165th day of snow

We have had snow since October 28th.  Just incase anyone was curious..that was 165 days ago. 

Here is the snowbank I named June.

It was –3 F yesterday morning that is –19 C eh, unbelievable for April.

What is happening besides below zero temperatures and no snow melt?

I am still winter/spring cleaning in the kitchen, I have one drawer (the silverware drawer) left to clean and two cupboards and then the open cupboards that catch dust.  About half of the cabinets have been cleaned on the outside too. I should do the stove top and the oven too that will take part of a day….so in three days I might be done.  The laundry/furnace room might be next on my list.

We are working on the Christmas Ornament prototype…we have been “communicating” with each other about it.

We had the neighbors over for the card game Golf one night they are having a bit of Cabin Fever also.

We watched The Frozen Four and cheered when University of Minnesota Duluth won!  It was a great game!  Hockey is over now…at least College Hockey is.

Chance : I like snow

Someone is too cranky to blog so I am taking over.

The snowstick stands at 13 inches there is little to no melting.

I like to lay in the fresh snow.  I can reach right over and get a snow snack.

perfect…I like snow

Even when it is on my face.

I hope if you have snow you are enjoying it as much as I am!

Flowers of Summer

Seem a long way off this winter.  It snowed again….and probably not the last time this winter/spring either.  The muddy rutts are now frozen rutts.  The days are longer but with the wind and the wind chills way below zero it seems that spring is never going to come…and summer well that is just a distant memory.

I took this photo last summer at The Dead Beaver Area.  We just happened by there at the right time.

Even though the days are longer we have not begun our evening drives, Chance misses them…I do too but there is just snow out there.  In April snow loses it’s magic…

I am still winter/spring cleaning kitchen cupboards.  I had a good day and got a few more done the count is 21 out of 28.  When I get them done I must spend a whole day washing everything in the open cupboards…and weeding out some of the extra dishes…it is a project for sure. I would rather winter/spring clean with the windows open but that won’t be happening anytime soon.

Projects

This week I have some cards on my desk. 

I got a new stamp.  Ordered it off the Internet.

It makes a lovely card.

I love my Prismacolor pencils…and my metallic watercolors and my Spica markers! Fun stuff to work with.  I got some new Metallic Colored Pencils…they are pretty cool too.

Here is the other painting project. It is for a friend…Far Guy is trading it for a bunch of dental bits that he can use in his Dremel tool.

Yesterday I got three more kitchen drawers/cabinets cleaned…11 out of 28 are done.  Progress is slow.

It is cold here…bitterly cold…damp…it snowed and blew over the roads and made the roads icy last night coming home from Bingo with my Dad…he got to holler Bingo just once…me not at all.  One away …one away…

Carving and Cleaning

I got the little bark houses painted.  I also painted a bigger project for Far Guy.  Glad to have that project done.

We are working on a prototype for this years Christmas ornament…it is another woodcarving, different from anything we have done previously…we will see how it works out.


Now I am ready for the ever present snow to melt…we are very cold here…so that probably isn’t happening this week. So far we have record breaking low temperatures for the month.

I began some winter/spring cleaning …kitchen cupboards are on my list and I have a number of them accomplished…it is tedious work exploring cupboards.  I have 28 cupboard/drawers in the kitchen…8 are done…uffda.

I hounded Far Guy until he replaced all the batteries in the smoke alarms…even though they are supposed to be good and will let you know when the battery is low, I feel better when they are changed every six months.  He changed the batteries and tested them all…made Chance nervous.  For some reason we did not get them changed when the time changed…usually that is my reminder to insist it be done.

Wistful Wednesday: Easter 1985

The girls were 13 and 9 1/2 years old at Easter that year.  Their Grandfather Marvin got out his trusty Polaroid and took some photos.

Their dresses were pale pink and white, they wore white shoes …but must have outgrown the Easter hats!

Far Guy and his girls

Proof that they were not too old for Easter baskets and they had at least one parent! This photo was taken at Far Guy’s parents house, the old red couch could sleep a six foot person (Far Guy’s Dad was real tall)…we had that couch in our home for years…and then it went to Jennifer’s home.  Notice the flocked wallpaper, since Far Guy’s Dad picked out the couch his Mother picked the wallpaper.  The drapes facing the road were closed and there is a photo of the girls on the coffee table in front of the window.

Letting the wood speak

When I carve with Cottonwood Bark I let the wood speak to me.  I have carved many little houses and no two are exactly alike.  That is because no two pieces of bark are alike.

Bark is easy on my arthritic hands and my recovering carpal tunnel problem.  I had a bunch of houses on the table to paint when I decided to show you all what the carving process is like.

First I look in my bag and get out a piece of wood.

Here is a blank…I saw a pillar in the front, a door with a window and a chimney, on the other side I saw a tree.

I mapped it out so you could see it.

See the P in the front?  The C is a chimney and there is a door with a window.

Then I began to carve out the chimney and made the roofline.

The pillar is always a bit difficult…sometimes you need a bit of glue to strengthen part of the pillar. You have to carve behind the pillar and remove lots of wood.

Almost done, the door is a bit big but I had room to make a nice window.  Later I will drill out the window and file it to the right shape.

Here is the tree and I had room for a funny shaped window…there are no rules that must be followed in bark carving.

The tree will look more like a tree when it is painted and my second thought was the window is in the chimney…oh well maybe is is just in a little room around the chimney area!

Before                                                   After

That is pretty much what I saw in this piece of wood.

Hope you enjoyed seeing my carving process.

Easter Report

We had a quiet day at home.  Decided to make lasagna late in the day. 

There is too much flu out there to go out for dinner or to relatives where we were invited but my Dad has a cough and my baby brother’s wife has strep and Influenza B.

