Going but not yet gone

 I guess you think I'm talking about on the snow on the ground and you would be sort of right.  Actually what's going but not yet gone are all the trees and debris from the trees in the yard. 

Yesterday two of my sisters, J and K, and I, spent the afternoon at an event sponsored by the hospital where sister J works.  The event is an annual one, Women in Dance.  Sister J signed all of us up in advance for general health screening tests (blood pressure, cholestrol, etc) and there were vendors for various health related topics as well as all day dance sessions.  The dance sessions were totally geared to audience participation and there were lots of folks participating (we tried Hip Hop but sat out the peppy Zumba session).  It was a fun afternoon and we came home with lots of handouts which included not only paperwork (recipes, eating guidelines and our screening test results) but samples of different items.  My favorite is a red heart-shaped squishy stress reliever.  I brought two home - one for home and one to take to work.

Upon arrival at home around 5PM, the tree trimmers (Mountain Top Tree Services) were here working.  Some of the before pictures are possible repeats of the downed trees, limbs, etc but they give you a point of reference for the after pictures which were taken this morning.  The guys returned again this morning around 10 AM and have been working steadily and the end is not yet in sight.

Below is the big white pine that was uprooted, roots and all. 

Here is the same tree (on the ground in the background) after some trimming and topping too place.

The big pine tree from a different angle, the root ball is on the right and the tree trunk to the left.

 

 Two pictures of the tree that fell on the front of the house pulling the wires out of the house.

Now the tree is off the house and cut into lengths along with some others that came down at the side of the house.  The next picture shows the small ends of tree branch that are stuck in the snow on the roof of the house.  We'll get those off once the snow is all gone.

When the workmen left yesterday, they asked if they could leave the industrial sized wood chipper in our driveway overnight.  Of course, we gave the okay and I asked if they could show me how to operate it until they got back.  Needless to say, they all laughed.  What a piece of equipment!

We got a picture of the owner of the company up in one of the trees preparing to cut it down, top to bottom.  I'll share that one in another post along with how things look once they're gone for the day.  They will be back once the snow is gone to clean up the small debris in the yard. 

Today is absolutely gorgeous with temps in the 50's and the sun shining brightly.  There's a lovely breeze blowing too.  It's such a relief to have the cleanup start but there is another forecast for snow this week and it's to be a northeaster' and those sometimes dump copious amounts of snow on us.  Ugh!

I hope you are having a good weekend and enjoying the same bright sunshine that we are having here.

Ice, ice, baby!

Super Bowl Sunday was a bust as far as the football game itself.  The Bronco's never appeared to have arrived for the game.  We enjoyed our dinner before the game, good company during the game, and the half-time performance.  Our friends decided to make an early exit (outcome of the game was known after the first play) and we stepped outside to bid them goodbye.  

Although Mr P had surgery in mid-November and has been doing extremely well, he had a set back that night when they left which we are still dealing with.

Overnight, snow fell and fell.

A phone call around 5AM in the morning was the telephone notification system where I work informing me of a three hour delay.  At 9AM, as I was putting my coat on to leave for work, the call came that work was canceled for the day.  

Snow continued to fall for most of the day.

 When it stopped, the official number that fell where we live was 7.5 inches.  It was heavy, wet snow and the yardstick photo was taken before it stopped snowing.

 Mr P was unable to do any plowing to remove the snow on the driveway so I volunteered my expertise.  He was reluctant to let me touch his Case tractor but relented by telling me how to start the tractor.  After verbal instruction from him and an aside where he stated that "I don't think you will be able to start the tractor and will probably flood it", I went to the garage, followed his instructions and voila! - the tractor started.  

As I write this I'm nursing the tail end of a cold sore which I think was created by stress.  The stress being trying to actually clear the driveway using a hydrostatic tractor that I never drove before.  No brake, push forward on the lever to go forward, pull back to go in reverse and you stop when you are in the center (neutral).  I kept trying to push a non-existent brake pedal with my left foot.  Add to the mix another lever which controlled the up and down of the plow and you can see why I have a stress related cold sore.

 If I went up and down the driveway 50 times, that was few, and even though I cleared some of the roadway at the top of the driveway, I got it done.  Don't know how long it took but I was exhausted when I was finished.

Work was not delayed on Tuesday but an ice storm was forecast for Tuesday night into Wednesday and boy did we get a coating.
Another early morning call announcing a delay for work on Wednesday morning due to road conditions.   The call had just came through and a loud whomp was heard out on the deck in the back of the house. Not only did the metal and nylon covered gazebo come down, a huge white pine tree brought it down, crushed our grill, and smashed the railing taking out our heated birdbath.

One of the large evergreen trees along our driveway (you can see the line of them in the pictures above of the snow) was completely uprooted, fell and clipped off a large portion of a big maple tree in the front yard.

Another part of the big maple in the front year fell on the house in the front pulling down the telephone, electric and cable lines.  The puzzling part was that we still had power in the house but it went from bright light to very dim light and the microwave oven would start running as normal and immediately slow to almost nothing.

Another large tree was completely uprooted in the woods off in the woods outside the back of the house but fortunately fell into the woods.  No harm done.

