Vacation Wrap-up

I saw this Asian lady beetle crawling on a cup and figured I would take advantage of the situation and see how good a video I could make on my phone. Then I made these GIFs. I want to get up much tighter for bug videos. I have to practice my skills for summer. I enjoy watching those little legs with their flat feet pumping along.

I've been reading, but not enough. TV has gotten in my way. What a bad habit! But the kids and I had a couple of watch parties with movies and a baking show. And we cooked and baked, too. 

Shells and sauce with sweet Italian sausage

I made a lot of bread, but only simple sandwich loaves.

Amy and I made apricot bars:
I did the puree and Amy did the shortbread crust.

And of course, it snowed. It snowed for 8 out of 10 days. But if you count light snow showers, it snowed 10 out of 10 days. I have not left the house once. Amy did, though, and often.

Amy's house after shoveling the roof.

Dori keeps an eye on the village sidewalk plow.

Dori watches over all activity on her road.

00:41

I did my taxes and re-organized and re-created my iTunes library on Apple Music. Lucy has been happy I'm home. But the cats? Just trouble with the plants, their food, their toys, their nonsense. That's just how cats are.

Happy Poppy says "Oh, hai!"

Basically, it was a boring week. I think I needed that—time to catch my breath. 

_/\_/\_

Snow Day iPhone Video

00:45

My phone dropped a lot of video on me this week. This is my favorite one. We are so warm today that it is raining but there will be a flash freeze, then snow, tomorrow. I won't be able to go to Christmas Eve service tomorrow!

 🎄 😞🎄

Please note that in this video, if there is mud or bare ground, it is spring or autumn. The blowing snow was from last winter. The music was chosen by iPhone.

Happy Holidays!

_/\_/\_

How To Make It All Go Away

The woodpile on April 9, 2011

The weather on Saturday, April 9, was beautiful and warm. But we still had a deep snowpack on all but a few southern facing slopes. John, who truly dislikes snow, had had enough. I found him in the back dooryard silently dragging the hose out to the brook (in addition to the brooks in the field and orchard out back, there is another brook in the backyard). An electric wire came out of the brook and was running into the house. I asked him what was up. He said he was getting rid of the snow. I told him not to electrocute himself and went for my camera.

The hose coming out and the wires going into the brook.

The electric cord ran to a big aquarium pump. John had taped the electrical connections to make sure he wouldn’t be electrocuted, and dumped the pump into the brook. The pump sucked up the water and spat it out of the hose and onto the snow in the yard.

John had also spent a lot of time this winter tossing wood ash onto the snowpack. The dark colored ash would absorb sunlight and melt the snow. That’s why these snow photos look the way they do. We had the dirtiest snow in the county. The ash was effective in reducing snow but not in getting rid of it.

John's snow reduction was very successful. By the end of the afternoon, half of the entire dooryard was free of snow. John’s tension was relieved and peace was restored to our home. The dooryard was very wet.

PS: It was another two weeks before all the snow  (except a two foot deep pile behind the woodpile and lots still in the woods) was clear. It  had melted naturally. I think.

_/\_/\_

The Big Storm

Our first view of the storm on the morning of March 7 after it had snowed overnight

That poof of snow on the car roof visually shows you how the wind comes down off the mountain (which is on the right), into the driveway and up and over the car.

This is the snow outside the back living room window.
I darkened the photo so that you could see the height of the snow.

Snow blocked the backdoor but I was able to push it open enough to stick
the lens of the camera out the door.
That is the window at the back of the garage totally buried under snow.

Our mailbox. The roads were not plowed at all until the day after the storm was over.
This was natural accumulation, not plowed snow.

John begins to plow on the morning of the storm.

Still plowing . . .

The tractor's gas line froze in the wind and was thawed with industrial blow dryer.

Wind blows snow off of the barn.

Because no plows reached us for 36 hours,
John had to plow the road in order to plow the mailbox.
Here, he has just gotten down to the road.

Plowing the mailbox out.

We were safe and warm in that house!

There wasn't a soul on the road.
It was quiet and peaceful for two days.
We got three feet of snow and much more in drifts.

_/\_/\_

Snowy Squirrels

A squirrel enjoys the bird seed.

I usually get a lot of unsalted peanuts in the shell for the red squirrels. I throw them out under the bird feeders —  but not this winter. I got a few pounds once and for some reason I never got more. The squirrels are fun to watch as they bury their peanuts in the snow near the house or run off to the woods with their prizes. Red squirrels are loathe to cross open spaces. They prefer to run tree to tree at the edge of a field or through a network of tunnels that they make in the snow. Here is a short series on one squirrel this winter.

Running off with a peanut.

Down the hole!

The squirrel pops up out of the snow tunnel to see what's around.

_/\_/\_

The First Day of Spring?

The annual "back of the house" shot showing how snow melt is progressing.
The semicircular tracks near the back door are from deer.

It was the annual Vermont Maple Open House weekend. We found no open sugar houses to visit. But it was also the first day of spring so we took a walk in the back by the road that John plowed (to ease his angst at there being snow). It wasn't a long walk but it was as long as we could make it. In the photograph above, you see the deer tracks around the back door. To the right of the door is a big shadow cast by the house and on the right border of that, near the garage, you can see a pile of snow. That pile, only one week ago, covered the entire living room window behind it. We're making progress! I love the snow half on and half off of the metal garage roof.

A deer run down the mountain.
That's a tamarack tree on the left.

There are deer trails all over out back. Here, above, is a photograph of one coming down off the mountain. See the tamarack tree in the foreground? It looks dead. It isn't.

