Merry Christmas! There's nothing like the holiday season.

I will be adding the stuffing to my turkey and putting it in the oven soon.   It's snowing and so we will be having a very white Christmas.  The forecast is for 1-3 inches of snow today.

Retired Mountain Man and I didn't put up a tree this year.  It's just too much trouble.  I am posting a photo of the blossoms on my azalea plant instead. 

"Fa La La La La ....."

Breaking news: The Easter Bunny has moved to Arizona...

He says he won't be back here until the temperature warms up to 70 degrees.  I can't say that I blame him.  Who wants to hop around in this stuff?

The calendar says it's Spring.   It's not truly Spring until we don't have to keep a fire around the clock.

 Each morning I go to the basement to put some wood on the fire in the furnace. We call that room our "Wood" Room, but it's probably what most people would call their Furnace Room.   It's not  a "finished" room which means you can make a bit of a mess in there and it doesn't matter.

It's where my friend Ann and I have made many of our Christmas wreathes.  A lot of small construction projects happen there from building shelves to constructing the acoustic panels for our music room.  When our sons were around, it was the place to age the venison and to cut it up for packaging in the freezer.  It's also a great storage area and the place for our second freezer and refrigerator.

It's best use other than as our furnace room is that it's a great space for my shelves with my "Grow" lights.  Retired Mountain Man and I bought the shelves from the hardware store and attached rows of fluorescent shop lights underneath each shelf.  There are four shelves which allows for plenty of room to start my garden plants.

When I head down there each morning to put another log on the fire, this is what greets me.  A little bit of sunshine.

Not only that, there is the promise of some ripe cherry tomatoes soon.

There's also some geraniums which don't have blossoms yet and about a dozen begonias.  The begonias are all beginning to sprout and some have formed leaves.  

I couldn't resist one more photo of the flowers

So what if the Easter Bunny has fled to Arizona!  Maybe the Easter Bunny has become a bit of a light-weight...  

You know, Hasenpheffer tastes really good.  Rabbit braised in a red wine gravy flavored with bacon, shallots, currant jelly and...

Bermuda anyone? or Puerto Rico? How about Cabo?

Okay then. 

It's snowing again.

Our forecast is 4-7 inches today. 

No worries. 

I'm going to be alright.

I am not going to binge eat chocolate.....
 

 Jon has already used the SnowJo on the deck.  Maggie keeps watch because that machine might need herding. It could get out of line.



I am baking bread today and once it is out of the oven I'm going out there to run my snow blower.  Time to clear the walkways. 

(I swear I have not been eating dark chocolate covered blueberries while I am baking the bread)

Clinging to Fall....

Mother Nature makes a different decision.

Final preparations for winter.

We are ready for the snow that's in our forecast.  Retired Mountain Man has been burning his brush piles.  Most of his dahlias have all been pruned, dug up, divided and marked for storage until next year. 

We have enjoyed some very beautiful fall colors in the early morning hours and the evenings.  It has been spectacular.

Here it is.  Our first snowfall.   There are still a few leaves clinging to our birch tree.