It's happening, it's really happening!

Snow! And boy is it a bit cold to go with it. Which makes it a light drifting of snow. One of those that you can sweep away a bit at a time until the cold breaks the brand new broom. Yes, you read that right, I blamed it on the cold... And it was a cheap broom and we got what we paid for. I went to bump the snow stuck in the bristles off on my boot and it just snapped the head of the broom right off. It was the plastic part that broke, not the bamboo. Gotta love bamboo, to bad the fittings were plastic.

The mountains have actually been getting it quite a bit the last couple of weeks. Several times when I've been looking online at weather reports for the surrounding ranges and their recreation areas have been under avalanche warnings.

A little blurry as I snapped this with my phone as The Guy was driving home.

But today, we seem to be actually getting a bit of it and I'm thankful that we got good and cold first. When I had to go into town yesterday for my human resources meeting for the new job that I start in the next few days, the roads were a mess when I hit 19th street. It appeared that they got the rain that froze and then was snowed upon as predicted for Sunday evening. It was a mess, and as soon as you got away from the mountains the roads cleared up. I decided after driving in a line of slow pokes (the road was actually just wet at that point) to cut through some back roads I discovered the other week would take me where I wanted to get to, that the locals that know how to drive in these conditions seemed to have the same idea.

Why wait for all the timid ones who want to go 35 in a 70, when you can at least go 55 on the back roads? The new tires helped too, but the roads in that area were just wet and clear of ice, it was a bit ridiculous and I was tired of getting a snotty windshield from the drivers ahead of me.

It's funny, it always seems to be that people drive either too timidly for good conditions or crazy for bad conditions, but at least here there seems to be a good chunk of people who drive well, and far fewer cars on the road anyhow.

Friday afternoon as I was cleaning up the back yard, I noticed the moon and venus standing out. Mars is close by but so much dimmer that we couldn't see it until full dark and the moon was close to setting and wasn't visible well from here or I would have tried for another snapshot.

Now that we're back in the land of clearer skies I hope to get some better nighttime photos.

I was trying to get these sky photos off the camera when I realized I still had some photos on here from Michigan that I thought I had shared a long time ago. Obviously since they were still on the cameras memory card, I had not done that.

I actually found quite a few and will share them over the next few weeks. These last couple were from a few weeks prior to our move. Between he rainbow and the sunset lit rain clouds, it was a pretty night though a bit windy.

I could have sworn I shared this little bit of National Geographic excitement from our front yard last winter before but I found them on the camera too. On the ground there is a mourning dove that just dove down to the snow to get away from the swoop of the hawk you can just make out in front of the lowest branches there.

The dove tried to then lift off and get into the cover of the pines.

But it was a bit too late.

I think this may have been the fist interactions we had with our little Coopers Hawk that appreciated our bird feeders.

I remember as a kid that our neighbors always fed the pigeons around the corner.

My mom used to always complain about them pooping on her car. I think she drove her little red le Baron at the time.  She was proud of that zippy little red car.

We were walking back from the park with our dog Cali one afternoon for a romp and we happened to see the Goshawk round the corner just about a foot off the street and nail a pigeon as it tried to lift off and topple into the neighbors yard with its fresh kill.

As we finally walked by and it carried the kill into the trees our neighbor came out and freshened up the seed he always left out on the sidewalk and saw us.

He smiled and made some comment about feeding pigeons because it kept the hawks around.

My mom never complained about it again and shortly there after my stepfather made a bird feeder for our back yard, though it was constructed in a way that the pigeons couldn't really get into it and we never saw the goshawk hunting the blackcap chickadees and other small songbirds, though I'm sure they could have.

I think the raptors preferred the bigger meatier pigeons. There's a reason people used to regularly eat pigeon pie after all. Had they not been around I'm sure they would return to eating the smaller birds when able to catch them though.

We need to get a bird feeder set up here but it will be more helpful when I know what plants we have here in our yard as well. It's a nice bonus to have the hawks but I too would prefer if they stuck to the invasive eurasian doves (or the eurotrash as The Guy calls them), over the small songbirds and hope they have enough cover to escape into here.

