No More Snow, Please

Officially (though I’m not sure who is in charge of officially measuring) we got 15 inches of snow, topped with another 1–2 inches of ice. Clearing all of that, on top of what was still hanging around from two weekends ago, was not exactly fun, but we managed to get it done.

John handled the snowblower, and I shoveled places where the snowblower couldn't be used. It was 12 degrees when we started and eventually warmed up to 18. I don’t mean to just complain about the weather, especially since we were incredibly lucky and never lost power.

Ryan spent around seven hours clearing his sidewalk and driveway, but Justin wins the prize. He worked 16 hours of overtime on Sunday plowing and shoveling, then another eight hours of overtime on Monday cleaning up more snow, shoveling, and salting. Hopefully, those 24 hours of overtime will help cover his slightly exorbitant gas and electric bill.

I didn't take any photos because I was shoveling, so I’m including a couple that friends sent me. It all looks very picturesque and peaceful, but no more snow, please!

Just a Few Photos

We're getting ready for another snowstorm this weekend, along with much of the country. The predictions seem to range from 4" to a gazillion", but they all agree that temperatures will be frigid next week. I thought it was painfully cold in the middle of this week when we had temperatures below zero, but apparently that was nothing according to the forecasters. 

I've been getting ready for the storm this week by finishing all the laundry, getting all my post office and bank errands done, making a big pot of bean soup, baking bread, and making carrot cake. I'm not sure what carrot cake has to do with storm preparations, but I found frozen shredded carrots in the freezer, so of course, I had to bake a carrot cake. I think cake should always be part of preparing for a gigantic snowstorm. 

I only took a couple of pictures after last week's "dusting" (which amounted to 8-10") but it was a pretty snowfall. 

 

This is a nice view of a nearby creek, after last weekend's snowstorm but before it got really cold this week. 

 

 

And then when it got really cold, I drove to the Delaware River to check out the river ice. There is a lot of it!

 

And because many things besides scenery are delightful, here's a photo of the winter carrot cake. I wish I could share it with all of you.

 

I hope you have a good weekend, stay safe and warm, and maybe even enjoy a bit of cake. 

Winter Sunsets

I took this photo of the sunset one day last week and thought that I had seen a lot of distinctively beautiful sunsets so far this winter. Looking back through my pictures, I found at least seven in just the last three weeks. I started to wonder if I was just noticing sunsets more often, taking more photos, or if lovely sunsets really occurred more often in the winter. It seems that there may be some scientific reasons for sunsets being better during the winter. 

NOAA meteorologist Stephen Corfidi says that the peak sunset season for the Northeastern United States is November through February due to several meteorological factors. Those factors are lower humidity and cleaner air. This allows more saturated colors to reach our eyes, and because twilight lasts longer closer to the solstices, sunsets also last longer. 

Clouds figure into the picture, too. Well-defined cloud systems are more likely to happen in the winter, and they can provide a backdrop for the setting sun and reflect the beautiful colors back to those viewing the sunset. 

I've simplified the explanation a bit because it involved words like "spectrally pure" (vibrantly colored) and "Rayleigh scattering" (the scattering of light by particles much smaller than the wavelength of the radiation). But if you'd like to read more, you can read the original Vox article here. And for a real primary source, here is Dr. Perfidi's original paper (complete with further reading on the physics and meteorology of the twilight sky). 

Or maybe you don't need any further reading but just want to get out and view beautiful winter sunsets. Enjoy, whatever approach you take!

Sometimes Monday ...

 ... is a day to appreciate my sister's photos.

She took these lovely sunrise and sunset photos and I was happy that she shared them. I told her that I thought the snow made them even better by providing contrast, but she wasn't buying it. Maybe because she had had to clear their driveway herself (because her husband was out for 39 hours plowing).

Speaking of snow, we got more on Sunday.

And there is quite a bit more predicted later this week - tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday. Oh, goody!

I hope your Monday is off to a good start, with a rosy sunrise, and no snow in the forecast!

Wintering

I'll probably post next week sometime about books this year and reading in general, but today I want to recommend a book that I recently finished. It's called Wintering by Katherine May. I know that several of you are already reading it, but it struck me as so appropriate for this year and this time of year that I'd like to tell you a little bit about it in case it's not already on your radar.

