December 24 and all is well

Merry Christmas, everyone!

This is a catch-up blog, to explain various little things that have been going on around here.

First, I want to note that we have some very entrepreneurial people in our vicinity, and I always appreciate this business sign when I drive by.

Last week, we had our annual Christmas Clogging Party, which includes invited guests , friends and family.  We try to be on our best performance, even when it looks—well—silly!  Our beginner’s class did a Christmas song from Hawaii and they went all out to make it look appropriate. 

Our class, a more sedate bunch of ladies, merely did a reindeer boogie song, which featured appropriate antlers and tails.  I am proud to say that I made all the tails.

We ordered a new fridge and dishwasher for delivery December 20, and arrived, much to our excitement.  However, there were two glitches.  The fridge was damaged and so it will be sent back January 4, and the vendor did not include installation services for the dishwasher.  In the meantime, our kitchen is a little crowded, and our old fridge is out in in breezeway, still struggling along.  I feel a bit like the poor folks with my fridge outside, but what can I say?

We left on Monday to go to Ottawa to see Brian’s mom, who turns 96 in February.  I took a picture of Ottawa in the evening, and it kind of looks like it is snowing, but that was merely rain.  The day we departed, there were fog warnings everywhere, but no sign of snow.  It was predicted to go to +17C this morning, so it looks like they will be having a green Christmas.

We will certainly have a green Christmas here.  We took advantage of temperatures in the low teens to go out for a walk in the forest.  As usual, there is always something new to see.

Much of the big downed maple branch has been cut into wood for splitting, but there are still two trees to cut which broke when the maple fell on them.

One of the more amusing signs of red squirrel activity is that they like to hide pine cones in the crook of branches.  Some bushes look quite festive when they are done.

Brian confirmed my other neat discovery.  We have a small grove of poplars near one side of the property, and I thought I saw bear claw marks on some of the trunks.  They were! The tree here is about 8" in diameter, and there were obviously baby claw marks as well of those of a bigger animal.  We are now calling the grove the "Bearclaw Playground".

Finally, I had to include a picture of my primulas outside, which are still growing buds and blooming.  It is a bit strange looking out over a fall landscape at this time of year, but the temperatures are hard to beat.

Brian and I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

We have finally returned to the Blog World!

After a long and painful struggle with my computer,  Windows 10 and the Internet, we can finally catch up with some news.  I am sorry for this long delay.

From the inside, the biggest news is that the new ensuite is finally finished.  It looks very smart and modern, and the feature mirror is quite spectacular.

From the outside, the biggest news was the snow storm we had 10 days ago.  At one point, we had over 16” of snow on the ground, and the power was on and off for 3 days, with the longest outage being 18 hours.  When you are on a well, power outages definitely limit available water to a mere trickle.

The community closest to us, Coldwater, got 51.6 cm of snow during the fall, and we likely got that as well.  It was very heavy and wet, and tore down numerous trees and branches, leading to the long blackouts.  We did a damage walk of our property today, and you can see how much damage a single tree could inflict.  The coniferous trees were bowed over with the heavy snow, and many tops snapped.

One of the most interesting findings was that Brian thought he saw a cougar track in the melting snow yesterday.  We went back to check after consulting a couple of field guides, and sure enough, that’s what it was.  The snow was too melted to see much, but the size and configuration of the print were definite.  That’s Brian’s glove there, not my delicate little one.

As you can see, virtually all of the snow is gone, except for a few patches, and we are hearing predictions of double digit plus figures for the weekend.  Needless to say, we are not going skiing yet.