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Small Christmas Tree
from 2010 |
We've spent the last half of November getting ourselves ready for winter. Typically we get snow "up here" anywhere from the first of October (fairly rare) on into the late spring. Most often, the "stick around" kind of snow arrives here by late November, early December. Right now (Dec. 5th) we have bare ground, and green grass, although we have had a snowcover (twice) during November. So far we've seen perhaps an inch or so the first major "snow-down", and about two inches the second time around. But, the mild weather and abundant rainfall have cleared away the snow and we're left with bare ground.
This is one of the seasons I call "the dirty season" - as much as I don't like snow or cold weather, the snow at least covers all the bare patches, fields and gardens, and clings to trees like white cotton stuffing during the winter months, making for a pretty scene, almost everywhere you go. Without its snow-skin, the countryside and town look dull and brown, except at night when Christmas lights blaze out from houses, street lights and plazas. That creates a nice festive mood, even without the snow, and because we've had a lot of wet days, the pavement and small puddles reflect the lights giving the town a glow when viewed from the hills surrounding the city-center.
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| Rural Farm Scene with Snow |
Since y'all know by now that I really dislike winter and tend to hibernate once the snow starts piling up, I am at the moment, pretty happy. So far, I haven't had to shovel any snow and haven't had to trod around in my winter boots when I do have to go out. I personally could go right through the whole winter (yes, even Christmas) without any snow. Well, okay, we could have falling snowflakes on Christmas Day, as long as it melts once it hits the ground.
Although a few of the pictures here today are related to Christmas, these ones are mostly from the rural areas around town (farm fields and barns from 2009/2010 winter season) - a couple of these scenes might make nice e-greetings for those who fancy such things. Eventually, larger sizes of all of this batch of photos will be on Free-3D-Textures, but I haven't gotten around to uploading the full sizes there yet.
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| Deer Crushed this Van |
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| New Van |
The little Christmas Tree above was our small "rushed" put-up from 2010. My husband spent most of the Christmas season in hospital for heart surgery, and we ended up having our Christmas after December 25th. This year, I haven't put up a tree at all. We don't really have Christmas parcels for under the tree anymore. The grandkids are all at the stage where you just don't know what to buy, and they'd rather have money or gift cards. My husband and I don't buy individual gifts for each other anymore either, we usually buy something big for the house instead. This year, we had to get a new van. On one of the days we had snow, he managed to get hit by a deer on his way home from work. It was dark, and the deer came bounding out of the forest along the edge of the road right into the passenger side of the old van. The deer itself took off, so we don't know how badly it was hurt, but the insurance company called the van "totaled" and we had to buy something else. Too bad they don't give you enough money to actually buy something else. The "new" van isn't brand new, but it's pretty nice and it certainly looks brand new and it came with all the bells and whistles we didn't have in the old one.
One of the things I tend to do right about this time of year is start my Christmas Baking. I used to start at the beginning of November, back when we had a lot of family and friends and business acquaintances that we gave cookie boxes to at Christmas. It took a couple of months to make enough cookies - I had about 30 varieties of cookies and baked goods, and because I made 8 to 12 dozen of each, it took forever. Now, we give out a lot less cookie boxes, and so my baking has been pared down to the point where it usually only takes a couple of weeks of baking. The cookies that take the longest are the iced cookies decorated by hand. Baking the cookies doesn't take long...decorating them takes about a week. These pictures are of a batch of chocolate-white chocolate-butterscotch chip cookies. These cookies are very rich because of the butterscotch chips (um, don't mind the dirty oven...the short story is the stove came with the house, and I'm still trying to figure out how to use the self-cleaning part. I never had a self-cleaning oven before and can't find the book).
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| Home Baked Cookies |
The rest of the pictures are mostly winter scenes ... and one rather annoyed cat wearing a Santa hat!
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| Christmas Cat |
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| Wild Turkeys - a common sight here. |
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| A red-roofed barn with cows in a snow-covered field. |
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| Stone Fencing in winter field. |
One of the things I tend to do right about this time of year is start my Christmas Baking. I used to start at the beginning of November, back when we had a lot of family and friends and business acquaintances that we gave cookie boxes to at Christmas. It took a couple of months to make enough cookies - I had about 30 varieties of cookies and baked goods, and because I made 8 to 12 dozen of each, it took forever. Now, we give out a lot less cookie boxes, and so my baking has been pared down to the point where it usually only takes a couple of weeks of baking. The cookies that take the longest are the iced cookies decorated by hand. Baking the cookies doesn't take long...decorating them takes about a week. These pictures are of a batch of chocolate-white chocolate-butterscotch chip cookies. These cookies are very rich because of the butterscotch chips (um, don't mind the dirty oven...the short story is the stove came with the house, and I'm still trying to figure out how to use the self-cleaning part. I never had a self-cleaning oven before and can't find the book).