Here are two pictures of the tree that fell onto the deck.  You can see just above the end of the eave on the house where the tree broke before tumbling down.  It was amazing to me how much pine pitch I could smell when I opened the door to take a look.

There was a trip to the doctor's to make sure Mr. P's issue was not serious (it's not).  He needs to rest and continue to not do things he shouldn't be doing. 
We've had men from the cable company, the electric company and the telephone company here making repairs each day.  The tree trimming company, Mountain Top Tree Service, workmen were here early on and removed the tree on the roof and a portion of the tree on the deck.  They will be back to finish cleaning up the downed trees and debris after the insurance adjustor has reviewed the situation.  He's expected tomorrow. 

An exceptionally busy and sometimes stressful week, but we are thankful that no one was hurt and only "things" were messed up and can be fixed.

It's snowing outside as I post this and the forecast is for 1-2 inches before it's over.  Things should be cleaned up for an uneventful trip in to work tomorrow.  Here's hoping you are having a  good weekend wherever you are.

Super Bowl Yummies

It's been quite a week here starting around 10PM on Super Bowl Sunday!

I'll go back to Saturday (the day before) since that's where the pictures start.  I think I mentioned in my previous post that I make a baked item for each of my coworkers in my section for their birthday.  Well, Monday was the first brithday in the roster for this calendar year so I made a pan of lemon bars for the recipient, D.  I used Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa's) recipe which can be found on the Food Network and they were delicious.  There was a comment made at work that they were the best lemon bars this individual had ever tasted. 

I packaged up all but the two (see them on the plate above) in a box in preparation for gifting them to D on Monday, her birthday.  Surprise!  I didn't get to give them to her until Tuesday and the pictures in my next post will show why.

 Let's move on to the menu for our Super Bowl dinner with our friends.  I put all the ingredients into my bread maker (thank you OnlyDaughter) for a loaf of Italian herb bread.  Of course, there is nothing like the smell of baking bread and the joy of eating a warm slice 3 1/2 hours later.

 In my previous post, I mentioned that a trip was made on Saturday to the local farmer's market. Besides some veggies and snack foods I wanted to pick up for Sunday,  Mr P's destination was a bakery where he picked up 1/2 dozen iced pastries.  Two disappeared soon after we got home along with a cup of coffee.

 Speaking of Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa), I used her recipe for Lasagna with Turkey Sausage from her Family Style cookbook for our main entree.  Here is the sauce simmering away.

 Here is the cheese layer.

Here is the finished product ready to pop in the oven.  It was delicious and I enjoyed some of the leftovers for lunch one day during the week and so did Mr. P.  I also made a buttermilk dressing (also from Ina Garten) for over a simple salad and that too was delicious.

And here is the finished product from the breadmaker.  I failed to get a picture of the dessert that our friends brought which is called Punch Bowl Cake.  As its name implies it's assembled in a punch bowl and it's like a trifle.  There are layers of yellow cake, strawberries, strawberry gelatin, vanilla pudding and whipped cream.  It went down a treat.

I'll be back later today with another post filling you in on all the excitement here during the week.

Hoping you are having a good weekend.

February 1st, 2014

Here are the first of the month pictures of The Puddle Pond. 

I took these pictures around 7:30am this morning just as the sun was coming up in the East.  You can see that the pond is frozen solid with some snow here and there across the surface.

 

Frozen Solid

 There are some interesting squiggles along the left side of the bank in the picture above.  When I walked out of the woods, I could hear this rooster, that resides across the pond, crowing away.  As soon as he saw me, he put on quite a show.  When I stopped to take his picture his fluffed his wings out several times and started crowing again.  Isn't he a beauty!

Check out the footprints some critter made that stretch from one side of the pond to the other.  I couldn't tell what type of an animal made the tracks but there were deer, rabbit and I think some cat prints on the ground around the pond.

 I couldn't resist getting a closer shot of some these neat "shapes" in the frozen surface.

 This is on of three craters at various spots on the pond.  Not sure (not going to walk out and find out either) if they are unfrozen areas but they're kind of scary and different looking.



 This morning, Mr P and I met a couple, D and J, who were coworkers at a part-time job he worked at for several years after his retirement for breakfast. We don't see them nearly as much as we all would like so it was nice to get together and visit.   I needed a few things yet for the Super Bowl dinner for tomorrow evening so we stopped at a farmer's market that is just around the corner from the restaurant where we had breakfast.

My walking buddy, R, and I managed to get our walk in this afternoon.  The temperature was around 42 degrees F and after the single digits we've been experiencing at night and low, low double digits during the day, it felt downright balmy.  I took my ear warmers and gloves off soon after we started out and ended up unzipping my coat on the return trip.  

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day and everyone will be interested in whether Punxatawney Phil sees his shadow or not.  Winter here has been harsh so far and I know I'm not the only one who is eagerly anticipating spring.  I'll be back tomorrow with a few photos from earlier this week and today.

Oh, and if you live here in the States, you know that tomorrow is Super Bowl Sunday.  Our friends who have joined us to have dinner and watch the game for the past 30+ years will be joining us for the evening. 

Have a good evening and hope to see you tomorrow.