Tag Archives: things I love about winter

December 29, 2021 · 10:12 am

Snowy Thoughts

allposters.com

I have to admit that winter is not my favorite season. That said, there are many things I LOVE about it –

I’ve always loved sweaters and layers and boots, shawls, mufflers, crocheted hats with snowballs on top, gloves, snuggling under throws, sitting by the fireplace.

istockphoto

Snow people and critters have a special place in my heart. I’ve rarely been in enough snow to actually make them, but really enjoy the creativity shown by people, and wonderful photos like the one with the fox and the snowman above. That one made me laugh out loud when I found it. :0)

Essence of Lursa on Twitter

When my husband and I started dating a hundred years or so ago (he was 17 and I was 14), we had a rare, really good snow in Arkansas. We celebrated by building two snow people in the front yard of my parents’ home. I built a traditional snowman. My husband built an extremely well-endowed female snow person. They met with a sad ‘accident’ pretty quickly – I think due to my mom instructing my dad to ‘modify’ them before she got complaints from the neighbors…

Gifer

My parents had a gorgeous, open design fireplace. Somehow, it was designed to be open at one corner of the bricks so you could see it ‘around the corner’ – in the foyer and also in the living room. I’m still amazed at the design. My parents had a gas insert because they wanted to be able to turn the fire on and off when they wanted and didn’t have to store or haul firewood. I have many memories of sitting in a sling chair beside it, or sitting on the hearth in front of it, warming my back.

We have a fireplace insert in our home now. You can’t see the fire well unless you keep the doors open on the insert. It’s made for efficiency and a heat source in case our regular heat isn’t working. We have firewood stored and always have a fire laid, ready for the strike of a match to start it. When we don’t have anywhere we need to be and the weather is really cold, we light it for the COMFORT and good feelings it brings, rather than the need. A definite, wonderful luxury.

Comfort food is wonderful. My mom made big cast iron skillets of spaghetti sauce and garlic bread, and a lovely bean soup. I like to get a beef stew going in the crock pot, serving that with a crust of bread. I also love grilled cheese sandwich and soup dinners.

My favorite snow is one with huge, beautiful flakes like in a snow globe. It coats the ground in pristine, glorious white, looking beautiful. If there are children around, enough for a snowball fight, snow angels, or maybe a snowman. Then, the sun comes out right away, the temperature warms, and the snow is melted on our driveway and the roads, leaving it on the ground otherwise. Fantasies are made to be enjoyed. :0)

Leave a comment

Filed under memories, Seasons

Tagged as , , , , ,

December 21, 2017 · 12:29 pm

First Day of Winter 2017

I’m ambivalent about this being the first day of winter.

I love some things about winter –

  • hot chocolate
  • fires in the fireplace
  • warm clothes
  • building snowmen
  • curling up with a good book under a cozy throw in my recliner
  • watching big, fluffy snowflakes fall
  • Christmas
  • not having to mow the grass every week
  • comfort food

We live on top of a ridge line in Greenwood, Arkansas. It’s good because we don’t have to worry about flooding. It’s bad when we have ice. Arkansas doesn’t ‘do’ winter well. Instead of having snow, we have sleet and ice first and THEN snow. We have snow tires on our Honda Ridgeline Truck, but they’re useless on ice. Our driveway is 650 feet or so and steep. When there is snow, we have little problem getting down and back up again. When it’s an ice skating rink, we might end up across the street in the field across from our place, and it’s impossible to get back up. We just have to stay home until all melts. Since our driveway is on the north side of our property, that could be a week or more after the rest of the area has forgotten about the inconvenience.

Because we might have trouble getting out and back in again, we spend a lot of time and effort preparing to spend a bunch of time up here, away from the rest of the world. We try to have back up systems so we have water and electricity. One year (I think it was 2000) we had a BAD ice storm. There were trees broken and down all over our property, including in our driveway all the way down. We stood on the front porch and listened to the awful sound of branches snapping like gunshots as they broke. The generator we had at the time blew a gasket. My husband and son rigged a big barrel outside the well house and filled it with water to try to cool the generator. We had to check it every half hour 24 hours a day. We were up here, trapped, for 14 days. No electricity. No public water. No way to get down to the road. That makes you get really serious about preparing for whatever might happen.

I don’t like it when I have to worry about whether I can get to an appointment or not. Plans made during the winter make me nervous. I know that I can reschedule doctor appointments, and that friends and family will understand if we get trapped up here, but I don’t like worrying about whether we could get out or not if we really needed to.

I’m happy if I can stay home and just take some days off to enjoy the ice and snow up here and it doesn’t bother anyone else. I can just decide to stay up here ‘until further notice,’ make snow angels, snow people, have a snowball fight, see how our animals react to the white stuff, and make some hot chocolate and some beef stew with garlic bread…..

2 Comments

Filed under Mother Nature, security, taking care of yourself

Tagged as , , ,

December 21, 2016 · 9:51 pm

1st Day of Winter 2016

What's On

What’s On

Today is the 1st day of winter.  I like to think of winter in abstract terms: hot chocolate, fires in the fireplace, warm boots, hats, scarves, mittens – plus snow angels, snowmen, great big fluffy flakes falling like you’re in the middle of a snow globe. Sledding down our driveway with my son in the front, laughing with glee, his hands in the air….

Reality is that in Arkansas, winter isn’t done well. We almost always have ice first, then snow, then more ice. Tree limbs snap as I stand on the porch. Huge limbs fall into the driveway, causing my husband and I to have to use the chain saw to clear the driveway before we can get out. One year we had so much ice that the public water stopped. We were stuck on top of our ridge line with well water. We had no public power, so we started our Chinese diesel generator. The generator overheated, so my husband and son had to put 40 gallon barrels on saw horses and fill them with water in order to keep the generator cool enough to work. We had to monitor it every 30 minutes, day and night. This went on for 14 days.

Since then, we bought a new propane-powered generator that turns itself on when the power goes out, and turns itself off when the public power is again available. We haven’t lost public water since that awful year about 10 years ago. Last year we were proactive, hiring a man to cut down trees on either side of the driveway that might fall in another ice storm. We had enough snow and ice that all the evergreen trees bent over into the driveway, making it impossible to get down. We had to wait until we could cut down a bunch of the evergreens and haul them to one side in order to get out.

We do have snow tires on our truck which make it possible for us to go down – and come up again – unless we get a bunch of ice. Then we just stay home until the ice melts.

Thank goodness that Arkansas is not a state known for getting lots of snow in the winter!

I still enjoy making snow angels and making snowmen. I still enjoy big, fluffy flakes of snow, feeling as if I’m in the middle of my own, private snow globe.

I love pretty pictures of snow ELSEWHERE, and I LOVE the creative snowmen people make.

The main thing I like about winter is that it doesn’t last forever. It’s a chance for me to get some stuff done inside. I might actually have time to get up and play in my art room! I can plan what I’ll plant and in what squares in our new raised bed square foot garden in the spring.

Hot chocolate (no sugar added) and fires in the fireplace are things I can look forward to.

Have a great winter, my friends!

GifAbyss - Alpha Coders

GifAbyss – Alpha Coders

Leave a comment

Filed under Arkansas, Mother Nature

Tagged as , , , ,