too) in May. How’s that for an exotic travel destination? Rick has business and I am tagging along. There are other wives going too, so it should be really fun. I am hoping to see a rain forest environment and people say that a visit to the Panama Canal is a must.

Plus, we’ve been thinking about places to retire (six months in the States/six months “somewhere” else) and this is one place that was on our “maybe” list. This will give us a chance to see what it’s like. There is quite a large ex-pat retiree community in both countries.

So, see? Not much!

Sunrise this morning.

This lovely herd of deer marched single file just outside our fence this weekend. They were having a rather slow go through the crusty snow. ‘Enough snow,’ they seemed to say. ‘We can’t find anything to eat in this frozen wasteland!’ The flick of their white tails were the only signs that they could hold up.

But it seems to have worked! We had some good thawing happening over the weekend. A little bit or rain helped with the melting process. And sun! And temperatures in the high 30’s! Woohoo!

Aren’t they lovely? We counted 18 deer in all. I’ve never seen such a big herd here before.

Actually we would not have seen them at all if it weren’t for Bella. She was on the deck and started barking. I always take note when she barks just in case it’s something interesting. Sometimes it’s only Finn (the dog across the street) out in his front yard that she carries on a long-distance conversation with quite frequently, but other times it could be deer ... or a bear.

The snow since our ice storm has been unbearable. With a hard crust on the top of about an inch, you either slid along the surface or broke through. Not knowing if the snow was going to hold your weight or not, it was next to impossible to walk anywhere in the yard. When I went out on the deck to fill the bird feeders I had to hold onto something so I wouldn’t slip and fall. It was more like skating than walking! Here are a few photos of its glistening iciness.

I think we have finally broken free of that stormy weather pattern we were stuck in. Thank you, deer.

This is getting old! I don’t mind snow but this “icy mix” stuff is for the birds!

Well ... then again, maybe not.

We only got about two inches of snow or so, but then we got sleet on top of that and then ice. About a half inch of ice I’d say. We cleared the driveway and steps of the snowfall before the sleet and ice came which was a good thing. The sleety ice came overnight. Rick was able to clear most of it from the driveway but the area in front of our garage was a skating rink. Take a look. Pure ice!

When the freezing rain finally stopped a little after noon I ventured out to try and clear the front steps. I took the shovel and tried breaking the ice up. What I really needed was an ice pick!

I made pretty good headway except for the top two steps which I’ll have to tackle today. I put salt down and just left it. Not fun.

But it had beauty too. Ordinary bare branches became quite extraordinary.

Please Mother Nature, can you just send snow next time? Enough with the ice!

These photos were taken Monday late afternoon just ahead of the snow/sleet/ice storm we are now in the middle of.

It was kind of like watching waves on a beach. They just kept rolling by.

But then they started to stack up.

I don’t know what kind of clouds they were but they must have a name. Anybody know?