FIRST SNOW AND COLD WEATHER..2017

I make a habit of trying to take at least one photo of the first snowfall of any season. Don't really care how much just get the shot. WELL after getting up early the other day I got one. Some say it was heavy frost, but NO, we did have flurries. We have had such a weird fall with  late leaves turning. Makes me wonder how long the winter will last. It's too long as it is. Funny thing the city is picking up leaves and most of them are still on the trees. Guess it will be a very late pick up season for them.

Course the afternoon sun melted it all away and the trees began to lose their leaves. We had 18 degrees for two nights and it felt like January instead of November. This roller coaster of temps is crazy. Lots of folks coming down with colds and flu. 
I got the flu shot but still need to get a pneumonia one. Been putting that one off, but after last winter.. oh I am getting one.  Sis got one and they told her she might have to have a booster next year. WHAT?  I have never heard of getting a booster for a pneumonia shot. Most doctors say one shot lasts 4 or 5 years. WEIRD?

Been on a vacation from upstairs neighbors for about three weeks. It was great. New tenant moved in with a small little dog after the first though. Hardly know they are up there and that is just fine with me after the last 4 I have had above me. Maybe I will get to keep this guy for awhile. Most move out before their year lease is up. It gets very hot up there in the summertime. I hear  their AC running all the time. We get NO shade at all so the summer sun full blasts through the windows..very hot. 
                                             

Lily (niece's child) is now 6 months old. Such a cutie..she is not quite sitting up my herself but it will be very soon. Her brother likes to push her around the house with her sitting in a laundry basket. She loves it. Speaking of brother..He is now  in the cub scouts and won first place in a gutter regatta. You make a little boat and sail it down a gutter filled with water. First one to the end wins..  Good Job THEO..
                                   

           Well I am going to wrap this up for now.. Hope you all have a wonderful week and a 

                        

COMING TO THE END..

                                    

 

So I haven't been writing much here and there isn't much traffic either, so I will soon turn this place into a private blog. I just need to let go of some things that I cannot keep going. One blog is enough I guess. I will continue to keep my original Wordpress blog open.
You can find the link on the sidebar.  

THANKS FOR VISITING.....

A BRAND NEW YEAR!!

Something called a POLAR VORTEX came down and blasted its way over more than half the USA. Snow and ice all the way to Alabama. Never seen this much snow in ten years some were saying. The stores were packed and people were smart to stock up. Literally nothing was running in our area..... for 3 DAYS. Kids are off school because of the COLD not the snow. Plows ran 12 hours shifts and they got the roads cleared pretty fast considering how much snow we had. THE COLD is something else again. I ventured out onto the porch and right back inside. Way too cold for me to breathe in, 14 below zero and 25 below when the wind kicked up. NASTY..Colder than ALASKA..that polar vortex was nothing to fool with. I started wearing so many layers of clothes I feel like an Eskimo... Welcome to 2014?? It's starting out very weird.
                       

This was a shot of town with 6 inches of snow..where they put 14 more I have no idea.

 I have had this blog at blogger since 2010. I have tried to keep it separate from my Wordpress blog.  Blogging is a venue to express our feelings or talents to the world. 
Well it seems to be really dying out now. I will keep mine around, and write when I feel like it or when I have something to share. What's been happening in my world is something that I had been forbidden to discuss on a public blog. I know that sounds kind of weird but I it's the way it is. Some already know what's going on..others can take any kind of guess they would like. I am NOT in mortal danger or taking drugs etc. but I can say life is not a bed of roses right now. It has not been for some time. I make the best of each day and try to move on. I made some goals for 2014. We will see how well I do. I will update when I can, until then..here are some photos I managed to take while shoveling out this past week. My camera is on it's way out. It has a mind of its own and I have to re do almost every shot I take. Still it takes nice photos.

This poor bush almost broke under the heavy snow, the drift is almost as high as the fence is.

