Snowy Day

27°f, or -2.7°C. Snow all morning, then flurries, cold and windy the rest of the day. Currently 25°f.

We have certainly started the year on a wintry note. Light snow yesterday soon melted, but today's early snowfall is sticking around---although it did melt off the paved roads and walkways,  very nice of it to do so. Larry took the dogs for their morning walk, and got caught in a pretty intense squall that created whiteout conditions for about 15 minutes. They didn't turn back, though. 

We went out around noon to tidy up our booths in Ravenswood and redo the window. Rhe new van did beautifully, as we thought it would. All wheel drive is a true blessing here.

It was so funny to come off our ridge and down into the Ohio River bottomlands. Up here we had 3" of snow; by the river, no snow on the ground at all and only a dusting in the surrounding hills. Elevation can make a big difference! 

All the Christmas stuff is out of our booths now, except one shelf I will keep as a year-round Christmas shelf, because people into vintage Christmas will buy no matter the month. We shall see how it does.

I forgot to tell you a strange thing we heard yesterday at the DMV. A man was talking to the clerk behind the counter, a lady he evidently knew pretty well. She asked him how he had been, and he said, "I'm fine now, but I almost died last year. The doctors didn't know how to help me. They said it was a problem I had had since birth, but I had no idea. Said my brain was too big for my skull."

Well, that got the attention of everyone in the room. He added, "Three doctors sent me home to die, but then I got sent to this hospital in Pittsburgh, saw a doc there who said, 'I know how to fix this, no worries. You'll be right as rain in no time.' I was there 2 weeks, and now I'm just fine."

Of course I had to Google this condition, because how could such a thing possibly happen? Well, it can, and in one of 3 ways, and is called Chiara Malformation.  Learned something new there.

Back to today: we stopped at Walmart on the way home, to get a small electric heater to put under the tractor if we get the big snow some weather models are predicting for Sunday and Monday. The tractor runs on diesel, which gels up in cold weather. Diesels are notoriously hard to start in winter. So, just when we might need to plow ourselves out of here,  the tractor may not start. Inconvenient! We bought a little heater for the root cellar, too, because if it gets down to 8 degrees or lower I want to be sure nothing freezes in there.

Walmart was packed with people preparing for whatever might come. Four or five other people were looking at heaters, one man was buying a ventilator and a gas can, and I was so glad we did not have to venture into the grocery section where apparently much madness was ensuing. I was intrigued by the ventilator--- I suppose it is something to provide safety if using an unvented heat source inside? 

Seed catalogs are arriving daily, but I have not looked at them yet. Last year I went to Ohio's Amish region around Sugarcreek and bought almost all of my seeds from Berlin Seed Company. I think we had a very good garden year, considering the drought, so I intend to buy from the same place this year. Every year we say we will not plant as much. And every year I plant too much. We did cut back some last year, not planting one garden area, but I guess I made up for it with succession planting. Because why leave good soil to weeds when it can be growing something useful? And then there are so many things that can be grown...but maybe instead of more veggies, I should replant with flowers. A thought worth pondering.

Speaking of flowers, I brought home these marked-down beauties yesterday. The baby's breath will dry and be pretty for several weeks; the red ones i am not sure about, but they feel like strawflowers so they may dry too. Fresh flowers in winter just make me happy. And these cost less than a fancy coffee.

Closing with more snow pictures. These first 5 are in reverse order (thanks, Blogger) of our drive out today. Bottom one is in our driveway, the others are the ridge road. 

And homeward bound this evening.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.