A Very Winter Day

Well, the snow came.  I cannot tell you the depth since along with the snow we had strong winds which blew the light snow into drifts and mountains and such.  Glenn guesstimates the depth at about 18 inches with drifting up to five feet high - that's a bit over boot tops!

 

Snowball running toward me. I was standing inside the back door.

Snowball was quite happy. After all, he is a Pyrenees Mountain Dog.  Buddy was nowhere to be found.  I finally found him settled in the doghouse which is located inside the pole barn.  He was happy to stay put.

 

 

 

Snowball taking a nap on a mountain of snow while it was still snowing.  He is one happy Great Pyrenees.

 

The snow fell all day Friday and some on Saturday.  The winds howled.  I rarely saw the snow coming down vertically.

 

Glenn spent most of the day plowing our 7/10^th of a mile driveway so that we could access the public road.  Glenn made it through the woods as anticipated and near Route 11 a 5’drift, also anticipated, blocked his way.  The plow was not going to move that drift off the lane.  So, Glenn returned to the house to get his tractor.  He would have to dig through the drift with the bucket on his tractor.  He has had to go through this process a few times over the years since we took residence here, but not very often thank goodness.

 

Unfortunately, today he had a tractor mishap.  He got a flat tire on the rear right tire of his tractor.  Actually, the tire was slashed.  And, that means the tractor was not only out of commission, but now we need to buy a new tire.  Have you ever seen the size tire on the back of a tractor?  It is huge and very expensive.  Glenn was able to dig through the drift before having to limp back up the drive on that flat tire. 

 

The tractor is the workhorse of the farm.  Glenn still needed to feed the cattle.  So, Glenn climbed up on his next and only other option, his Caterpillar frontend loader, and moved a bale of hay out to the cattle with that monstrosity. The Cat moves via tracks, so the moving is slow and when Glenn drives through the yard with that mammoth the entire house shakes.

 

Then, even though my fingers were crossed, the electricity failed at 3:00 PM.  Our solar back-up seamlessly went into action to keep the priority outlets working.  We have several full freezers to maintain along with the circulator on our wood-burning furnace, refrigerator and such.  I tuned off the heater on the hot tub to conserve our stored power.  I just did not know how long the grid would be off.

 

Thankfully, after two short hours, our power was restored.  Perfect!  I could now make the new recipe I had planned for dinner...shrimp and sausage jambalaya.  I had never ever made jambalaya.  Mid-recipe, I needed to add Creole spice.  I did not have any as I am not fond of hot, spicy food.  I quick looked up a recipe, compliments of Emeril Lagasse,  on the internet and mixed up some Creole spice. 

The jambalaya tastes a whole lot better than it looks -

shrimp. sausage, rice, green peppers, celery, onions, Creole spices, tomatoes -

YUMMMM!

 

 

 

 

The jambalaya was tasty and just a bit spicy for my mild preference.  Glenn likes his food a bit more spicy, but he ate three bowls so I guess the jambalaya was to his satisfaction.

 

 

 

A bowl of jambalaya is a warm and hearty ending to a very winter kind of day.