herbiehancock

                                                                   Diamond Rain                                              The diamonds rained down                                              and stuck to the trees.                                              The people stayed inside,                                              afraid of the freeze,    ...

Not that this will come as a big surprise to anyone, but we have had more snow here since last time I posted.  I'm waving a white flag and crying, "UNCLE!!" but no one seems to be hearing me.  Wrap up in an afghan and sip some hot cocoa or tea while you read this post, because you're going to need it to keep you warm.   We are running out of places to pile the snow... in the back yard, in the front yard, next to the driveway, off the sidewalk out front, and along our street. This interesting mix of snow and ice is in the process of sliding off the awning above our side door. