Happy dance, and other stories

Jane Turner band 11, aka the Lady Band, is complete - woohoo!!  We’ve been expending most of our energy doing various snow moving things, but I was able to stitch a bit last night, completing the filling-in of Lady Jane’s face and neck and giving her eyes and a mouth.  The mouth is my addition - can you believe Jane didn’t give her lady a mouth?  Strange!

And then I spent some time checking the chart and instructions just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything (I hadn’t - yay).  Wanna see?

Now, back in early January when everyone was making their stitching plans for the year, I had hoped to have Jane finished in 2017.  Ha!  Still, it feels like the end is in sight now.  All that's remaining to stitch are three narrow bands, one wide band, and then the alphabet and Jane’s signature line, so I think an actual finish in the new year should be possible.  Here’s how she looks at this point.

So what are those other stories, and what else is going on?  Well, after the Great Christmas Snow, on Friday and Saturday we got more – we figure about 12 to 14 inches of new stuff fell overnight and through the day yesterday.  So we’ve been shoveling.

Oh, not the driveway – around here if one doesn’t have a snowblower, it’s wise to have an arrangement with a plow guy.  We’ve been shoveling the roof!

And today I was able to start knocking the snow off our arborvitae in the back yard, which turned out to be one of those easier-said-than-done things.  Just like everything else right now, there is a huge amount of snow on those trees.

Here’s a view of my snow knocker (an eight foot piece of 2 x 2) and a better look at what I was using it on.

Odd selfie.  My feet are down there somewhere!  Not sure you can tell very well from the picture, but that snow is up to the middle of my thighs (and my legs are not short).

I got all the way down the side to the corner.  Hope to do across the back tomorrow.

Today’s newspaper reported that this is already the ninth snowiest winter in Erie since they started keeping records.  Oh, our forecast for the next 36 hours?  Tonight, 1 to 3 inches; tomorrow, 3 to 5 inches; tomorrow night, 2 to 4 inches.

Stay warm and safe.  Happy new year!


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omg, snow! snow, snow, snow!!

We've had two snows this week - wheeeee! Yes, I know that'll make some of you just *yawn* but we often don't get two decent snows in an entire winter. Everything looked so beautiful on Wednesday morning, it was a magical feeling, and so I grabbed a bunch of pictures before running off to work - I figured the monster storm predicted for the weekend would end up being nothing, the way they so often do around here.

Big, wonderful weeping cherry (I *love* this tree) in my front yard.

Looking up into the branches of the cherry tree.

Red maple that overhangs the driveway. This is looking to the left out my front door.

Back fence neighbor's hemlock - you'll see this again.

And now for what has been dubbed Snowmageddon. I was shocked that any number of places decided on Thursday afternoon that they'd shut down for Friday. It started snowing yesterday morning, a little before 10, and didn't stop until shortly after 5 this evening.

Chain link fence between our yard and next door - I think it's really neat that all the links are filled with snow!

This is the back section I worked on so much this past summer, with the flagstone path between the tree and the plants and bushes in the corner.

Remember that hemlock? It had dropped Wednesday's coat before this storm started.

Center of the back yard. The lump to the right of the tree is my monster zebra grass, the things on the left are butterfly bushes that stood about eight feet high. I knocked snow off them last night, but they seem quite resilient so they stayed bent over today.

My car's under that!

More back yard. I wanted to take pictures in the front, but there was nothing to give them any scale (and no, I wasn't about to pose beside my snowbank).

Detail from previous picture. The arch above the arrow is only about half an inch wide - snow piled on one raspberry cane until it met the cane above it.

That's a standard garbage can but the lid is inverted.

And just how much snow is out there?

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wheeee - snow!!!

Not just snow, but December snow, a true rarity around here these days. It snowed overnight Friday (I had to start shoveling the mouth of the driveway to find the newspaper Saturday morning), then all day Saturday, and it was just gorgeous. With the temperatures forecast for the next few days, there's a good chance it will stay and we'll have a white Christmas, and that makes me ridiculously happy! (Why yes, apparently I *am* still a child.) So of course I have to share some pictures.

Here's my Sunday morning winter wonderland.

Lookie - eighteen inches!

Invariably, the day after it snows here we have crystal blue skies and bright sun - great for pictures. Here's my front door.

How thick is the snow on top of those bushes? Here's a closeup.

My beloved red maple tree, and a view up the street in the background.

And looking across the front yard and down the street, you can almost see the closest intersection (sorry - weeping cherry tree's in the way), complete with abandoned car a few feet outside it.

No garage, so the cars were buried. My son taught me something about snow and ice and cars. Wish I'd known that windshield wiper trick earlier - I wouldn't have ruined nearly so many wiper blades. Driveway has only about six inches of snow on it here because son had shoveled it Saturday afternoon.

My car, cowering on the patio behind husband's Subaru.

Shovel the driveway, clear off the car, shovel the driveway again.

Venturing into the back yard... The wispy stuff poking out of the snow on the right is the zebra grass, which I won't cut back till spring.

Appreciate these, okay? I was standing knee-deep in snow to take them, and my boots don't come up nearly that high!

Zebra grass again, which may just be the coolest plant we have.

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