Winter scenery

I thought I should come back and let you know I'm still alive. I don't have any new sewing projects to show you (Christmas kinda got in the way there), but I am now working on a couple of things. Courtney finished a project that I forgot to post about, however I'm going to see if I can get her to write a guest post about that. She didn't come here yesterday because she was home sick, so maybe next week we can get caught up.

Our winter weather's been crazier than usual this year! We had a very warm November, which boasted these lovely mushrooms on the 28th!

Two days later, it looked like this around here.

It was a bit hard to take after being so spoiled with the warmth, but it did make for some pretty photographs. Minor compensation.

Then we had an extremely cold December, with the temp going down farther than -20°F one night, which produced lovely frosty decorations on the windows.

I had posted the photo below on Instagram, and someone who works for ABC TV asked permission to use my photo on TV! I said yes, of course, but whether it got used or not, I'll probably never know, because I didn't see it. Anybody remember seeing this?

Here are some more frosty pretties.

Believe it or not, we had heavy RAIN on Christmas Day! It was also very windy and near freezing, which resulted in a power outage for a couple hours or so.

We've also had some colorful skies, like this sunrise on December 30th...

... and plummeting temps brought these sun dogs a few days later (I had to take the pics from two different windows, so I spliced them together)...

... with this amazing scene that evening after the sun had just set!

The cold is good for something nice to look at, if nothing else!

One more scene, not so nice to look at...

... was these persistent turkeys sneaking across our backyard. Ugh. This was the first time we've had them during the winter. NOT my favorite birds! ;-Þ

After the blizzard

These photos are from after last week's blizzard. We had another one this past Sunday night. Such fun. Ha. But all the snow does make for beautiful scenery and photos.

The "golden hour" is just the best for taking pictures. Look at those lovely long shadows and the golden tint on the snow.

We had quite the nice path from the house to the yard. It made feeding cats so much easier when I didn't have to climb drifts or sink to my knees on the way out and back. It was nice. Was. It's all blown in again now. Prairie winds will do that. Often.

We've really had some glorious sunsets this winter.

So peaceful, though, right? After it's all said and done, that is.

We had a blizzard yesterday

Today it looks like this around here. The wind came from the northeast, rather than the northwest which is more normal for a blizzard, so the snow piled up in new places. I don't remember ever having drifts this big in our back yard before (note the LP gas tank on the left, for size reference!).

Same as above, different perspective:

Closer look at that pointy drift:

We even had sundogs this morning, although it wasn't terribly cold (+17°). Must've been from all the snow still in the air. Right side:

Left side (harder to see behind the evergreens):

Just another snowy photo (through a snow spattered window):

You'd never know there was a garden back here, would you? Even the asparagus stalks are buried:

I think my favorite view is the mini lilac bush. It looks like it's made of huge marshmallows!

School was cancelled yesterday and today, so no Courtney day this week. Good thing we got to see her on Sunday at her birthday party! I guess I'll try to do some catching up on procrastinated projects. Then there are more sewing projects in the queue, so never a lack of things to do.....

What to do when it's below zero outside

What do YOU like to do when the daytime temp is below zero °F? Here in our house, we sometimes like to just hang out in a spot of sunshine.

More often than that, we take naps in that sunshine.

For those that live outside, naps in the sunshine are a little different.

But sometimes they like to play, too.

Above you can see why cottontail rabbits are so-named. :)

Just had to show you

I was headed out to feed the cats in the -5° (-26° wind chill) weather this evening, but just couldn't resist running back to the house and tracking snow across the kitchen to get the iPad. Here's the amazing sunset I saw. This photo doesn't begin to do it justice.

Crazy weather

I told you about our snow that began on November 30th. It ended with a total of about 10 inches. I didn't think we'd see bare ground again until spring. But what a difference a week can make! The two pics below were taken exactly a week apart, on Dec. 2nd and 9th. Quite a change, huh? Most of the rest of that snow is gone, too.

The spring-like conditions of the past week have certainly helped shorten the winter!

This morning I woke up and looked out the window and saw this:

(Side note: Look at all that green grass!)

We'd had freezing drizzle overnight, and the strong, gusty winds made the accumulated ice break off the branches in chunks.

The lilac bushes were kind of strange-looking. I don't recall ever seeing ice formed in stripes like this before:

It was still very windy when I took that photo (with the iPad), so it was hard to get a clear shot, but you can see the stripes well enough. The wind blew hard over night, so I'm just guessing that somehow the gustiness of it caused the striping effect. Interesting.

I wonder what the rest of this El Nino winter will bring!

It's here

I believe winter has officially arrived, even if the calendar doesn't say so yet. It's looked like this all day long.

Our local school closed at 1:00 p.m.

I took these next two when I went out to feed the cats tonight. It's hard to tell depth in the photo, but I'll just say I should've dug out my taller boots.

I'm guessing about 7" so far, but we're still under a winter storm warning until tomorrow (Tuesday) night. And then the wind picks up. Picks up the snow and rearranges it.

It doesn't look like it in the pic above, but it was still snowing. The driveway was solid white... very hard to tell where the edges were. Our mail carrier made it through on the roads, though. Of course. That's what mail carriers do, right? Well, 'almost' all the time. Grandpa made it home and up the driveway, too.

There were already deer tracks wandering through the yard. I saw a deer out in the field watching me, but when I bent down to get the camera out of my jacket and looked up again, it was gone. Too far away, anyway, but it sure looked pretty against all the white.

Back to this

We had so many nice days in January that it seemed like spring was getting close. But February has turned out to definitely have its ups and downs. And way downs. It didn't get much above zero yesterday. Here are some living room window frost shots I took earlier from one of the cold days:

Cool, huh? (Pun intended.)

At least the warmth in January has made the winter seem much shorter. And hey, spring begins next month! Officially, anyway. Mother Nature might have other ideas - ha.

January thaw

We've had a touch of "spring" the last few days! It got up to 44° yesterday! And it ended with a beautiful sunset.

The snow's been melting, and I even found a bit of standing water, proof of how warm it had gotten:

Yes, I finished my sewing project... but by the time I did, it was dark, so photo-taking was not to be. Tomorrow.....