Mid Winter

This has been keeping me warm.  Bread hot from the oven.  I have got to get a loaf started this morning.  What I am really wanting however is this:

Warm from summer please! Or blueberries picked along the shore, raspberries bought from a roadside kid. I guess since we hit mid winter I'm ready to move on.

We went to a midwinter festival this weekend.  It was really snowing too, but not cold at all. It was a very small corny event, which I'm sure all small town festivals of the sort are. Ours included a whipsled, kicksled races, a wife carrying contest, reindeer and arts and crafts booths.

But those peaches....

Garden planning

Garden planning, a photo by scatterville on Flickr.

What do you do when your expecting 8 more inches of snow on top of your already over two feet of snow?

Plan your garden.

We have a very small yard with the bulk of the back yard a large slope of rocks. This makes planning very tricky.

I was quite pleased that our initial planning involved almost everyone in the family.
So far we have two apple trees, a peach tree, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries. Then we have the 2 veggie beds with tomatoes, lettuce, peas, carrots, broccoli, and a few more.

This year will totally be a learning experience. I can not find anywhere true growing days. I have found 123 days but I believe most of these are with highs of 40. Not anywhere warm enough for tomatoes.

I will never forget the year we planted a huge tomato bed when we lived in the mountains of Wyoming. The locals chuckled, and I could not figure why. Then when I had the most beautiful green tomatoes about 3 to 4 inches across it snowed over a foot. It never stopped snowing for 9 months.

I'm going for very short season tomatoes started early, and then put in the wall of waters. We'll see how that goes.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soulemama

Brrr...{things to do to stay warm}

January is in full swing.  Around here that means lots of snow.  We feel we are finally getting the snow we were promised and are now wondering things like:

• how much snow is too much on the mudroom roof?
• how are we going to get the roof snow rake out of the shed that is snowed shut?

We are expecting another 8 inches tomorrow.  I love snow.  That's a good thing right?

My daughter surprised me this week by asking me how to knit again.  She has been watching me knit this scarf.
She loves the texture of it and the idea of making her own things since I take so long to knit around here.

I have taught her before last winter but she only did a few very small things.  This time a quick 10 minutes of showing and she was off.  She already has 18 inches done on her scarf and the great thing is she has something to do to keep busy when she is bored.

Snow and More Snow and new Fridge!

Yes!  More snow!  I love snow.  Not so much when it's brown and melting.  Totally in love with it when it's coming down.  Especially big fat snowflakes!  We got over 18 inches a few days ago and today we have gotten another four so far.

Unfortunately this means the snowmobilers are out in full force.  They are perfectly fine in the day, I know they love to play in snow as much as I do, but from midnight on?  Please, go to bed people!  Snowmobile in the morning!  Really?  You need to out on the trails this late?  For those of you who do not have snowmobiles in your area it sounds like a pack of motorcycles, or a pack of leaf blowers, only they don't move on from your neighborhood because the trail goes around town.  So they just drive around and around or so it sounds.  All night.  I mean it, all night!



Now for fun.  We got a new fridge yesterday!  It was really hard to pick out "the one!"  We are planning out our remodel this summer and we know we need to fit it in a small opening.  Less then 36 inches.  It will also be up against a wall which means the door won't fully open.  That meant that side by sides were out.  My love dislikes top freezers so we went this this one.  I had no idea online that this thing was so TALL!  Seriously.  My daughter and I had a conversation today with the door open.  "This thing is really big!"  "Yes it is!"  "Can we even reach the top shelf?" "Not really." "But the veggies are right in your face and pretty." "Yuck"

knitting and math

I may have hit upon something.  We homeschool and that involves me sitting with two boys for long periods of time to oversee their math. Our daughter is very self directed in math and often does it when she first wakes up in the morning.  Anyway, these long periods of me waiting for boys to finish math can be maddening! Really!  Today I broke out my knitting that I started yesterday and instead of just stewing silently, I knit.  So much better. From now on, math time will be knitting time.

You can find the pattern at Ravelry here:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/krtek

Snowshoes for the family

After trying snowboarding last week, and the adults being quite bruised up, we are switching gears to snowshoes. Much less falling down hopefully because I don't think my bum can handle more of that! Now we are just waiting patiently for more snow to fall so that we can go walking in the woods. It has been such a warm dry winter so far. We did manage a 2 foot snow last week but it all melted yesterday. Luckily here it is always snowing, so this morning we woke up to 2 inches. Not enough to snowshoe though.

