He came while we were sleeping. Softly. Stealthily. The visitor wrapped our world in a blanket of wooly white.

Our visitor, if you already haven’t guessed, was Mr. Snow. I hate it when he visits when I can’t watch. It’s like looking under the Christmas tree and finding the packages already open.

First thing I did was start a fire in the wood stove. There were red embers left from the log we put in just before going to bed last night, so getting the fire going was easy. When I looked up I saw its fiery reflection in the sliding glass door and snapped this photo.

At first glance the snow looks fluffy and inviting.

That was before I went outside to shovel.

That fluffy, oh-so-inviting-looking snow was actually about 5 to 6 inches of wet cement! Ugh! Snow is sometimes better appreciated from inside the house looking out, sitting around a nice little cheery fire.

As I shoveled (mostly pushing) it off the deck it was rolling itself into solid little balls. An idea immediately formed in my head. Something made from packed, rolled snow.

I am thinking a snow creature is in my future today. Stay tuned.

(photos: top; Snow Fire: bottom; Deck Steps)

I shot this photo of our pool cover after a heavy frost about a month or so ago before the snows came (and stayed). It looked like a smiley face to me. Or maybe the pool was taunting me (neh neh neh neh neh neh you can’t swim in me!) Either way, it caught my eye.

Hopefully this will be my last post before the new look for the blog will be revealed. We are getting so close! I’m so excited to have a new, fresh look. I can’t promise that the content will be new and fresh—just the daily life of a ‘new’ Jersey Girl as it unfolds day by day.

I did manage to go over to Skylands on Friday, but it was a rather disappointing trip. The constant freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw of our snowpack has left a solid sheet of ice in spots as I found out when I tried to go cross-country instead of keeping to the paved areas. I slipped my way to the slimy bullfrog pond only to find it with barely a covering of ice and looking very un-photographable. My next slippery stop was the koi and lily pad trench which I found out they drain completely in winter. Even the Duck Pond was boring as it was totally frozen over with a heavy sheet of ice and no reflections to be seen. I would have walked the loop but I didn’t have a hat on my head and a nasty little wind was blowing. I went home. This was the only shot I took the whole time.

With the warmer temperatures this weekend we hope to get down the Christmas decorations outside. I think the lights on the trees have unfrozen by now and the snow has shrunk enough to gather up the extension cords that are on the ground. I am tired of looking at them.

One of my amaryllis has a bud coming! I think it’s the oldest one of the three, and if so it will be its sixth year or so of blooming. It’s going to be a small one, but still—six years of consecutive blooms! The other two are still not showing any signs of a bud issuing forth but they still have nice green leaves. I was contemplating cutting them off with the thinking behind it of them putting all their energy into the leaves and not in producing a bud, but my master gardner neighbor Aileen nipped that idea in the bud (so to speak). She told me not to cut them. So, I guess I’ll wait and see what happens. I’ve treated them the same way I have every year so there should be no difference.

Next up: the big reveal!

Sorry. I couldn’t come up with a better title! The new blog site is coming along albeit slowly. It’s harder to work on it with Rick and I trading chats throughout the day while he’s at work about the formatting, font style, etc. I can only hope that when we’re through I like it and most people reading like it as well. Hopefully the new look will be revealed next week. At least that is what we are aiming for. I don’t want to drag this out too long!

The little common redpolls have moved on as predicted. I still see one or two on the finch sock, but it’s been taken over by goldfinches and I’ve even seen a few sparrows on it pecking away. I am wishing now I had participated in Project Feeder Watch run by Cornell. I would have except for the fact that right now our main bird feeder hangs in such a way that I can’t actually see the birds when they are on it. Our hanger makes it too low and it’s hard to remedy that easily since the hanger attaches to the deck railing. I figured I couldn’t get a good enough bird count without actually seeing them on the feeder. I would love to do this, so maybe I should be thinking ahead for next year and plan out a feeder strategy.

Our weather is warming up and our frozen snowpack is slowly melting. Fifty degrees is the predicted temperature for this upcoming weekend! It’s not my preference as I like winter to be winter. Plus, I really like looking out the window and seeing the ground covered in white instead of all those brown fallen leaves. It makes it so easy to see things in the woods, like the deer roaming around. But, it seems there is always a January warm-up each year around the same time. Even in Colorado this was true.

