Is Winter Here to Stay?

When they are not busy ordering the household or ushering in storms, the cats pile in warm places. The "'kittens," Jemima and Chester, with Eggnog behind them.
Teasel [aka "Momma"s Darling"] waiting patiently through a long evening of quilt construction.


J. made applesauce yesterday from apples he gathered in Utah last week. He was looking at a camper someone had for sale and noticed the tree laden with fruit. The owner brought him out a plastic sack and told him to fill it. Apple orchards were all around us in Vermont as well as an apple "cold storage" and packing plant where utlility grade apples could be had all winter for a few dollars a bushel box. We couldn't guess the variety of these apples--green-skinned with a few reddish streaks-- but they were crisp with a tart-sweet taste. This is not a fruit-growing region and we miss having fruit and berries to store in various ways for winter eating.

Shadows on snow drifted around the guest cabin. Fallen branches, still in green leaf, are strewed about, but there is too much snow and mud for clean-up.

Snow clings to branches and comes skidding down in wet clumps.

The pond was partially cased in a thin glitter of ice. Today it has melted and we have seen the muskrat creating ripples as he moves. The Mallards have ventured out of the cattails to paddle around the far edges of the pond--keeping wary look out for the muskrat.

Dried weeds and cattails caught in snow and ice.

The small tree at the edge of the cabin has broken limbs. At the Post Office an ornamental tree--I think a variety of locust, split midway up the trunk so that dragging branches hung over the sidewalk.