We went from crackling windy, wood stove roaring cold to snow, lots of it, overnight this weekend. Just as I am in the middle of yet more home improvement projects inspired by my free time since not being on the borough assembly, and the anxiety of waiting for my new book to be out (the official publication date Of Bears and Ballots is June 30, which is also my birthday, so I take that as a good sign.) The galleys, or review copies, are heading out into the world right now.
I’m typing this sitting on a book case in my office that has been torn apart. The desk, computer, printer, and my radio are all pushed into the middle of the space. It has all been thoroughly cleaned for painting for the first time since we built the house over twenty years ago. Pearl is not too thrilled with the chaos, especially since my office is on the stair landing, and we have to pass through it when we wake up, or go to bed, or when she follows me up and down, as she does a lot since Chip, her best friend, is visiting his mother this week, which also explains my timing. Trixie prefers to be so close to the stove that I worry she will singe her fur.
I am not painting. Peter is. He is a guitar player in a band, a vegan (I made lentil soup), and a great painter. He doesn’t have a car so I pick him up and drop him off. Yesterday, after the big snow fall ( maybe 2 feet in some places?) I finally made it to town about 10:30 after shoveling out and waiting for the road to be plowed, and was amazed how well the state and local crews had done, even though it was still snowing. But on the way home I went up a side street in the Fort and was pushing snow against the hood of my Subaru, downshifting and spinning a bit and still only halfway up the hill, when Peter said, “Maybe we should back down,” but I assured him I had it, and I did. But I didn’t take the car out again until I brought him home at dusk, and stuck to the main roads.
The rest of the day I shoveled out, fed the chickens, refilled the porch with firewood, knocked the snow off Chip’s boat, visited the grandkids playing in the snow next door (there was no school for Martin Luther King Day), and snowshoed out on the beach, since Peter likes it quiet when he is painting and I was sort of stuck, with not having access to my desk or being able to travel far in my car. It was so beautiful (and I am used it, so that’s saying something) that I kept looping for a couple of hours and then did it again with a friend and her dog. This is all from that same day, in the same place, as snow squalls came and went. I only took photos in the clear moments, but I thought you’d like to see what I saw.
And finally my favorite, because it looks like like an etching, doesn’t it?