We've had our first significant snowfall and temperatures have been in the single digits overnight, so this seems like a most appropriate time to read Wintering. The US subtitle of Katherine May's unique book, The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times shows that this book is appropriate for readers living in any sort of climate as we are all living in Very Difficult Times. May defines winter as "a fallow period in life when you're cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider." It is a lucky person who has not experienced this, and in this book, the author recounts her own personal winters and what she did to actively accept the sadness. Cooking, bathing in the Blue Lagoon in Reykjavik, reading by candlelight, using the sauna, exploring the behaviors of bees in cold weather, and experiencing the winter solstice at Stonehenge are all things that May describes both seriously and with humor, in beautiful language.

I was prepared to not like this book as I thought it might be self-indulgent and privileged, but I did not find it so. For me, it was a hard-to-classify combination of memoir, nature writing, and philosophy, and well worth reading, especially with May's sublime writing. The subtitle for the UK version may be even better: How I Learned to Flourish When Life Became Frozen. The author says that "Happiness is the greatest skill we'll ever learn," but she understands that it is also important to learn about "the active acceptance of sadness." 

I fell completely under the spell of the author's beautiful words and finished this short book (250 pgs, ~ seven hrs in audio) in a day. I count myself as lucky when I stumble upon the right book at the right time, and Wintering was certainly that for me. Katherine May has written other books, both fiction and non-fiction, that I think I may search out in the coming year. She also has a podcast called The Wintering Sessions in which she speaks with other writers about the winters in their lives. I haven't listened to all of them, but the link is on her website if this might be of interest to you. 

I hope this season of winter, solstice, and restrained holidays is a time of rest and renewal for you. 

From Our Home to Yours

Whatever you might be celebrating - Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Omisoka, Yule, Saturnalia, the Winter Solstice, or Monday - I wish you and all those you hold dear good health, warmth, peace, comfort, joy, contentment, and love.

Welcome to Winter!

This photo is a couple of years old and I'm sure that we don't have quite this much snow waiting for us in NJ, but it looms large in my mind. We originally intended to drive home yesterday, but it seems the forecasters missed the mark on this storm. We packed up and headed north yesterday afternoon, but when it took us 90 minutes to drive the five miles to the 95 north entrance ramp, we decided to turn around. Luckily, it only took us 45 minutes to get back to the MD house, so we'll give it a try again today. (Of course, John has important meetings this afternoon, so it won't be early.)

My neighbor in Flemington says it's still snowing there, with about eight inches on the ground, but it has stopped in Elkton this morning. I've shoveled here (not a difficult job and it seems I was the only one who cared about a clear sidewalk) so we'll give it another try later today. I'm going to pack plenty of patience because traveling north on 95 on a Friday afternoon with snow on the ground is not for the feint of heart. I wish Justin was waiting for us (25-year-old young men are excellent shovelers!) but all we've got is a couple of 60-year olds. Welcome to winter and have a lovely weekend!

Three on Thursday

Joining Kat and Carole for Three on Thursday, and today it's with some flowers.

Flowers are having a tough time of it this spring. This is what my poor hyacinths looked like when I left on Monday, bowed down by the weight of six inches of snow. I got home late last night in the dark, but I'm sure they are looking much better. Then I looked at the weather forecast, and it's deja vu all over again on Saturday.

Thankfully I was greeted by two more delightful floral sights upon my return; the lovely blossoms on my Easter cactus,

and a surprise second flower shoot on my amaryllis.

Hopefully someday soon I'll be taking more photos of flowers, all of them without any snow in sight.

Head on over here to read more Three on Thursday posts.

Love/Hate

Like many others, I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. Many of my issues began during last year's election season. I thought that lots of people seemed to be confused about the differences between facts and opinions, were woefully deficient in empathy and the desire for equality, and I also discovered that Facebook is not the place for clear-headed, well-reasoned inquiries and discussions. Oh, the drama (and it's not always about politics)!

I've used Facebook less and less over the past few months, and have deleted the app from my phone and Kindle. I've come very close to deleting my account several times, but just can't bring myself to completely walk away. There are some people that I'm only connected with through Facebook and I want to maintain that. I can occasionally read some interesting articles, find some new recipes, see what books friends are reading that I might have missed on goodreads, keep up with Carole's exciting candidacy for Selectman Committee, and even see what my kids might be doing.

