When I opened our upstairs bedroom curtains this morning this was the first thing I saw. Our resident broad-winged hawk all puffed up in the 7 degree weather, and obviously hoping to score a meal. He sat there for at least a half an hour without moving. As far as I know he was not successful in his hunt for food. Beautiful bird.

We did have two days last week that got into the 40’s and some melting went on in the yard. The snow depth went down quite a bit but we still have about 8 inches of solid white stuff firmly holding ground. What is out there is impossible to walk on (the dogs can just walk on top of it without falling through) and is glacier hard. I can only remember one year since we’ve lived here that we had so much snow cover. And, that was basically from one big storm, whereas this has been non-stop every week since the end of January. 

This week we have plunged back into the “polar vortex” (which to me sounds very much like a sci-fi film) and have not gotten above freezing. In fact, Tonight it’s supposed to go below zero. 

During our short meltdown, we had some lovely black ice on the driveway. We went out one morning to get in the truck and Bella was jumping around like her normal self and took a good fall on her shoulder. She’s still gimping around a little bit. I could barely stand! Nasty nasty stuff.

They tell us that more snow is on the way. Oh joy. Really? They were saying 3-6 inches over Sunday and Monday this morning, but now I see they have upped it to 4-8 inches. Just what we need — more snow! As it is we’ve had little squalls of snow come through every day this week or flurries flying around willy-nilly in the air. It didn’t amount to much, just a coating, but still.

In other news, we’ve been “feathering our new nest” and outfitting the T@B a bit. We got these great stackable pots and pans that I will show you soon. Very cool. They all fit together in one neat package (handle is separate). Other things include a few necessary kitchen utensils and supplies. We need to be careful because we don’t have much room for storage.

I saw on our T@B owners’ group the other day that someone has just ordered their new T@B and named it “Downton T@BBY”. How cute is that? It seems everyone has a name for their T@B. Now I don’t feel so silly that we name our vehicles. We’ll fit right in! Question is, what to name it? I hope to get the new blog up and running soon and it will mostly be things we have purchased while waiting for ours to arrive. Maybe it will help other new owners with what to buy (or not) as the case may be. 

I finished my sister’s cowl and shipped it off to her today, and I love mine so much I am making myself another one in gray.  I am (as predicted) still making my way through Kristen Lavransdatter.