Pretty Picture

It is a gorgeous snowy day here...how can it look so pretty and be such an awful pain in the neck? (The picture shows the frozen pond mostly covered with new snow.)

We are totally sick of winter...and it goes without saying that we are really looking forward to our vacation to Mexico next month.

Winter Wonderland

We had a bit of snow yesterday, and more last night. It is supposed to get into the teens tonight. I hate it when it gets that cold - it is a struggle to keep the house warm.

I guess I shouldn't complain, though, since the ducks stay on the pond in every kind of weather!

The glass balls were a Christmas gift from Suki and Pete and the girls. Don't they just add some cool style to the pond? They are from the Museum of Glass in Tacoma.

I'll stop being a smart-ass now.

If you read the post below you will see that I made fun of our local TV news as well as taunted the weather. (The post remained unposted until now due to "weather issues.") Well, that should show me. That's because Thursday night around 8 pm our power went out, and it just came back on at 1 pm today - Sunday!

There was a huge windstorm here with wind gusts up to 90 miles per hour - or so they say. To me, it sounded like a 747 was caught in a giant mixer and it went on and on all night long.

We're grateful that we have two propane fireplaces and that we cook with propane. We're not so proud of the fact that we didn't get the generator repaired like we intended to all summer.

Living way out in the dingles meant that our lights came on much later than others further up the Peninsula. I won't make the mistake of taunting Mother Nature again!

And We Thought It Rained A Lot Here Already...

It's been stormy all week here and the TV news people are just praying that it will get worse. They are doing their best attempting to appear as though the wind is about to knock them over while giving us warning after idiotic warning. I wonder if I am just brilliant or if they believe the entire area is occupied by idiots?

Or maybe that idiot WOULD be me. Why am I here in this god awful soggy weather? The months of June, July, and August aren't enough to make up for this!

I did take the dogs for a walk today, braved the weather for a shopping trip, and dug trenches outside for an hour trying to get a car-sized puddle in the grass to drain down to the lowlands. So I'm not just cranky from being stuck inside while it rains and rains and rains.

The picture here is of the two cedars by the pond that we had limbed up recently. We love the way we can see the pond from the house now. Amazingly, when I took this picture a couple of days ago, it WASN'T raining! Imagine that!

How long is it until June?

It's Cold Here

It's something like 20 degrees here. The fireplaces are going and the dogs and I rotate from one to the next. The grass has such a strange feel - rock hard instead of a slurpy wet surface that your shoe sinks into! At least I'm glad to not be up in Bellingham with Phil and Jen - not because I don't love them - but because it is way colder up there.

The pond is about three-quarters of the way frozen. I thought I'd put a little movie here for your amusement - it's of the ducks walking on the ice.

Now it's time for another cup of hot coffee - our trip to Mexico in February can't come soon enough!

Precipitation is Expected

To quote Tom Waits, that is:

Emotional Weather Report

late night and early morning low clouds
with a chance of fog
chance of showers into the afternoon
with variable high cloudiness
and gusty winds, gusty winds
at times around the corner of
Sunset and Alvorado
things are tough all over
when the thunder storms start
increasing over the southeast
and south central portions
of my apartment, I get upset
and a line of thunderstorms was
developing in the early morning
ahead of a slow moving coldfront
cold blooded
with tornado watches issued shortly
before noon Sunday, for the areas
including, the western region
of my mental health
and the northern portions of my
ability to deal rationally with my
disconcerted precarious emotional
situation, it's cold out there
colder than a ticket taker's smile
at the Ivar Theatre, on a Saturday night
flash flood watches covered the
southern portion of my disposition
there was no severe weather well
into the afternoon, except for a lone gust of
wind in the bedroom
in a high pressure zone, covering the eastern
portion of a small suburban community
with a 103 and millibar high pressure zone
and a weak pressure ridge extending from
my eyes down to my cheeks cause since
you left me baby
and put the vice grips on my mental health
well the extended outlook for an
indefinite period of time until you
come back to me baby is high tonight
low tomorrow, and precipitation is
expected

Fall or Winter, Take Your Pick...

Saturday there was a crazy wind and rain storm that was so crazy and wild I went outside to take a picture of the insanity. The rain was bouncing up it hit so hard! So after taking the picture above I came inside and noticed that the lights were off. So we lit a bunch of candles and already had the fireplace going. I brought the birds into the living room to hang out by us and stay warm. Paul and I tried to read. It was hopeless so we got our mp3 players out. I started listening to Laura Esquival's "Malinche." After a couple of hours we headed out to get some dinner, returning just as the lights came on! This morning the rain had stopped for my usual walk with the dogs. We live just a couple of blocks from the water and I just adore seeing the morning from this location. Lucy has a tendency to pull on her leash, so we are using the backpack as a way to give her a "job" and make her less likely to pull. Henry pulls all the time...I need to enroll us in obedience classes, soon! I love the autumn colors and I like this picture of our driveway with Lucy included in the frame.

Spring is Here!

Saturday was heaven for those of us who garden in Western Washington. Sunny and clear, kind of warmish. Birds flying. Bees buzzing. Fruit trees blooming. Weeds growing. Spring!

We moved to this wonderful acreage six years ago tomorrow. It has been a wonderful six years, too. We measure time by projects done, things planted with their growth noted, animals that have come and gone. (see the picture of Sweet Pea, above)

We really love it here. Especially on a weekend like this. I cleared the weeds out of two of the raised beds and planted a double row of peas. Two trailers of mulch went on the rhubarb bed and the blueberries. Three big bins full of weeds went over the fence for the goats. Paul mowed all the lawns. We put sand on the flagstone path to fill in the gaps.

Sunday was wonderful too, with its on and off rain. We hung out reading in the living room, watched golf/racing/home improvement at the same time while I caught up on ironing, and in general had a nice inside day. We are definitely homebodies... delighting in all our critters, our property, and our home with an almost indecent enjoyment. Could part of that be the delight in realizing that we made it through another of the Northwest's endless winters?