Then: December 2009 Now: July 16, 2011




Mountain sun and valley fog

 

Dogs running with MAX on our road



 Then: December 2009

We start the month out with about 4" of snow on the ground. I walk out on the porch in the sunlight and it is awash in sparkling fairy dust. The snow has so many different guises. In the moments before sunset, a purple haze rings the horizon, much more subtle than music but even more effective.

December 12 and we have had an arctic blast the past week or so with highs from 3 to 12 degrees. Larry and Elsie have been up, bringing fresh eggs. JB has been baking bread, rye this time. And I made a big pot of ham and bean soup. We took my Jeep down to park at Larry and Elsie's for the winter. I drove the Jeep and JB followed in MAX.

We received more snow on the 14^th and 15^th for about 8" total. Watched a meteorite shower the night of the 15th. The dogs and I went for a long hike after we spent the morning snow blowing and shoveling. JB took MAX down the road to groom it. I started putting up Christmas decorations, including decorating the tree in the yard. Am trying to talk JB into going to Seattle for his family Christmas dinner. He needs to see his Mom.

It warmed up to almost 30 degrees on the 16^th and we got another 1-1/2" of snow. Our house's side burms are growing as the snow slides off the roof. We do not use our side door during the winter after the first snow. Too dangerous. We all went down the road in MAX nice and slow to groom the road. The dogs, especially Dinga, love the snow.

On the 18^th I took almost 200 pictures of our mountain sun and valley fog off both our ridges and another ride on MAX. It is just amazing! Larry and Elsie came up for their Christmas visit with a big tin of home made cookies! We have decided that JB will definitely go to his family Christmas dinner. He will leave Christmas morning and just stay one night, coming back on the 26^th. I doubt many of Elsie's cookies will be left when he gets back. . .

JB left for town at 8:00 am on the 22^nd (mainly for the mail and eggnog) and got back at 4:00 p.m. I worked on organizing my photos on the computer. We spent the 23^rd just reading our mail (lots of Christmas cards), magazines and newspapers. It has still been very cold lately, with highs in the low 20's.
We have always opened our gifts on Christmas Eve and our stockings on Christmas Morning. Since JB will not be here for Christmas dinner, I cook a pork roast with all the trimmings for us on Christmas Eve day. It is cold and overcast with fog, but there is snow on the ground and we are toasty warm in our mountain home having a great Christmas. One of my gifts from JB is the TV series, Firefly and we end up watching two installments of it.

We wake up Christmas Day to rimed screens, bushes, trees and 13 degrees. We have breakfast, open our stockings and JB leaves for Seattle at 9:30. It is very difficult to let him go and be alone on Christmas. I am so used to having big family Christmas celebrations that it is hard to be by myself. But there are those cookies, all that eggnog and a new book. Doesn't take me long to settle in and enjoy myself.

Now: July 16, 2011

Yesterday morning was beautiful, clear and warm.. Of course. Our guests are gone. But it did cool off and get cloudy in the afternoon. I did wash in the morning then got my little 10" electric chain saw out after lunch. I run the saw with a small Coleman generator that I keep in a yard wagon, so I can pull it around to where ever I need it. I cut and stacked three wheelbarrow loads of branch wood. And I had forgotten just how sweaty of a job it is!

Before getting started for the day, I enjoyed my coffee sitting on the porch. Some of the finches are back and splashing and drinking in the bird bath. The male wren is singing and it looks like we will have another family in the bird house.

The last couple nights I have heard noises in the loft, so I am sure we have another mouse. I couldn't figure out just what he was doing until I noticed that the small, plastic ant bait container had been moved from the north side where I put it, almost clear over to the south side of the loft! I put it back where I originally had it and, sure enough, this morning it had been moved again. I hope it at least gives him a stomach ache. He doesn't seem interested in the mouse trap.

The dogs and I drove down the shortcut to RJ's for dinner yesterday evening. We cooked tequila-chicken sausages over the open fire and ate the rest of the toll house bars for desert, all the while admiring the hand prints on the rocks of the fireplace. RJ and Mike had used a brown paint to put their hand prints on one of the rocks, then RJ had thought it would be a great idea to have all his guests do the same. Rick, Maureen and I had pressed ours there Wednesday night and they held the memories of our time together.