Big Snow

 The burning bush at the front corner of the house is loaded with snow from our big storm yesterday - about 13 inches as we measured it.

 Neighbors came three times and ploughed us out - Dorothy's rental Priess was covered - ice first, and then snow on top.  The snow had settled a bit by this morning, but Ron had fun cleaning it off before she left for Salt Lake.

 One thing about snows like yesterday's is the sculptural quality of the trees as the snow piles up on the branches - the whole orchard looked like a Japanese etching.  This old apple tree was spectacular.

But, the sun came out, and when you enlarge these pictures, you will see that the snow is beginning to leave the top branches.  Still, there is a lot of beauty to a snowstorm, along with the inconveniences that it creates.

Save Me!

Yesterday's snowstorm began early and didn't end until after we went to bed at 11 p.m.  Ron went to all of his church meetings, but Dorothy and I stayed home - cleaning out the driveway to get the car out didn't seem a good option.  Her rental car is so laden with snow - I'll get a picture later this morning.  However, this scene really amused me.  When my dear neighbors cleaned out my flower beds last fall, they didn't remove all of the extra things that I put in the garden.  This one is a metal frog that is on a very long rod.  It looked to me like he was either waving hello, or for help - "Get me out of here!"  Who knows.  Many of the men in Church were sent home early to help dig their neighbors out.  Our neighbor cleaned the drive-way with his herky John Deere snowblower, and it was all clear when Ron got home.  We are grateful to be the recipients of the Good Neighbor policy.

Anniversary Time

Thirty-two years ago today, Ron and I were married in the Seattle Temple (Bellevue, WA).  Lots of family was there, including Daddy and Mother, whose cancer was in remission for a couple of months. It was a foggy day, but a wonderful day, as we were surrounded by family and friends wishing us well.  This picture was taken a few years later - (we don't look like this anymore) - shared life experiences have resulted in gray hair or less hair, a few wrinkles, and some other inevitable outward differences.  Because we married in our middle years, we realize that in order to make it to 50, we would have to be in our late 90s, which isn't likely to happen.  Over the years we have shared many wonderful experiences with our combined family, and have experienced sorrows, too.  We find that, as we grow older, that enduring to the end has a special connotation that we did not really envision, but we are determined to do the best we can.  Life goes on, and we are grateful for each other.

Miracles - It's all Relative

        Judy (or was it Ann?) and I were discussing the method of preserving eggs for the winter when the laying hens would get too cold and quit laying.  (Ann's hens are so coddled, they continue to lay during this extremely cold weather - no Sunday dinner there.)  The large crock would go into the cellar, filled with eggs and a substance called water glass, which was a gelatin-like substance that gave one  shivers when dipping into the crock to get an egg for a cake or eggs for scrambled eggs.
      Water glass was again brought to my attention during a sculpture class at the U of Wyo.  We made clay busts of a model, then had to go through the casting process (just plaster of Paris).  In order to do that, I first covered the clay bust with  Plaster of Paris, using copper shims in strategic places so that when the plaster had sent, I could remove the mold, and prepare to cast a solid Plaster of Paris bust.  (The initial clay bust was usually ruined during this process.)  The next step was to coat the inside of the plaster bust with water glass so that when the Plaster of Paris was poured into the mold, it could set up, and then be separated from the mold.  So far, so good.  I was industriously coating the inside of my mold when some water glass splashed on my glasses, obscuring my vision.  I quickly wiped the offending liquid off, only to discover that my glasses lens had been coated with the stuff and it could not be removed.  Panic set in.  I had only two weeks until finals, and no money to get new lenses, and knew that I could not see the test materials without them.  When I went home that day, there was some mail for me - a letter informing me that I had received a $100 stipend, and that it was available for me at the Student Financial Office.  The amazing part was that there was to be no payback.  The miracle had happened, the optical shop rushed my new lenses, and I must have passed all of my tests, because I got my B.A. that year.  I still consider that a great miracle in the scheme of things on this earth, and am thankful for experiences like this that confirm that miracles to happen in this day and age of cynicsism.