With winter weather in place and not much happening on the house hunt scene, our activity has been limited to putting up outside Christmas decorations. The days after Thanksgiving featured above-average temperatures which made this task easier.

We made a few minor upgrades to our lights this year. We don’t go overboard but over the years some of the outside decorations had deteriorated and were discarded. A few new lights took their place, including the battery-powered stars you can see hanging from our front-yard Locust tree:

A few new stars hang from our Locust tree

A few [new] stars in the Locust tree

One front window gained some [electric] snowflakes:

Snowflakes adorn our front window

Snowflakes adorn one of our front windows

The stars and snowflakes join some of our traditional decorations which include lights, wreaths, and  illuminated bells and tree:

965.jpg

Our daughter Felicity has arranged for us to get a fresh Oregon Christmas tree; when it arrives we will begin decorating inside the house.  Harkens back to our Oregon days and visiting the lovely tree farms in the Pacific Northwest.

We did have one other event of note; we delivered our last two foster cats, Pieter and Ernst, to the Rifle Animal Shelter, where they are awaiting adoption. It seems a bit strange not to have kittens in the house (Pieter and Ernst were here six months due to a continuing medical issue), but the kittens are now certainly ready to be adopted into homes of their own. May they adopt quickly.

A few other notes: We had our first measurable snow, 2 – 3 inches, enough that I used the John Deere lawn tractor/blade combo to clear our driveway and sidewalks. More snow, and frigid weather, is in the forecast for the upcoming week. The cold is harder to bear than the snow but – it is December – such weather is normal. I’ve started carrying the jumper cables in the car just in case, and have the cable chains and tensioners ready to go as well. I hope to not have to use jumpers/chains/tensioners, but with an hour-long commute each way it is best to be prepared.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:

Preparing holiday cards — the list gets smaller each year.  Busy time at work — the end of the semester at the community college.

Hate, hate, hate the colder-than-a-welldigger’s-behind weather.

Happy Trails.