New Paint

It's amazing how a new color can change a whole room's feeling. How you can go from loathing a room to suddenly feeling alive and inspired a day later in the same space. Our studio is quickly becoming this way. We hit upon the perfect color and I wanted to convey how in awe I am of how you can feel in a room.



More pictures to come!

This was the before color but it really looks better in the picture then it was. It was a ugly mustard color.

SNOW!

We finally got a good snow. We have been so warm and dry this winter that I am beginning to think they exaggerate being the 3rd snowiest place in the US! We did get a good one finally but the winds were howling at 50 mph so it was really thin in some places and big drifts in others. Here's nice drift outside our house.



The average snowfall here in Jan. is 65". We'll see how that goes.

New Years

Happy New Years! I hope everyone has a year full of love and joy!

Snowboarding

The day came. I fell and was very tired after just an hour. Then after a long lunch my love and I decided to give it another try.

Our class was attempting to go up the T-Bar. When your snowboarding you are supposed to put the bar between your legs and hold on to the pole and keep you balance on the board while it glides up the hill. Only since we were all learning how to get on it, the T-bar stopped every few seconds for the next boarder to climb on. We watched our classmates who would then lose their balance and fall and get off the lift.

I went first on the T-bar. (That is the lift in the picture above.) I was doing great and got pretty far up then the lift stopped and I went down. Somehow on the way down my ski pants got wrapped around the bolt on the bottom of the lift bar and as I went down I twisted around around and around as I was dragged up the hill. They shut off the lift fairly quickly but as someone came to help me up I explained that my pants were caught, it got a little awkward. How can a stranger help untwist in that area? Instead I suggested I get up and after a little figuring out, I had him undo my bindings so that I could get out of the board. It took a little while for me to unwind the pants from the lift and when I was free I went off to nurse my wounds. (mental ones, not physical) There were about 8 medics at the bottom of the lift. My love told me they were about to go up and help, they thought I was hurt since I was just laying on the hill.

That ended my snowboarding career. We told the kids the story later and they laughed hard. My oldest said, "You mean that was YOU being dragged up the hill? My class was watching that!" Great... good thing I don't get embarrassed easily. The other two did not see it and were really bummed. Our family has a great sense of humor and it has since been dubbed, Mom pulling a Sponge Bob. "I ripped my pants!"

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soulemama

Winter here to stay?

After a false start a few weeks ago it looks like this might be winter. The ski hill is making snow like crazy, and mother nature is helping along. She gave us 8 wet inches the night before last and then yesterday despite the weathermen saying there would be no significant accumulation it snowed 3 more inches of the finest snow I have ever seen. My youngest was blowing it off the porch rails like dandelion fluff.



So begins a new rhythm to the day of shoveling, brushing, and sanding. Our driveway while not appearing steep in the summer is a mountain in the winter. We have to take a run at it to even get up it a little bit. It is not legal to park on the streets here overnight so making it up that drive is a must.



Plus all that driveway snow make the perfect snow tunnels. I'm sure the kids will be working on this one all winter.

We've been getting some help decorating for the holidays. This little one is quite helpful. I love kittens.


My youngest snapped this photo of Momo playing in the tree. Last night after a flurry of present wrapping she got to help some more. An hour after tucking ourselves in I heard a new sound that I could not place.

You know how that goes, your laying in bed, snuggled up, half asleep when that part of your brain alerts you to something it has never heard before? Then you have to make the decision to get up and see what it is or ignore it. Well I chose to ignore it but then the dog went crying by, whimpering all the way out the dog door.

It was Momo, chasing a bow off of one of the presents. I'm not sure why the dog was upset by this but it was quite funny. My theory is if it entertains Momo then she won't be nibbling on my face trying to wake me.

Working on:
• Finishing up knitting a hat for my oldest son, who hasn't had a new hat knit in over a year.
• Stripping the wallpaper off the studio wall.
• Finish removing plywood placed over 100 year old floors at the stair landing.

Loving today...

My new favorite corner of my home, with the skeins of yarn waiting patiently to become something warm.



Our annual Christmas village decorating all got put out and arranged just right.



And this boy with his very first pie. I'm sure it won't be his last.

I am also loving today:

• boat horns in the morning and watching the bridge lift to it's highest heights to let the boat pass under.

