Can you hear me smile?

Wait, that doesn't make sense! Ah well. We are staying home!



Our trees had a LOT of snow in them. It has been warmer the past couple of days & the trees have shaken off most of the snow.


I find birds a real challenge to get good pics. They move so quickly & erratically. These chickadees were the easiest to shoot.

This little guy is shy & hard to get a good pic. This looks blurry to me.
He is a dark eyed junco.


Had a whole flock of finches out eating the sunflower seeds i put out.
The ones with red coloring are called "Cassin's Finches."


A pic of the broken tree & some of the branches.


This isn't a good pic. It is the broken tree leaning into another tree,
as seen from our deck.
Duane got the Trooper out! And had fun with snow sculpture in the meantime.

New view from my window.
The tree that went down stood right about where the
screen door edge is seen here.
I can see a lot more sky than before,
although this is a cloudy sky, getting ready to snow.

I'd been meaning to take a picture of this view before & how i looked out only into tree branches. Ah, well. This is the view from my bed, where i am often working on my computer (laptop).

Duane went out early this AM as he heard a plow coming thru. It was coming to do "berm reduction." With the snow berms so high along the side of the road, it often makes blind corners. They are trying to reduce this so that driving is safer. Also, the snow plow often makes berms in front of people's driveways & they have to dig out before they can get out of the driveway.

Duane got the plow to clear the berm around the fire hydrant (on our property so we are responsible for it). He had cleared the fire hydrant itself, but the berm was quite a lot of work. This guy cleared so Duane could get the Trooper out as well. Hurrah!

I got up & got ready (showered & packed) in case we did go down the hill, but i didn't want to! When he came in i asked, "Could you work from home this week?" Had to repeat myself 3 times as he didn't "get it." He was surprised. But i pointed out how we are still in an "emergency state." The schools have been closed 4 days now & it is unsure when they will open again. A Post Office truck made it up today for the first time since last week Wednesday. Most official meetings in town have been canceled. I know we could make it down, but i wasn't sure we should. Especially with another storm scheduled. Duane hadn't even given it a thought, but he was willing to stay.

He called the office & did a query to see if he had to be be down the hill this week. No, it was determined he did not. He was fine with it, in fact, i got the feeling maybe he was relieved. Plus, he got to help with Search & Rescue (SAR) things today. They checked an area that had been out of power for 3 days to see if everyone was ok. (They were.) Tonight is an appreciation dinner, or something, & we are going to that. Couldn't do that if we were down the hill. So i think he is glad, all around. I know i am.

They said we might have rain at the beginning of this new storm because it has been warmer. But what is coming down now is snow. It is starting. This isn't suppose to be anything like last week. But coming on top of last week i was rather worried about the up & down & what would be going on here while we were away.

And, i don't have to cook dinner tonight!

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