There is another feature that I like, and that's On This Day. It's just what it says; Facebook reminds me what I posted or shared on this day in the past. Most of them are inconsequential or even inane, but given my poor memory, I do enjoy these throwbacks.

We've had plenty of snow, sleet, freezing rain, wintry mix, and cold temperatures this winter, but recently Facebook reminded me that it really hasn't been that bad. These photos from the end of January 2016 showed me a real snow storm (three feet +) and that I had lots of help clearing it.

And these photos from 2011 remind me what will be appearing in the spring!

How to Garden in Winter

First of all, thank you. For your kind expressions of sympathy, emails, cards, and just being there. It truly does help, knowing that so many people are sending good thoughts, prayers, and hugs. I guess we're at that age where so many of us have had to deal with the loss of a parent, family member, or good friend, and the support of this lovely knitting/reading/blogging community is something I deeply and sincerely appreciate.

Those of you who have experienced this know there is much to do, and to be honest, I haven't wanted to do any of it. Notify people, make plans for a funeral, make choices that simultaneously feel overwhelmingly important and yet not important at all in the grand scheme of things, clean out, decide what to do with all the bits and pieces of a person's life, and then there is the business end of it. Death certificates, the bank, the will, the lawyer, Social Security, multiple insurance companies, doctors, cancellations, bills, and the seemingly endless phone calls. It was during one of those phone calls (I was on hold for an hour and 42 minutes) when this view from the kitchen window inspired me.

That's the garden, on an 18 degree day and encased in several inches of ice after a day of snow, sleet, and freezing rain. I certainly couldn't garden outdoors, but I could plug in my phone, put it on speaker, and garden inside while I waited.

I have a lot of plants, and while I move many of them outside after the last frost in May, they just kind of limp along inside during the winter. I have them in the best light I can provide, but many of my sunniest windows have steam radiators under them, and I don't want to cook the poor plants' roots at those windows. I tend to neglect watering, fertilizing, and pruning in the winter because it's a messy job indoors, but the perfect one when you're forced to wait on hold.

I mixed up some dilute fertilizer, grabbed my pruning scissors, and got to work.

The pots all have built-in drainage saucers, but they leak, so I water and prune in the kitchen sink before hanging the plants back up.

I water the larger ones in place and use a turkey baster to quickly suck up any extra water

 from the saucer before it overflows onto the floor.

All my little orchids get a good rinse and a little fertilizer in hopes that they might bloom again soon.

Hearing "We apologize for the delay. Your call is very important to us, so please remain on the line,"

 means that I have time to decide if I should keep that last poinsettia that just won't give up. I did.

I returned all my well-tended plants to their locations, cleaned up my mess in the kitchen, and then

 miraculously got to speak to a human being on the phone. They only partially resolved the issue,

 but my spirits soared when I checked the mail and found this incredible gift from Kym.

I missed planting my amaryllis bulbs last fall because that was the beginning of my father's real decline. I can already see the tips of two flower shoots, so I'm thrilled and hopeful for Amaryllis Watch. Kym often says flowers are magical, and these most certainly are.

Weekending

This past weekend was all about staying warm and cozy indoors.

There was knitting (accompanied by a delightfully relaxing hot toddy).

There was cookie baking.

Because I had promised to make these for him back in November, Pickle Egg Rolls were finally prepared and fried for Justin. The verdict: a little weird, but still tasty. I would make them again.

And lastly, I was fascinated again by the sun-lit, sparkly frost on the windows. After more snow and ice today, I think this beautiful frost may start melting towards the end of the week.

I hope your weekend was a good one, too!

Fun With Frost

It was dark and -4 degrees when I left the house very early this morning, so I was concentrating on not slipping on ice, not getting blown off course by the wind, and crossing my fingers that my car would start (success on all counts). Thankfully, there was enough light when I got home to notice and take some photos of the lovely and impressive frost formations we've got going on.

I wish that the sun had been in the correct position to provide a little sparkle, but the temperatures are predicted to drop even lower over the weekend, so these frosty feathers aren't going to be melting any time soon. Hopefully, I'll be able to take some photos with the sun behind them tomorrow or Sunday. If we're going to be locked in the deep freeze, I'm glad it's at least pretty.