But I’m a Winter Girl. Born in winter; raised in winter. See?

There is supposedly an arctic blast coming next week. Not sure if there is any moisture around for snow though.

We’ve been having issues for a couple of months now with itchy and scratchy dogs. Alex developed big oozing hot spots from chewing and Bella woke us up from sound sleeps scratching. We had multiple vet visits. First one said flea allergies but we had not seen any fleas on anyone. So, they put them on a steroidal allergy medication which seemed to do not much. Back again and they said well, they probably have a skin infection now since the skin was breached, so antibiotics. Again, not much happened to relieve the itchy and scratchy show.

I could never seem to get in to the vet I like best at the clinic because I wanted an appointment pronto and he is harder to get in to see. I wanted the vets to see the areas of concern on the dogs while they were looking fresh. The first vet had said well, it could be scabies but I doubt it since she said we would be scratching and presenting with a rash too.

Long story short: the dogs have now been diagnosed with canine scabies, more commonly known as mange. Ewwww. Mangy dogs! Mange is caused by mites that get underneath the skin. On our last visit to the vet (and the vet I wanted) he took a scraping from Alex’s skin and found a mite under the microscope. Hurrah! Finally. Why didn’t the other vets take a scraping??

The vet said mange is more common than you’d think since we live around so much wildlife here. He said they could have picked it up in the driveway or the yard. I suspect these two “mangy” foxes that come around. Ugly, eh? We also have some suspicious looking squirrels who are always scratching. Or it could have been at the last groomer’s since it started right after their last grooming.

It’s easy enough to treat with a product called Revolution which is like Frontline except that it treats different things (like mites and heart worm). Revolution is right. Let’s lead a revolt against those terrible mites! Be gone! After only one application the dogs are already showing improvement. Hallelujah!

So, that about catches you up on what’s been going around here. I hope to get away from the usual household routine today and spend a little time at Skylands. We’ll see if that works out.

On New Year’s Day we took the dogs for a “big” walk, meaning we walked down our street, and crossed the main road and entered the woods by Green Turtle Pond. You know: The Thorn Queen’s Kingdom.

By the looks of the entrance you would think she was once again plotting a new way to keep people (me) out since her thorns are lessened by the snowpack. These trees no doubt blew over right across the trail during Hurricane Sandy. It did not deter us!

Her kingdom looks very different from the last time I took you here.

I liked this woodpecker-holed tree. Did the bird drill from both sides to achieve the see-through hole?

The dogs love the freedom of running off-lead and exploring. They get lots of exercise since they run down the trail, then run back to get a treat from us. (Which is the way we trained them to stay close to us at the cabin.)

Bella

Here is Alex coming back for a treat and Hailey in the background not wanting to be left out where any kind of food is involved. Here I come, wait for me!!

Lunch involved our favorite champagne (Veuve Clicquot) with a toast to the New Year.

(Don’t look at the photo too hard for anything much in focus because I think it’s somewhere in the bubbles! I know, I know, but somehow it worked for me.)

And, we tried out a new recipe from a new cookbook Fireside Feasts & Snow Day Treats: Parmesan Custards with Anchovy Toasts.

The cookbook is British but has both UK and US measurements and usage of words which helps. I know most people don’t like anchovies, but here they get mashed with butter, spread on the bread and then panini-ed. The salt of the anchovy matched really well with the custards. You have to admit that at least they look good, yes? The custards didn’t come out quite as expected by following the directions, so if I make them again I’ll adjust the recipe. Still, they were really good. You can always go really light on the anchovies or leave them out altogether I suppose, which would probably be most people’s choice!

The cookbook has lots of tasty looking recipes and only one vegetable that I don’t know what it is since they only used the British word for it: a swede. I am assuming I am not supposed to slice up a person from Sweden! (Take one Swede and cut in half … ) Maybe a rutabaga since it’s a root vegetable gratin?? Anyway, that’s my best guess.

Now that I’ve turned you off our cooking completely I’ll get on with my day!

Early morning shadows from our fence make a true “Snow” Fence.