Just a couple of days ago, I was photographing and blogging about the green in my garden. Well, being midwesterners, we all knew winter wasn't over yet. A major snowstorm had been forecast for our area, and the meteorologists' predictions came true. It started raining here mid-day Saturday.
My son, daughter-in-law, and grandson came late afternoon and shared a dinner of taco soup and raspberry pie with ice cream; then the three of them played "Trivial Crack" on their phones - have you heard of it?
By the time they left, it was snowing in some areas of our city (not ours); they even saw a snowplow in the ditch on the way home. Now, doesn't that inspire confidence?!!
It was snowing before we went to bed; in fact, quite a lot. I took some photos in evening light; all was beautiful, peaceful and quiet:
Looking from our backyard to the west into the neighbor's
The trees were (and still are) covered with snow. So far, no tree casualties here.
Love this Black Spruce! It's got a great shape to it - and it really looks pretty when covered with snow.
Another view of the Black Spruce.
Back to my story: We had quite a bit of snow when we went to bed, and it has continued to snow well into Super Bowl Sunday. Many churches cancelled services, including ours. It has been a quiet day, with intermittent trips outside to use the snowblower (twice already, need to do it again...), and let the dog out. By early afternoon there were approximately 10" of snow, with more coming down!
I am SO glad I have nowhere to go. This is staying home weather at its' finest. :)
It's a PERFECT afternoon for a cup of tea. I bought an electric tea kettle upon the recommendation of my daughter - I'm liking the ease of use.
Here's my new tea kettle on the kitchen counter.
Perhaps you noticed this memory board in the kitchen...thought I'd give you a closer look. You'll see a photo of my daughter as a teenager with our dog, Libby; a photo of me at Tulip Time in Pella, and a newspaper clipping with a photo I really like. It's all about "my" Iowa State Cyclones. There are two small bunches of dried lavender from my garden - they look different because one is 'Munstead' and the other is 'Hidcote.' Please don't ask me to remember which is which - I'm thinking the one on the right is 'Hidcote.' Not sure though. The corsage is from Aaron and Kendra's wedding and the ribbon is one I won at the Iowa State Fair for a scrapbook page.
Back to tea...my teapot is from Pella, Iowa. It looks Dutch but is not from Holland.
The teacup is Delft, from Holland. It belonged to my grandmother, who collected teacups (I do too.)
My grandma placed a piece of masking tape with the name "James Hart" on the bottom of the teacup, because Jim, her nephew, brought this to her from a trip to Holland.
Today I'm drinking Icewine tea from Canada. Mmmmm, good!
Love this photo! Perhaps you noticed the other snow pics have a blue cast to them and these have a grey cast. It's all about the light; these were taken on an overcast morning and the others were taken at dusk.
On the left, the Black Spruce and on the right a sugar maple and our berry patch
Along the fence row (pasture behind us) are several HUGE trees. They are hackberries. There's also a mulberry tree back there. They sure look pretty with snow covering their branches. The smaller tree toward the front is our sugar maple. A couple of years ago, I did a tree count and I believe we had almost 30 trees on our property (a half-acre lot).
Super Bowl Sunday has been a good day to stay inside and drink tea.