American Pussywillow (Salix discolor)

Nearly all the pussywillows are in bloom! Now that is a sign of spring!

The snowpack has been cut in half this past week!

The brooks are all running and gurgling happily. Love that sound of running water! And the depth of the snow is half of what it was last week! Happy days are coming . . .  but wait . . .

Winter Storm Warning
Hazardous Weather Outlook

I’m going to bed now.

(Hopefully, if you click the link, they will have cancelled tomorrow’s storm and the link will be dead)

_/\_

October’s First Snow

Our white house is tucked under the mountain down the road on the left.

Why in the world, one week after a three foot snowfall, would I post photographs of a dusting of snow in October? Because I love the photos and with all the computer and software problems I have had the past few months, I have been unable to post these until now.

Our first snow this winter was on Halloween. I did a Halloween post because the kids had to bundle up in snowsuits to go trick or treating.

The photo above shows our house underneath Barton Mountain. A cloud is beginning to pass over the mountain. The monochrome colors are broken by the double yellow line down the road. The small barn on the left stabled two horses back then. They have moved to another farm. The flat land on the right is the beaver bog (a small slice of a very large area). We love it here.

Roofs

Old New England farmhouses grew over the decades. They have many roofs at different angles. I am fascinated by the geometry of these roofs. Do you see the two windows on the right of the house on the first floor, underneath the right chimney? Those windows are now invisible — hidden by feet and feet of snow. The backdoor could not be opened because of deep  snow blocking it. These windows and that door are always buried like this every winter. But some melting, some dripping from the eaves, and John's strength finally freed the door yesterday. He cleared a very narrow path from the back door to the left of the house so that I can go out and feed the birds. The spindly looking tree in the foreground is one of our tamarack trees — which I blogged yesterday.

I wandered out to the apple orchard to see the snow on the trees and brush. The first snow is always beautiful.

Tomorrow the weather here should be sunny and nearly 40°F (4.4°C)! I think I'll go outside. If I can find snow shallow enough to walk through.

_/\_/\_

Quite the Week

Barton Village seen from the Welcome O. Brown Cemetery in September 2010.

It has been a week of disorganization: huge software failures, bad weather, meetings, construction . . . I have been disorganized and frustrated. There was a huge snowstorm here and the awful earthquake in Japan. But now it is Saturday and I can reorganize and move forward. It is snowing quite heavily here (of course), so it will be a quiet, contemplative day. We haven't suffered as millions of other people have suffered this week. For that I am thankful and prayerful.

The fall foliage photographs that I am posting here are from September. After my solo Pageant Park hike, I continued the day at the Welcome O. Brown Cemetery in Barton Village. There are good views of the surrounding hills and mountains, and of the village there.

We are blessed to live in a quiet, beautiful corner of the world.

I was torn whether to photoshop the wires out of the photograph above. I decided not to.

The steeple of St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church in Barton Village.

When I look at these photographs, and think back of all that has happened this week, I realize how fortunate I am. My problems and frustrations have been put into perspective again, and I pray for the safety and recovery of the millions around the world who are suffering this week.

_/\_/\_

A Christmas Eve View

The view of Barton Mountain
from our bedroom window on Christmas Eve morning.

_/\_/\_

Got On Your Snowsuit? Your Boots? Then Let’s Go Trick or Treating! It’s Halloween!

Yes, it snowed last night. It snowed off and on all day. It picked up this afternoon. But the roads are still warm and so it's a normal Halloween in the Northeast Kingdom. Kids have put on their snowsuits, boots and mittens under their costumes and they are being driven into villages everywhere to get their loot. They will waddle up and down village roads and come home warmed by sugar.

Our old house (under major renovations) in the early afternoon today.

On the left is Ironman as Transformer. On the right is Catgirl as, well, Catgirl.

And now, above and below, we are all bundled up with sweatshirts, snowsuits, hats, mittens, boots, and the costumes!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!

_/\_/\_

WTF at NWS?

I woke up Friday morning to snow on the roof. There were patches of snow on the ground. The wind was roaring around the house and through the old windows. This is a very old house and there never has been heat in my bedroom so it was brutally cold — about 44°F. The fiercer the wind blows the more you feel the cold.

Buddy the Cat had slept under the covers with me all night and needed to be persuaded to leave his warm nest. We dragged ourselves out of bed and went downstairs where it was warm. I turned on the computer to see what the National Weather Service (NWS) predicted for the day. It said there was a 20% chance of flurries. Well, already it had flurried until it had accumulated. But at least there was no storm coming. Because I usually blog about the first snow every autumn, I grabbed the 20% snowy icon from the NWS for this post.

And guess what the URL for this icon is?

http://forecast.weather.gov/images/wtf/sn20.jpg

Yes, they keep the snowy icons in their WTF folder. I think it’s an appropriate place for them.

_/\_/\_

Snow, Oil, Dogs and Cellar Holes

On May 10, Ironman had the camera again and took photos of our oil delivery. We’ve never had to have a delivery in May, but it snowed the first two weeks of the month and we ran out of firewood. We should be set with oil now for a couple of years.

Then the 4 year old took the camera into the room that John is renovating and got this shot of the cellar hole. The boulder is part of the original 1900 stone foundation. It is a granite boulder that was quarried on Barton Mountain in our quarry.

These are some old farm implements that were tossed into the cellar hole. There were treasures and trash under the floor — some of it was over 100 years old.

Ironman’s self-portrait.

Scout (left) and Willow napping on the couch on the sun porch.

To see a naughty photo of Scout that Ironman took, click here. I won’t post the photo on the blog.

Ironman’s 6 year old sister, Catgirl. Ironman is on the right.

_/\_/\_