• snow capped hillsides with brightly color houses.

• fleece lined longies and fleece vests, to keep me warm.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soulemama

We really lucked out this week. I have been planning a kitchen remodel that we keep putting off and have already picked out a range and new fridge. So the other day after fighting with my cheapskate range I decided to pull up the one I had picked out on the internet and drool over it. I was just floored when I saw it was on sale for $300 off! A quick, can we buy it? And it was ordered. It arrived two days later and unlike the last range we installed where it took us a month to get the electrical rewired, all I had to do was move the cord from the old one to the new one. And an hour later we were making biscuits!


I came back into the room to check on how they were cooking with the convection on and this is what I saw, so I went to grab my camera. He was camped out in front of it watching it like it was the best tv show ever.



I guess compared to the last range where there was no window in the door or light this was exciting. I am excited that the range has a timer! I know little things! But now I don't have to go all over the house looking for my little digital timer that always seems to wander off. The little things, like bottoms of biscuits that aren't burnt are wonderful.

Start of Winter

We think this must be the start of winter. The 8 inches of snow are not the first hint, we imagine with an average of 300 inches that's just the beginning. No the hint was that they started making snow of the ski hill yesterday. To see those puffs of snow coming out just brought excitement that soon we will get to strap on snowboards and go.



We are learning and watching from the neighbors how to pull off this winter thing. I've watched several neighbors pull out their snow blowers and start them up. My favorite thing is to see all the homemade ways they use for protecting the bushes and small trees from heavy snow. It can be a simple as tying the bush together like you would bag up a Christmas tree. There are some lovely wooden tee-pee's that look like they have been dragged out every winter to protect precious rose bushes.

The first thing we knew we had to purchase was a Yooper Scooper. This is a very large metal scoop that you just push through this fluffy white stuff and fling into your yard. We haven't gotten the technique quite down but it does clear a large amount of snow quickly.



The only issue we have had so far is with our cat.
He is usually a calm, loving cat. Since we have moved here and gotten a new kitten he has gotten increasing more grumpy. He also has been spending most of his time outside. That all changed last week with the first four inches of snow. He still insists on going out at least once a day but now instead of trekking out to find squirrels and chipmunks to torment, he goes on his super quick route and back in within 15 minutes. His new routine is to go off the front porch, under the car and back to the back porch where he curls up into a ball and puffs himself out.

Entryway

I worked on the entry this weekend, along with starting on our studio. We are itching to get to work, sewing and drawing in there. We are quite happy had the entry way turned out! There is so much more room for coats now! Plus boot trays! Which are full.



I love that this cost us so little. The only things I needed to buy were the folding clothes drying rack and the boot trays. I repurposed a shelf from the previous owners and painted it along with a 2x4 left over from some other project. We had the hooks as I had the foresight to buy extra at Ikea before we moved. Can you ever have too many hooks? I'm out now so if you live by Ikea send more please.



I mounted the drying rack right above our heater vent and it's enough to dry out most of gloves depending on how wet children have gotten them.

Now we just need to sand, prime and paint the floor and stairs and it will be completed for now.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Inspired by Soulemama

First snow

We had our first snow. Before the snow even flew I found my dream of the mudroom off the kitchen was not going to work. I forgot something as simple as heat. There is no heat in there. Not only that there are two broken windows under a board, a door, and a dog door, so I don't think we want to store our frozen coats there.



This is not working for me either. There are no boot trays and boots make wet floors. Not to mention the mess of mittens, hats and such. I have a plan and am working on it. The same room is a mess visually because of the stairs also. We removed the carpet on the stairs and are left with stairs with soul, but they are crying to be loved.



I feel like I am starting a never ending battle with snow, melt, wet, drying gloves, hats etc. We are all learning very quickly about life up here in the Yooper. They really do feel like it's not a proper snow unless it's over 6 inches. We were told after the first snow that it might indeed be the last snow you can build snowmen with. Today we found the new fresh 4 inches to be very light and powdery, which makes easy shoveling off of the upper deck. Not to mention the beautiful view.



We were hoping that we would have a canal view in the winter and we do indeed. You can see it from both the upstairs, and the office on the main floor. A bonus we have found is that you can also get a peek a boo view of the ski hill too.



Enjoy the rest of your week, I am enjoying the white out right now from the office window.