Strange Winter

For a few hours on Thursday we were reminded that it is in fact winter in southeast Pennsylvania. It started snowing sometime around three in the afternoon with a few little flakes and by four o'clock the flakes were fat and fluffy, laying a bright blanket on the Philadelphia area.

This top photo was taken by Meg WHILE SHE WAS DRIVING to the train station to pick me up. I love the blueness snow brings to dusk.

This next one I took when I went to check on the chickens. This is the apple tree we adopted. You can see with the assistance of the snow how out of control those center spikes are.

The snow that gathers on the netting of their pen is why I went to check on them. I think its gorgeous when the snow sticks like this, but I also know that too much could be bad. The peak is pretty secure, but there have been a lot of hawks around and I wouldn't want to risk losing the chickens' cover. All it took was a couple shakes and all the snow fell through.

This was only the second snow we've received this year and like the others it was short lived. I went outside around seven o'clock to get something from the Jeep and the snow had changed to rain. By morning all that was left were patches of slush.

It snowed; now we can eat.

Last year we made a big batch of squash soup and froze some for the winter. It was our first foray into saving food. We were excited about it, and in order to keep ourselves from eating all of the soup in September we made a rule that we couldn't eat any of it until we got snow. However, we forgot to take into consideration the fact that southeastern Pennsylvania winters are crap in terms of snow and didn't get to eat any soup until sometime in February. And even that was kind of a stretch, since I was the only one who saw the snow: four individual flakes that fell as I was waiting at a traffic light on my way home from work. In retrospect, it could have been ashes from someone a few cars up holding their cigarette out the window. Either way, we ate the soup and it was totally worth the wait.

We instituted the snow rule again this year, but lucky for us we didn't have to wait as long or fabricate reports of snowfall. Earlier this week we got a respectable (for early December) inch and a half, which was topped off yesterday by a couple snow showers. So this evening we made the inaugural trip to the freezer and came up with some beautiful, delicious, 100% homemade pasta sauce.


We cooked it with frozen seafood and some cream, and it smelled so stinking good–tasted that way, too.


Pasta, bread, wine, and a seed catalogue. Yum.

Snow Angels

We finally had our first snow yesterday. It was a light one that started around noon and ended sometime late last night. I love going outside the morning after a good snow.

I'm not sure what the chickens thought of it. They certainly don't remember what snow was like from last year and their reaction this morning was quite comical. Usually they crowd at the gate when they see us coming, but this morning they remained on their little porch and stared at the snow like children at the edge of a high dive.



Oh yeah, if any of you chicken owners (or non-chicken owners) out there have a swell remedy for keeping the chickens' water from freezing, we are all ears. We've seen warmers designed specifically for this issue, but we're looking for something more on the homemade/inexpensive side. An extension cord can be run for power.