Sunday, March 21, 2010

Birthday Party for a Princess

Princess Elizabeth celebrated four years of living recently, and Auntie Em was underfoot taking pictures, as usual.
















Ava and Jake were more than willing to help celebrate!
Cousin Emily and her mom and dad also contributed to the festivities.
Of course there were lots of presents, and that always causes excitement.
Some gifts required immediate attention!
Jake, however, was contented to play with the balloons.
And Emily just kept a watchful eye on things to be sure they didn't get out of hand.
Back at Granny and Pop's house, other activities kept them amused.  Jake, we think, may be a budding Beethoven!
For more pictures of the weekend go to:  http://picasaweb.google.com/ejoyce2

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Reasons to Rejoice!

Suddenly Spring seems about ready to pop out and warm us up.  The last of the 80+ inches of snow we had over the winter has melted, thanks to the four inches of rain we had between Friday and Monday evening (now the whole earth is squishy).  Today I spotted blooming crocuses, and the trees are showing large buds.  Hurray for Spring!  Our snowfall this winter exceeded our previous record by over 18 inches.  Enough already!

Our snow came mostly as three storms of 20 inches or greater, one near Christmas and the other two in February.  These pictures are from the first February storm.  The first one is the deck around 5 a.m., with the snow lit by the yellow bulb in the outdoor light.

Then comes the morning light and one can see what is happening.  The dip, by the way, is the result of the heated birdbath.
The birds don't know what to make of this amount of snow, and I had to wade through hip-deep snow to clear the feeders.  I managed to clear a spot on the deck for seed for the ground birds.
The the power went out, the birdbath froze, and we had a miserable 38 hours until the power came back. With the help of neighbors, I got shoveled out, and when I heard there was another storm coming, I escaped to NC.  Eight days later I returned to streets that were passable, a driveway one end of which was accessible, and the sight of a neighbor's house with a serious boo-boo.  The house was damaged in a major storm several years ago and had been under a tarp since that time.  No one lived there, thank goodness.
 
See why I'm so ready for spring?