Our Nurse Practitioner daughter has told us to stay home when ever we can and out of germs.   She says going out once a week for groceries is questionable…

Anyways we went for a walk in the afternoon. We didn’t see anyone.

It is no joke, we have snow for Easter on April 1st.  The big storm missed us but we may get more snow this week.  Who really knows or cares anymore at this point.

Have a piece of chocolate…

Best Easter Wishes

This is how we know what love is:  Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.

I found this postcard in an antique shop.

 

I thought it was a beautiful in it’s simplicity.  It was mailed on April 4 1912.  Mail being the best way of sending a greeting or you could send a telegram…or run over to the neighbors or into town where there might be a telephone…or you could visit face to face…now that is a novel idea.

Best Easter Wishes!

Good bye March

So long March.  Don’t let the door hit you in the butt.  Onward to the month that boasts Spring Showers that bring May Flowers.

We are in a different season up here in the snow fields of MInnesota.  Either is is muddy from snow melt or the snow covers up the ice. 

I gave Chance a foot trim…the hair between the pads of his feet was getting long…he was tracking his fair share of sand into the house.  I trimmed up the feathers along his legs also…they get muddy when he walks to get the mail.  It is funny when he was a pup he couldn’t pass up a mud puddle and he would bark at the water under the ice when it moved when he stepped on it…now he avoids all standing water and puddles especially ice covered puddles…he has become a Senior dog. Last night he was walking himself in the house round and round…I think he may have had enough winter too.

We got about an inch of snow Thursday night/Friday morning there is now 12 inches at the snowstick. We are in a winter blizzard warning Friday overnight into Saturday…no travel is advised. Now they say we may get a foot or more of snow and the wind will blow. March is most certainly going out like a lion.

We are home safe and sound for the duration of the storm.

Update:  There is only about 1 inch of snow at 6AM so maybe it missed us.  It is bitterly cold out there feels like  deep winter.

Winter Forcast for Spring

Winter has a real grip on us now. 

Here is the snowstick.  This is important because the snow at the snowstick will likely double in the next two days.  We have one snow event followed by another in our forecast.

Seriously.  I laugh…because April 1st is when many snowbirds come back after a long warm winter in the south…it is Minnesota nice to share.

Want a look at June?

Here she is…if the snow gets real bad I may have to change her name to July.

I suspect after this cold spell it will warm up and be summerlike…but we will have to see about that.

Got Snow?

We have enough snow now but it sounds like more is on the way and cold…deep winter cold with wind chills…yuck.

March will be going out like a Lion…we are paying for those in like a Lamb days we had the last days of February and March 1st.

The Easter egg hunts will be quite easy unless they don’t color the eggs.

The snow hung in the trees and then when the sun came out the snow fell again…some in huge plops as it hit the ground.  Much of this snow melted and made mud.

We stay busy.  Far Guy is working on a woodcarving and I am working on cards and a few bead projects…my desk is full of projects.  We had dinner guests one night Adobo Chicken was on the menu.

Our card playing neighbors have the flu at their house so no cards have been played.  Our daughter sent us a CDC warning about Influenza B being on the rise and the Flu shot only being 42% effective. Uffda  …sounds like a crap shoot to me.

 

Wistful Wednesday: Easter

First we will revisit Far Guy’s Easter memories.  It was a snowy Easter that year, they are standing in front of the of the house you can see the highway and the forestry trees in the background.

Far Guy holding the Easter eggs and his sister holding a purse and wearing a Easter hat/bonnet.  This photo was taken in 1955.  Far Guy says he remembers that day because he wasn’t very happy to get all dressed up….he didn’t like the bow tie. Easter dinner would have been at his paternal grandparents home… chicken dinner with noodles and pie and lots of times it was blueberry.  His maternal Grandmother was in the sanatarium because she had TB in the early 1950’s….visits to her were restricted and the children were only allowed to see her through a big window.

This one was taken in 1958 and it is me along with my baby brother we have Easter baskets.  The photo was taken in the house at the farm, we are standing in front of the door that led upstairs.

It was traditional to go to my maternal grandparents home every Sunday for dinner and Easter Sunday was not much different…ham, chicken and scalloped potatoes with a few more jello salads to melt into a rainbow of colors on your plate and many desserts.  My paternal grandfather became a widower in 1953 so family meals and big get togethers didn’t happen very often.

One thing I recall the eggs that we colored on Saturday would show up in our Easter Baskets and from there they would go to a soup bowl on the table to be eaten during the week…sometimes the dye would infiltrate the eggs and they would be turned bright colors.

Snow on Monday

It snowed…heavy wet snow.

There was 15 inches at the snowstick but it snowed quite a bit after that.  We got somewhere between 6 and 7 inches of new snow…covered all the crappy yucky snow up.

Snowstick Monday morning.

Far Guy and Chance returning from mail duty.

I am feeling better after I hit my head on Saturday…spring cleaning will kill you!  I was either unplugging or plugging in the vacuum cleaner ( I cannot remember that part) and hit my head on the old oak telephone that is hanging on the wall….the telephone did not move.  I was dazed for a long time and slept very sound and had a real hard time waking up. Someone hovered and made sure I kept on breathing…he said maybe I need a helmet.

March 26

Today is my baby brothers birthday.  He was born a long time ago on a stormy March day.  My status as an only child was never the same again.

I was 2 1/2 years old when he was born. 

In a few years he will retire.  He is building a lake house nearby, it has been fun to watch the house come together.  I have been the official photographer.  After 15 months it is almost ready for furniture…and that will probably happen later this week.

Living room, dining room and kitchen.  Beyond the french doors is the porch.  It will be a wonderful gathering place!  The ceiling is pine from some Norway pines that had to be removed and the oak floors are from oak trees that were removed to make room for the house.

Happy Birthday Baby Brother!