There was a noticeable buzz in the air at the grocery yesterday. Snippets of overheard conversations such as "my son is hoping for school closures" "have to get shopping done today because Friday is going to be nasty."

Rick tried scheduling the car in for service on Friday and the guy said "supposed to be a storm, you might not want to do that."

While I was getting my hair cut the phone was ringing with people either cancelling or changing their appointments for Friday.

Really?

Hmmm. Although they are predicting snow for us on Friday I got the impression it was not going to be a devastating snow for us. Maybe 3 to 6 inches. Maybe as much as 8 inches. So why all the fuss? Maybe because we got used to not having snow last year. Right now the prediction does not seem to warrant panic.

Or does it? After all, predicting the weather is not always easy and Mother Nature will do whatever she darn well pleases. We might just have a big storm after all. Or, maybe not. It will be what it will be!

I know Rick is secretly hoping that we lose power so we can try out the generator now that it's wired directly into the house. Of course that probably won't happen since we now have that capability. You know what I'm saying?

Later Update:

This just in! Today the grocery store is jam-packed with people--15 people deep at the checkouts. The snow total has been bumped up to one foot of snow plus ice and wind.

(photos: What is it?)

The shadow of the fence around the pool cast on the rocks covered in January snow.

Over the weekend we "gobbled" up the rest of the first season of Downton Abbey and took a small bite out of the second season. We are loving this series! The costumes, the acting--everything makes it a top-notch production.

We have also been gobbling up the food from this cookbook:

This is the cookbook I've talked about in another post that is British, but with American measurements and vocabulary as well as the British. (Remember: take one Swede …?) Not only is it a beautiful book to just browse through, but everything we've made so far has been a big hit: Chicken Pot Pie with Tarragon and Leeks (simple and delicious); Tamale Pie, that you top with a cornbread mixture that has green chiles mixed in; and this delicious lunch yesterday, Creamy Pancetta and Onion Tart. Yum!

Rick has declared the Chicken Pot Pie to be the best he's ever tasted! Unfortunately I don't have these recipes entered in to our recipe book just yet. But soon!

We didn't do much else over the weekend, it was too cold for most outdoor activities since we are below freezing again. We had a little skiff of snow, maybe an inch, on Saturday night. Just enough that Rick felt he had to clear the driveway. Nuisance snow. And we're supposed to get more of those in the coming week.

We managed to take the dogs for a walk and split some more wood for the wood stove and fireplace.

Other than that, Rick worked on our web sites--getting us running under new software and fine tuning things. Some of you may have experienced difficulty leaving a comment, or possibly searching the archives. We think it's working properly now, but please let us know if you encounter anything odd or can't leave a comment. (Use the Contact Me button at the top.)

P.S. The cookbook is available on Amazon.com.

Today our house will be without power for about five hours. On purpose! Today is the day we have a new electrical panel installed complete with a transfer switch for routing our generator into the household circuitry. It’s not the best planning since it’s still below freezing during the daytime, but today is the day the electrician had the time.

We’ve bumped the heat up about five degrees higher than we normally keep it to get the house really warm and the wood fire is burningly brightly.

We plan to hang out in the sun room around the wood stove for the duration of our power outage. We’ll put up the card table and start a puzzle. I’ve got plenty of books for reading (thanks to my library visit) and my iPad is fully charged. For lunch we’ll probably load the dogs in the truck and eat somewhere in town or maybe we’ll venture up to the winery café.

It’s an inconvenience, but one we hope we’ll be glad we did next time the power goes out for real. Until then we’ll just do all we can to stay warm!

(photo: eBay last night cuddling with Rick’s wooly hand-knitted slippers [knit by me!])

7 Degrees F, that is. That was the temperature when I got up this morning. Now it’s a big 16 degrees out there. BRRRRR.

When I took the dogs for a ride to the grocery and library this morning I noticed some interesting freezing going on in the little stream that runs alongside the main road. I got the hare-brained idea to try and get some photos.

I am determined, if not crazy.

So, when I got home I suited up in my warm parka, thermal gloves, boots and camera. I added in a pair of fingerless gloves for switching to when I wanted to manipulate the camera. I shrugged into my parka and zipped it up as far as it would go so that it covered my chin. As I stepped outside I flipped up the hood of the parka. I had flashbacks to when I was a child and my mom would put me in my snowsuit, my little legs so padded by layers they could barely move.

At first I was warm enough and the exercise felt good. I’m sure the people passing by me in cars thought I was crazy, but I couldn’t see their expressions because my field of vision was hampered by the faux fur of my hood, which is all I could really see as I trudged along.

My first stop was a spot where I had seen ice globes previously, but there weren’t really any to be seen and the ice was nothing special.

Further down there were some interesting frozen areas of the stream but I soon realized that it was too cold for the fingerless gloves, even for a few short minutes. For me this is not a good thing since I do suffer at times from Raynaud’s syndrome and the tips of my fingers were indeed white and painful. Time to head back and put on heavier gloves.

I got a few photos but all in all, photographically speaking, it was a bust.

Thankfully I had stoked the fire in the wood stove before I left so I could come home and warm my hands up over its cozy warmth. I don’t think I will be venturing back out again today.

(photos: Icy Stream)

I feel like I should be blogging about something. Anything. But I can’t come up with anything anyone (including myself) would care to read. My mind is pretty much blank.

I could tell you I saw a huge hawk in the tree this morning, just waiting to make a snack out of the birds feeding below him. At first I thought it was an owl because it was so big, so white, and so round. But it was just a cold hawk with his feathers all fluffed out. He spooked when I saw him and flew to another tree. I got the camera out but for whatever reason the photos were all out of focus. You’ll just have to envision him for yourself, or you can look at the out-of-focus shot. (It’s a Broad-Winged. They nest in our woods.) He’s beautiful even if he does like to eat little birds.

I could tell you it’s below freezing out there today and spitting fitful little snowflakes. Pfffftttt.

I could tell you that the dogs have had their second treatment for their scabies and are greatly improved. Good news for sure. The itching and scratching had pretty much come to a halt until we treated them on Friday whereupon they immediately started scratching again. The vet told us that as the little mites were dying off they would cause bouts of scratching, and so they do. No more ugly hot spots though.

Did I tell you that my neighbor Kim and I got to talking and I found out that she’s been treating her dog for the same condition? Yup, Finn has scabies too and she went through the same round of vet appointments and treatments (on non-treatments) that I did. No coincidence there since she has had to chase the fox away from their back deck too.

Hmmm … let’s see what else …

I could tell you we made a great Beef and Guinness Pie last night for dinner. Yummy.

I could tell you the lakes are finally freezing over. The ice fishermen will be happy about that.

I could tell you that over the weekend most of our last snow melted away. The snow squirrel has been reduced to a blob of white. Alex will have to resort to bushes and trees again.

I could tell you that it’s 2:30 in the afternoon and I’ve already started a fire in the wood stove because it’s cold in the house.

That being said, what the heck am I doing sitting here telling you uninteresting things that you could care less about when I could be sitting by the warm fire reading?

I’m off …

(photos: top & bottom: Blank Windows @ Long Pond : Mr. Not-In-Focus Broad-Winged)