Sunshine after the storm

On Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday it snowed and snowed.  The first two days was the actual storm and dumped about a foot of snow; the last day was lake effect snow, the result of very cold air blowing our direction across a still unfrozen Lake Superior with the resulting frost landing here--and points east--as snow.  You may have already heard about Gile, Wisconsin, and their 50+ inches of snow over the last few days.  They are over in the REAL snowbelt!

Then comes storm recovery time.  Yesterday I made the first trip out of our driveway since Sunday after the plow came one more time and Leann made a couple runs with our new--bigger--snowblower.  I took the usual trip down to The Lake and saw this:

 Yes, that's ice already with one open spot in the middle.  These are just the backwaters of The Lake, but this increases the possibility of more ice caves this year!  Maybe we can be ready for it this year.

Here's the same view late this afternoon.  Notice one of the fishing boats is gone.  They can do a back-and-forth maneuver to break through the ice and get out onto The Lake.  And, yes, that's the sun!

We also made a trip to Ashland today for an eye appointment and noticed these icy bushes along the edge of Chequamegon Bay.  It looks like the waves were washing up pretty high on those stormy days.

Under the right conditions, the combination of wind, cold and water can make some beautiful things!

And tonight we had or first deer come to our feeder for some dried corn cobs and apples.  And...we have LOTS of apples!

This is us saying, "Already?"

We weren't ready!  We had a couple Christmas trees picked out but hadn't settled on THE perfect one.  Now we won't be able to get to where the good trees are!  We'll have to settle for a Charlie Brown tree closer to the house.  And we haven't done any decorating outside yet.  But...the first storm is underway and I'm sure we can deal with whatever the rest of November brings.  (Those hunters will have a hard time trucking through all this snow though.  And so will the deer.)

So, below, this is me thinking, "Yes!  It started!"

And this is visiting friend Judy saying, "But I really like to shovel!"  And her smile confirms that! 

This is both of us saying, "Well, we got that part done.  Now we just need the town plow to come."

This is the town plow guy thinking, "How in the heck am I going to turn around in this driveway?"  

This is me remembering the great gardens we had this summer. 

This is me thinking, "Maybe I'll do the rest another day!"

And this is us saying, "But isn't it pretty!!"

And it really is!

P.S. We ordered our onion plants for next spring.  Only 6 more months...

It's ba-a-a-a-ack!

Seems like yesterday that we put all this winter stuff away, but even though it's only November 10th, winter is back with a vengeance--including the snow, wind AND cold!  So, I dug out our snowman measuring stick.  Since I couldn't get it jammed into the already-frozen ground deep enough, we'll need to remember to add about two inches to whatever amounts show on the yardstick.  Oh, goodie!  Snow!

I knew it was coming but I just couldn't believe it would be so bad so early.  We are right on the dividing line between the predicted 8-12 inch area and the 12-16 inch area to the east.  I guess we should be happy we aren't in the 20+ inch area in Upper Michigan.  How are things there, JRMcF??

This was the view this afternoon walking out to get the mail.

This was the view later this afternoon when darkness was falling.

This was the Lake on Saturday when big winds were blowing in hard from the northwest.  Maybe that should have been a sign of stormy things to come.

Fortunately we have this cool, new, big snowblower that we just figured out how to start on Friday and Leann managed to wrangle over from the old garage to our house.  UNfortunately, it's a wicked powerful thing to manage, and our main equipment manager--Leann--is back in Rochester at Mayo with sister Kristi for another PET scan prior to her upcoming cancer surgery on December 1st.  (Her PET scan results were good today; doctors are all very positive!)

So this morning, while listening to the radio and hearing the wild predictions of snow depths, I decided I needed to get our other smaller snowblower going.  Doing that required a little jug of 2-cycle oil to mix with the gas which required me to make a trip to Iron River, 15 miles to the south.  So, wisely or not, four of us nutty women slow-drove our way in the snow--fortunately not much had fallen yet.  And then later I found out that Jessie in The Store here in town always carries 2-cycle oil...didn't need to make the trip...oh, well!

But I'm ready!  And I know what I'll be doing tomorrow morning!  If it starts.....

What a difference two weeks away makes!

Yes, we've been traveling...a major road trip!  Our main destination was Boston to visit Younger Daughter and see the sights, and we did that and had a great time.  A first visit to Boston is overwhelming with the combination of all the history and culture, combined with all the possibilities for shopping, restaurants, city tours and harbor cruises.  And we filled our days with all of those things!  We parked our car at our B&B and then she helped us get from place to place using the "T", the Boston subway system, along with lots and lots of walking!  Remember the Kingston Trio song about the M.T.A. and Charlie who "couldn't get off of that train?"  Well, Charlie is a key symbol for the "T" and we rode the trains using our "Charlie Card" all the days we were there.  We had a great time in Boston!  More about our trip another time.

We left here on the 22nd of October when Port Wing was still in the middle of beautiful fall weather.  We returned home yesterday to signs of major winds and everything definitely looking like November.  Much had changed in two weeks.

No, that's not snow, although they had some snow in the last week.  That is milkweed fluff (seeds and carrier fluff) from our remaining milkweed plants.

Here they are still connected to the pods on the plants.  Yes, it's true...I really enjoy milkweed plants in all their stages!

And here is what's left of our herb beds.  The summer savory is surprisingly purple, a couple kinds of oregano, some nice rosemary and parsley like crazy!  I think we have more tabouli in our future.

We planted this before we left.  It is our first attempt at planting garlic.  We got some tips from our friends up the road and a key point was to get the bulbs planted either before or after October 12th.  And because we couldn't remember if indeed it was before or after, we decided to plant them right ON October 12th.  Stay tuned...

Big changes up in the meadow, too.  The trees are still full of apples, but now looking a little strange with all the leaves gone.  The word is out that we have lots of apples up there so now people are asking about getting some for deer apples.  Hunting season, you know.  It's coming soon!  Time to get out the blaze orange jackets.

So...we're glad to be home again!