That reminds me, I never did cut the clematis loose of their last years mornings here. I recognized that vine no matter the lack of leaves.

This hawk was incredibly patient about letting me snap shots. When I got cold and moved to go in, she decided to try moving off with her lunch.

Trouble if I ever saw it...

We also have a couple stupidly placed pine/spruce trees that might be perfect christmas tree size for the next couple years that need to come out. Who puts in a pine over their southern exposure close to the biggest set of windows the house has? They block out much needed light come winter, so they'll come out over the next couple years and we'll try to correct the weird little park thing they tried to make and plant something hardwood with pretty fall foliage and cold tolerant. Lord knows we need some trees with deep roots so we don't have to water much with the cost of water and sewer here.

So, not a lot of new stuff here. Just figuring out the house and trying to find work here. Cooking again as you can see here by the braised pork chops with cinnamon pears and summer cucumber salad. Gotta keep the vitamin C intake up! Don't want any winter scurvy after all.

And knitting. I had to throw out my old ratty dog chewed slippers before moving. Well, I didn't have to, I just saw no reason to keep them. Last week I whipped up a pair of the unfelted slippers for myself. I've had this yarn saved for this project for a couple years, don't know why I stalled on casting these on so much. It was a very easy and fast knit. Literally, from start to finish it's about 2 hours per slipper. And when I say start to finish I mean cast on, knit, seamed, and ends woven in. That's it, 2 hours apiece. Just a quick christmas knit idea if anyone needs one.

I used two skeins of Cascades Pastaza Paints yarn held double and had plenty left over. Yes, it's discontinued so you will have a hard time finding it but any worsted/aran weight yarn held double would work. I chose this which is a single ply because with wear it will lightly felt in the heel area and become a bit stronger. I made the talked about size for myself but I only wear a mens 8. I could probably have added two more stitches to either side to make them fit a little bit better but this will work and they're a bit sock like as they are.

I have the Peace Cowl on the needles and will be wrapping it up in the next couple days as I'm absolutely bored with it. It's a pretty waffle stitch pattern, and thankfully I have to change my stitch pattern every couple rows, but I'm still tired of it. Not the patterns fault, it says more about me than it does the pattern, but the idea around the peace-along I feel is something that we need.

As for the yarn, sorry, that's some of my handspun from the huckleberry fiber club. As usual, it's gorgeous stuff. Any one interested in spinning; whether an old hand or just beginning, I encourage to check out her store, and of course, the fiber club. Love this stuff. I need to get back at it! I have some blue stuff on the wheel that really needs to be wrapped up.

And then there's the wrap I started so that I could buy some yarn from the local yarn store I've been frequenting. I just feel that if Im going to knit and be social there, I should have something in the bag that's from their stock. You know? It's only polite. It's a bit of a pattern I somewhat made up, and the yarn is a lovely linen, silk, and wool mix called Kookaburra from KFI. It's a single ply that isn't the best for a semi-lace pattern but it's going to be lovely when completed. It has such a fun texture as it's a bit of a thick and thin yarn but not to extremes. It's just going to add tot he finished ripple affect.


There's a couple other project that are on the needles but I've decided I have too much stuff going right now and am buckling down. I need to wipe these two projects out, I have two more knit projects in the background that need to be completed before I can even contemplate starting something else, not the mention the spinning project that should be done too so I can get something new on the wheel. And let us not discuss the loom, though I have plans. Big ones ;-).

Emmitt just the other day got himself in big trouble nesting in our bed. I had just mentioned the day previous that I hoped he was finally over this behavior as he hadn't done it since we moved. He likes to pull back the covers so he can lay on the sheets that smell like us, and up against the wad he's made of the covers. I was sitting in the next room, literally, right by the door and heard something that made me go investigate. He jumped off and tried to slither by but he got a swat on the rump despite his stealth. Nothing like dog hair and sand on fresh sheets. Little butthead.

Like the snoozing Tucker in this photo, I think I'm done in for the day. I bought this photo the other night when I realized that he had fallen back to sleep after itching his own face. That pink thing under the rope knot at the bottom, is his tongue sticking out his open mouth. So ridiculous.