Sunday morning we woke up to more new snow. The predicted “coating to a an inch” turned into three inches. It coated the trees and branches perfectly with its fluffy whiteness. Such a pretty snow!

Anyone up for an al fresco meal by the pool?

Okay, so maybe we didn’t have our usual poolside Sunday lunch. We took the dogs for a walk since it’s really been too cold to take them this past week. Bella preferred the snow to the road.

When we got back she was still a bundle of energy, so I took them in the back yard for a proper snow romp.

Snow really sticks to soft, downy puppy coats!

Heck, this kind of snow sticks to most anything!

And now for a few more serious shots.

Here is Alex, deep in thought.

And Hailey with snow nose.

And Bella.

Who you can’t expect to be serious for very long.

But I need to buckle down and get serious. I have five interview questions from Reya to answer which I have been giving much thought to over the past few days. I hope you’ve enjoyed this little taste of winter!

Just look at my feet and tell me what you see. Anything wrong? Uhm, I didn’t realize I had put on two unmatched shoes this morning until I got to the grocery store and looked down. Good grief. One old Merrill yard shoe (complete with hole) and one newer Merrill. One grey and one brown. Such a class act. I hope no one noticed.

Even though my day started off on the wrong foot, it’s not going badly. I just got back from taking the two big dogs for a walk in the wintry white greyness that is hanging around outside today. It looks like winter and if feels like winter. The snowfall from the other day is staying solidly in place, probably because of the coating of ice on top that is like a layer of shellac. Crunchy stuff, that. It’s just above freezing and that’s a heat wave compared to the frigid cold moving our way. Friday’s high temperature is supposed to be 10 F. brrrrrrrrrrr. Even some snow here and there over the next few days. But we all know how well the weather can be predicted, especially snowfall. I am sceptically optimistic.

Even though it’s white and grey outside, look what I get to look at inside to brighten up my day.

Gorgeous, isn’t it? Neighbor Aileen gave me this lovely amaryllis bulb for Christmas and it’s just now starting to bloom. I took it outside for a photo shoot because I liked the contrast of winter and spring.

And, look what I kept alive since last year and managed to force it to bloom again this year! What green fingers I am acquiring here on the East Coast! I am thrilled!

All summer long it lived outside and thrived. I brought it in before the first hard frost and stopped watering it. About three weeks ago I started watering it again. The growth you see here has all taken place in about one week. Here is a link to what it looked like last year blooming.

Bringing in a little sunshine with its warm color, here is the first half of my scarf completed. I’ve now started on the other half. I am just loving this pattern!

and even more sunshine for the soul ...

I hope you find a little sunshine in your day today too!

Yesterday the Ice Queen paid us a visit. She captured everything in her icy grip. Bare branches, pine needles, and buds awaiting the spring were all trapped in their icy prisons like flies in amber.

She left ice sculptures behind.

She made a crystalline carpet out of the grass that crunched underfoot and sounded like glass breaking when walked upon.

Thankfully she didn’t do any damage. We may have lost a few small branches but nothing big. It could have been much worse.

Becky awarded me this lovely award the other day and I am just now getting around to posting about it.

Thank you Becky! I will get it posted in my side bar soon. I don’t know how to make it appear there myself! The rules say I am supposed to pass it along to five other bloggers. Most of the blogs I read don’t display awards so I am not going to participate in the same way. Instead I will just tell you my five top favorite blogs. In no particular order they are:
1. I would return the favor to Becky but she already has one.
2. Reya
3. Letty
4. Susan
5. Paula

I have many others I enjoy as well, but these are the ones I will always read first. If your name is there and you’d like the award, please help yourself!

Our cheese making class on Sunday was just wonderful! We really enjoyed it. But more on that later. What’s that? Did I take photos? Of course I took photos! What a silly question!

I’ve been knitting almost every day now after taking the summer off. I have three projects going at the moment. I just finished one of Rick’s fingerless mitts (except for the thumb and finishing),

I am working on this drop stitch ribbon scarf (a gift perhaps?)

and trying to add a few rows to my Three Button Sassy Shawl each day. I got this pattern in my email yesterday and it’s calling to me. One can never have too many fingerless gloves/mittens. The pattern looks fun and interesting.

I have many more things to blog about this week so I’ll probably be posting every day. Check back for updates! Plus, there is something very special in the works for this weekend. Something exciting is arriving all the way from Bozeman, Montana.

Please get out there and VOTE today!! I’ll be there standing in line this afternoon waiting to cast mine and then I am going to hide under the covers until they count all the votes and we finally know who our next President will be. Depending on the outcome I may be moving to Canada!

Guess who forgot about setting the clocks back last night, both external and internal? That’s why I got out of bed at what I thought I was 7:00 this morning and jumped in the shower so I would be ready to leave the house at 8:30. As I was standing there with hot water pouring down over my neck and shoulders, Rick came in and told me that it was really only 6:00. Well, I was already wet so going back to bed was not an option at that point. So, here I am in front of the computer instead. Aren’t you lucky? This is one of those random-not-planned posts.

We have plans for today. We enrolled in a cheese making class at a creamery about an hour’s drive from here. We get a tour of the farm and then make our own round of cheese which they will store and age for us. I think we get to pick it up sometime after Christmas. Should be a fun day.

Yesterday we took care of all the leaves carpeting our front yard. I think they make a lovely carpet but if left they will kill the grass. In the two years that we’ve lived here we had someone professional come and blow the yards of leaves. It’s a lot of leaves! It’s also very expensive as you might imagine. This year we took Johnny Jr. (who has a mulching attachment) and drove very slowly over the leaves mulching them into tiny pieces that just disappeared into the grass. Good for the grass; good for the pocketbook. It worked like a charm. We’re very pleased at how well this worked. Here you can see before and after.

We also replaced our little wood stove in the sun room. It was old and tired and needed new stove black. You couldn’t dampen it down to burn efficiently and it ate wood like it was candy. Our new stove will burn very efficiently and heat the sun room and kitchen area very nicely. Here they are side by side for comparison. The difference is like night and day. (Pun intended as I took the photos at different times of the day obviously.)

The man who installed it is also the chimney sweep that didn’t show up last week in our deluge of rain, so that was handy. He took a look at both chimneys and gave us a reasonable quote for sweeping them soon. They need it if the amount of chunky soot that came out of the little stove’s pipe is anything to judge by. We need to break it in so we had two little fires in it yesterday. What a difference! The tiny pile of wood burned for a very long time, giving out the kind of warmth that only wood can provide. Cozy.

As I type our little turkey family is out there in the front yard pecking away at the seed I threw down yesterday afternoon. It’s pretty light out there now at 6:59 a.m.

The trees are still beautiful. The colors are now all burnt yellows and oranges since we’ve had some pretty good frosts.

Gorgeous color, crisp days, frosty nights and cozy fires. What’s not to love about this season?