Local Flavor: In the Snow Age

Yesterday it snowed, snowed, snowed. It turned it into a snow age. The red plow looks like a Harvey's truck on its rounds. They were the only folks out on the road yesterday except for the mad skiers.

The river is especially pretty when you get a thick coat like this.

You've got to be careful where you step, though, if you're not used to listening for ice creaks.

Above is the river a few days ago over the weekend when it was stupidly cold out. I was taking my mom's dog out for the morning rituals and the dog looked at me as if to say, "Really? We're going down there?"

Stumping for the other side, here are our two cat-oons making the most of the fire seat that evening.

The woods were gorgeous yesterday, too. I went up to our tree fort to clean it off and enjoyed the mute button that snow in the woods throws on the world.

And... as much as sumac is pretty overwhelming in the yard, I've got to say it looks pretty with little tufts on it.

Have you ever had "sugar snow" where you drench snow in maple syrup? This is cider snow with a bit of cinnamon and sprinkled sugar on top. That was Elsa's idea that I stole. She still had the sugar snow...

We lit Bonnie's snow lantern last night, too.

Before that, though, mama and the girls made a snow cat witch...? ...with a kitten on its shoulder.

You know how I said it was cold on the weekend? The shop windows -- being single-pane -- froze-up beautifully. Here are the Xmas lights outside an upstairs window at night.

I was up late that night cleaning the shop for our first day back and open after our break and was mesmerized a bit by the ice on these panes...

In other news, I was down in Boston dropping my dad off at the airport a while back and I don't know how you city-folk do it -- I feel so alien when entering the city these days. We've been up here way too long.

I did notice that younger guys in restored '60s and '70s pickups and with fitting, boutique, vintage-style workman's attire is a thing right now.

I'll leave you with two days of river-from-the-bridge from a week or so ago.