Walking In Winter Wonderland

If you live somewhere other than the Portland Metro area, you not have heard, but we have snow. Lots of snow. This is a very un-Portland like event. We get lots of precipitation in the winter, but it's usually in liquid form, not stuff that has to be swept, shoveled, graveled, and otherwise dealt with.

Last night it was coming down in big fluffy flakes. Again. I looked outside about 8:00 and the neighborhood was looking very festive, indeed.

Our neighbors to the left,

across the street,

and to the right

had lights outside. There was no traffic so it was very quiet and peaceful. The snow we have is very light and fluffy. You can't really tell in the pictures, but it's about 8 inches deep. I walked out into the street in my fleece pajamas wearing sock and Birkenstocks to take pictures and my socks were dry as soon as I got back to the front porch to stomp off the flakes.

This morning when we got up, we had gotten some frozen rain overnight so the snow had a crust on top. Yesterday, I used an old broom to sweep off the stairs to the backyard for Andy Rooney and he enjoyed romping in the fluffy snow. Today, I had to use the broom handle to break the crust on the stairs all the way down, then stomp down enough area in the backyard for his morning "constitutional." His eyesight is bad because of the diabetes so he gets very disoriented with all the white snow. In the house he depends on his hearing to locate us by our voices, but in the snow he seems unable to do that; I had to be right in front of him so he could follow my voice back to the stairs.

The forecast had been for more frozen rain this afternoon, but thankfully we only got it for a few minutes before it turned back into the big, fluffy flakes again.

There was very little traffic this morning, but with the additional layer of snow, more people were moving around this afternoon with very few problems, as long as they were slow and steady.

We got just enough frozen rain to make the trees and shrubs look like they've been encased in a layer of glass.

The snow is pretty, but was also a perfect excuse to stay inside in my fleece jammies and wool socks all day. I did some spinning of samples of alpaca roving, and experimented with spinning with some silk hankies and kid mohair locks. ToolMan's been asking for a knitted driving cap so I surfed Ravelry for a pattern, and wound a skein of hand spun wool from the stash to start it, then discovered both my size 6 circulars already have projects on them. So, I'm cranking out the last few rows of a cowl for myself to free up a set.

And I did several loads of laundry in the new washer and dryer. Have I mentioned how much I love these? We got some good rebates and energy credits for buying these. It is amazing what a great job they do and how little water they use. And talk about smart appliances: You just tell them what you put in and they determine the temperature, spin speed, amount of detergent, etc. You don't even have to set a load size or water level choice on the washer; it weighs the clothes to determine how much water to use! And no setting a time on the dryer; it senses the humidity so it knows when to cool off and when to shut off! And no more annoying buzzer when they're done; they each play their own cute little chime. You may have to turn the sound up to hear it.

Isn't that cute? It's like they're singing!