 The snow is as high as the top of the handle. Below you see the van covered up, that is not all drifted snow, it was really deep. 

This was taken before the storm also. We had about 6 inches on the ground.

Stay warm and well my friends...

        

BARN CHARM TUESDAY.

We got a slight dusting of snow last week and some of the barns in our area were just so wintery looking. I decided to share those here for BARN CHARM Tuesday. You can see some other great barns at the link listed. 

ALL GOOD THINGS....

All good things must eventually come to an end or so they say..our week long visit in St. Croix ends and we return home to cold stateside.  I dread the shovel we might have to use or the heavy coats we have to haul out to wear. Maybe it's time to think about being a snow bird. "SNOWBIRD" meaning..

A snowbird is someone from the U.S. Northeast, U.S. Midwest, Pacific Northwest, or Canada who spends a large portion of winter in warmer locales such as California, Arizona,Florida, Texas, the Carolinas, or elsewhere along the Sun Belt region of the southern and southwest United States, Mexico, and areas of the Caribbean. Well we can dream anyway..most cannot afford to have two residences to care for. If I were a snowbird where would I go for winter?? Hmmm any suggestions welcome here.            

                                          

I lived in California for 20 years, and where I was there was little change in season. It was either green and lush or dry and brown. Rain and fog or hot and hotter. No trees changing colors or sight of snowflakes unless you went TO them. You could drive to the ocean,or the mountains in winter. Nice..but pretty expensive to live there. When I returned to Michigan I found that my blood must have thinned a lot because I was freezing and others were laughing at me wearing a sweatshirt in 70 degree weather. Took at least 4 or 5 years to get used to the cold temperatures. My first winter was TERRIBLE. I just could not get warm no matter what I did. Christmas was wonderful...all white and peaceful looking..until I had to snow blow the driveway. Ahhhh I realized why I had moved to warmer territory after all. 

Well I would have to think hard on where I would want to live, is there anywhere that has a happy medium? The climate being what it is and so many  global warming changes, we all may be in a more warm zone sooner than we think. 

HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND!! 

SUNNY WINTER DAY

December will be with us sooner than we know.  The sun was bright today with clouds trailing across the  blue sky, like smoke from winter chimneys. 

The view from my second floor window was broken only by the mighty  branches of an old walnut tree. Search as I might, I tried to find the woolly worm on my walk today
for signs of winter to come. All I could manage though, was a cotton tail rabbit running into the field .The silence of the day was broken by my footsteps and sounds of a nearby expressway. I looked to the skies and saw signs of the day coming to an end. The sun was beginning to set behind the neighbors barn. Time for walking done today, to search again tomorrow.

WINTERS FURY

Wow a blizzard!  We got one and it lasted all night long. Sometimes the snow was  coming sideways and sometimes one to two inches an hour. When all was said and done..about 10 inches or more. The drifts were more like 14 inches in my driveway.

It wasn't a silent night that is for sure. Usually when we get a snow storm everything is pretty quiet except for the snow plows. This storm was noisy.. wind blowing and knocking around everything not nailed down. That is the view last night out my front door. Scary looking and not any vehicles on the road either.

After the snowplow guy came and moved all my snow out of my driveway you could hardly see the neighbors who walked by next door. They are standing up behind that pile.

The porch wasn't too bad itself but my steps were completely snowed in. Took me quite awhile to dig them out. Snowblowers are working overtime this afternoon now that the sun is shining. The groundhog did NOT see his shadow.. SPRING cannot come fast enough for me.

WINTER VIEW

Took a  pic the other day of this snowman.. it's the only kind we have here now and
he is pretty lonely. There is a promise of some light snow over the next few days,
but nothing that would make a nice partner for him.

Those greens are real. The city provides real garland every year. It's the city that has our county buildings so they have money there to use for decoration. This cold weather will make the garland stick around for quite awhile. It takes them a long time to get the whole city decorated no wonder they wait until middle of January to take them all down.