Wow! Do we ever have SNOW!!! Something like nearly 30 inches of snow fell late Friday night and most all day yesterday. The sun is out today and the glare from the sun on the snow is really an issue. What a week!
Hello Folks,
Monday started the week off right with my birthday. I received lots of nice cards, emails, texts and calls. Thank you all. However, B was in the throes of helping plan his mother’s funeral for Saturday with his sister, so things were a bit subdued.
I corned my own brisket and I put it in the slow cooker Monday. I added our own canned potatoes late into the day, as well as our home canned carrots. My recipe said to cut up an onion in quarters and lay the beef on it, so that is what I did. I cooked cabbage too, but I did that on the stove top with some of the juice from the slow cooker. Also, I tried making soda bread again. Not much better than the first time. That recipe is kaput!
This could have been just me, but I wasn’t crazy about my home “corned” beef this time. I thought the meat was very stringy, but B said it was great. We had it Monday and Tuesday nights for supper. I ground up the rest of the meat one morning and tomorrow we are finally having corned beef hash. I will cook some of our home canned potatoes and then mix that with the corned beef. I am hoping we will enjoy it, as we have a good amount of the meat left.
I never did get around to make a cake but it is still in the works! So, there was no birthday cake. However, we did have a homemade pecan pie on Tuesday! It seems that a friend of Dr John’s, Mark, comes up to visit Dr John and family weekly after his retirement. Mark is an avid baker and brings up sweets for them regularly. He also helps Dr John’s youngest son, Christian, with his math lessons, as Christian is home-schooled.
Anyway, a couple of years ago on my birthday, Dr John came over and brought Mark with him along with a pecan pie. I exclaimed that not only was that my favorite pie (it is) but it was also on my birthday! Well, this nice guy apparently kept track of that information and sure enough on Tuesday when he came up to visit/teach at Dr John’s he brought me a pecan pie! Dr John delivered it right before dinner Tuesday evening. What a lovely surprise! So, we have been enjoying pecan pie all week.
Thursday, I had an outing with my friends Missy and Joan. We finally met up after having to cancel our lunch appointment twice due to the fact that I’d had a cold and then Missy came down with a cold. Anyway, we met up and had a lovely lunch/visit. I managed to stop on my way to New London for a few groceries at Market Basket, and I wasn’t late for our lunch either. On the way home I stopped for gasoline and at Hannaford to round out the week’s grocery shopping.
Friday, B was busy with his sister and nieces, as they were going through photo albums at the family home and making collages for the funeral or memorial service Saturday. I went to buy food supplies for my critters. We all met up for dinner Friday evening and had a good time reminiscing and chatting. No cooking Friday night for me!
Well, although we knew a substantial snowstorm was possible, we had no idea just how huge it would be. As predicted, it started late Friday evening. When I got up at 6:30 Saturday morning it was coming down like a house on fire. B was a tad bit late getting to bed and warned me that I “would not like what I saw when I got up”. He wasn’t wrong.
I did my best to clean up the pen for the critters but I was soon overwhelmed by it. I was lugging water from the house and it was a job. At that point, we had about a foot of snow. Here is a picture of my car. I brushed off a corner of it so you could see how much we had. Mind you, this was about 7:00 a.m., with the entire day and evening yet to come with more snowfall.
Anyway, as the morning progressed, the snow continued to fall and in a steady pattern. By 11:30, I got B up, as I was wondering if we could even get out to go to the funeral. After a quick call to his sister, they decided to postpone it a week. How does one postpone a funeral, you ask??? Well, it was, luckily, more of a memorial service at the local church and thus, no casket was involved. Anyway, they each made some calls and by noon, the funeral was postponed. It was pretty much agreed upon that very few, if any, people other than us would be able to get out to attend the funeral.
I will say that it was a LOOONG afternoon. At one point, we had some rain, but it was mostly snow all day long. The snow on the deck had been a foot or so deep when it started raining. By the time it was done raining and had turned back to snow, it was down to a couple inches in depth. We thought that was about it, but we were later surprised by plenty more snow. B decided to put off going down to his mother’s for the JD tractor and snowblower until around midnight when it finally stopped snowing for good. He said it would also be colder by then; better for snowblowing.
We were also getting low on power/energy, so B set the generator to ON. Nothing. Then the ominous red light came on, meaning an error. No way was B trudging out to look at the error code on the generator. So he put about a gallon of gasoline in the back up generator and ran that for an hour or so. In the course of doing this, he realized that a fuse for the auto-generator was likely the culprit of the red light. This summer we are fixing the fuse issue so this doesn’t continue to be a problem. Anyway, it continued to snow heavily throughout all this. When B went to the barn to get the gas, he said the snow depth was back up to 13″, getting close to the tops of his Mucks boots.
Anyway, B beefed up the batteries and we were in business. We watched two old black and white movies. One was with Richard Widmark and Sidney Portier, and was entitled, THE BEDFORD INCIDENT, which we both liked. We also watched a WWII movie, TWELVE O’CLOCK HIGH, as we are suckers for WWII movies. Both of these were “free” on YouTube. I think B went for a 3rd movie, but I went to bed. Then he went to snowblow. He said the snow depth was well over the tops of his Mucks and up to his knees by then, so about 20″.
He tried to take the F250 down to get the snowblower tractor, but it wouldn’t move at all, even in 4WD and with 1500 pounds of weight in the bed. He said the factory tires were not great; more like “summer” tires. In the end, he had to take the big Kubota tractor to drive down to get the JD tractor! That’s how much snow we have. B had some issues with the JD tractor/snowblower too. Remember, the tractor and snowblower that he had completely rebuilt last summer? Well, it looks like he will be ordering more parts come Monday. Sigh.
Here is a short video B made while snowblowing.
So, in the long run, he spent 2-3 hours at his family home and 4 hours blowing up here! A long night! He said it was slow going, due to the depth of the snow and a couple issues with the snowblower. I was up around 6:00 a.m., at first light, and he was still working in our back yard at that time. I got dressed and happened to look out at Mt. Ascutney to our west and saw the moon just peaking the mountain or so it seemed. Here’s a picture I took through our glass storm window and screen door. No way was I going to try opening this door onto our upstairs deck!
Finally, B decided he had to climb the ladder to the roof of our house to shovel off the solar panels. Lucky for me, I was already outside and had my camera with me. Here is B on the roof shoveling. I took this shot just about 7:00 a.m. Note the beautiful clear blue sky! The sun was just starting to come up. Due this being near the Equinox, the sun now rises directly east and sets directly west.
After that, we came in and I fixed B some eggs for his breakfast. He earned it. After that he nodded off. He needed that too.
And finally, I am leaving you with a picture that says it all! I took this last week, again through a window, of Ethel my goose, not having such a great day. So, if you wake up and have a bad day, just think of Ethel. At least you probably aren’t stuck in a pail of water with your mate walking on you and having your buddies pulling your hair. I hope you all laugh and laugh because I did! By the way, Ethel is fine!
Well, it is time to do a massive load of dishes, as I never got them done yesterday. We are having asparagus soup for supper. Plus, Freddy is hollering because it is about lettuce time. Sigh.
Stay well.
The Clampetts 