This winter has been a rather strange one. November came with sudden cold, slamming the door on any hope of hanging on to one last summery day. But then December had us in day after day of dense fog and mild temperatures. We sort of felt like we were living in a cold San Fransisco. Our grass was even confused, and turned green again. Ah, well, here's to global warming.
Actually, it would all be lovely if we just had more daylight up here where no human in their right mind should actually want to live. Our shortest day had the sun rising at 7:54am and setting at 4:39pm. So if you work, say 8am to 5pm in a building without windows you just never see the sun. Yuck. Thankfully our abode has plenty of those... here's one sporting a pretty (late) sunrise:
And here's the sunset, on the same November day:
Our last romp in the woods was bittersweet. Actually, it was also bitter cold. Ah well, the smores were lovely, anyway. Here's Anna having fire verses marshmallow issues:
Anna and I in our winter garb:
The silent sunset even seemed cold.
One last picture of the girls watching the sun slip away on the beach:
I live off of squash and oatmeal. Literally. A loving friend found out and blessed us with a bevy of sustenance. Of course, being in a box, Nit-Wit had to investigate.
Random thought of this page: One should always play with their food.
Soon we had enough snow to start building our sledding hill again. We all had big hopes for a huge one this year.
Here's Anna trying it out:
Such a happy child...
Not letting winter keep us down...
Many snow rabbits were made...
A family first: the snowman selfie:
Ella already talks like a Minion, so why not?
Alex and Caleb each gave me a huge container of my favorite chocolates. Now if I could just handle digesting them...
Corbin got a job at a local tea shop, and eagerly spent his first paycheck on his latest passion, a left-handed guitar.
We can across an awesome doughnut recipe and tried it out. Here's the gang frosting and sprinkling the goods:
These beauties didn't last long, trust me.
Another fresh round of snow brought on the outdoor frolicking. When I asked Ella what snow was good for, this was the result:
Ah well. At least the snow wasn't yellow.
Winter came so suddenly our Hummingbird Bush hadn't even lost its flowers yet.
Little did we know this would be the last time we would play in the fluffy stuff.
I decided to tackle the project of adding insulation in our crawlspaces before the real cold arrived. (For those unacquainted with our late 1800s house, take a tour here.) While pulling myself along, I uncovered some old forgottens amongst the dusty rubble.
This was an old car battery, as far as my quick research could glean.
It was wrapped in a newspaper dated 1911. It was a fun read, as long as one ignored the battery acid sprinkled here and there.
Check out this sale from 103 years ago:
Evidently I am not the first chocolate junkie to call this abode home.
Indiana Jones, eat your heart out. We have a Museum full of treasures right under our feet.
Eh. I'd prefer this eye candy any day, though.
The girls still go out to the farm once a week. Anna's love of her life, Calico, is always happy, or should I say hoppy to see her.
She loves laying him on his back and rubbing his soft tummy. By the look in his eye, I think he enjoys it, too.
Here's Anna with her second favorite rabbit, whom she named Diamond.
And finally, here she is with the another calico rabbit.(Are you sensing a pattern here?)
Rosa's favorite is a girl rabbit named Dotty.
This one amuses me. It has a mustache.
Rosa received a how to cook like a princess cookbook from a friend, and tried out a cake recipe. We thought she did an awesome(and delicious) job.
By mid-December the snow creations were just lonely pillars planted in the sea of newly green grass.
And here's the sad remnants of our glorious snow hill, with added eyes made from the shells of my lindor chocolates.
With the utter lack of snow and too much mud, we played many a game. This Telestrations page Caleb drew of 'meatloaf' made my day.
Nora did the age-old science experiment of dropping an egg with various packaging to see which works best. (Indoors. I wasn't about to set her up on our steep icy rooftop.) Nit-Wit helped out, of course.
Now that Ella's 4 she's really loosing any remaining vestiges of babyhood and entering her own realm of independence... which is nice in a way because she can now play for hours without needing mom, but also produces some weird results...
January brought in with it the usually well below freezing temperatures. Our old house's windows quickly froze over, then thawed in the sunlight, then froze over... until soon we had a strange ice stalagmite growing in a south facing window. Isn't science fascinating?
Even the dogs caught the cold winter blahs, due to their daily walks being called off until the weather warmed up just a bit. (And as a delightful bonus, they made a face...)
We'll end with our current fetish: the carrot selfie. It started with Alex and I impersonating Bugs Bunny, and has gotten to the ridiculous point of Ella jamming a carrot in my mouth and declaring "take our picture." Here are just some of the results:
We hope you all keep enduring. We just have to get through February, and then it's on to spring!
