The Snow Stopped

But not the wind. It spent a few extra hours whipping skeins of snow around. I went out and cleared the driveways before the snow stopped when the wind sent snow in my face no matter which direction I looked. My snowblower seemed to be running poorly so I called my neighbor who came down and pronounced it old but still functional. I made an executive decision to get a new, slightly smaller machine without the mechanical excentricities. I'm too old to worry about whether it'll work when I need it to. I informed my neighbor/tenant that I was getting a new snowblower and he offered to buy the old one, even knowing its flaws. Of course, I said yes. Once again, I did the driveways and he did the plow drift and the final cleanup. That is not me, that's my neighbor with my snowblower. See how tall the snowdrift is behind him?

 

It's important to make sure that the furnace intake doesn't have snow piled over it so I stepped out the patio door to check. I'd forgotten how far down the first step is and the snow was so deep I was glad I held onto the door handle so I didn't lose my balance. It was deeper than my boots. And the intake was clear.

 

Here's the living room windows this morning. There was so much snow stuck to the screens that it was hard to see out. And if you look carefully you can see the snow hanging off the eaves like a valance. It's hanging over the driveway too and I hope it doesn't fall overnight because I have to go pay for the new snowblower in the morning so they'll deliver it this week. I also figure if I get a new machine that will stop it from snowing big again this winter/spring.

 

Today's flower is Double Flowering Plum. It's another tree. This one I've heard of. It was pretty simple to draw and color. I wish I had another shade of pink to use to color these blooms. Pink seems to be a dominant color lately.

 

This is the smallest Christmas cactus bud that's showing color. It posed very nicely for me when I was taking pictures of the rest of the buds. They're all bigger and showier so I thought this demure one should get the exposure today. It's about the size of a pencil eraser.

 

I spent most of the afternoon, once the high-powered snowblower negotiations were complete, on Atticus getting Better Than Mom's and Christmas at Seaview formatted and ready to be uploaded once I get the covers back from the designers. Things are going so smoothly that I fear I'm missing something or doing something wrong. I'll find out when it's time to get them on IngramSpark.

 

I'm so glad the storm is over and we can go back to real life. It's supposed to be in the 40s Thursday, Friday, and Saturday so a lot of what fell will melt. I'm good with that.

--Barbara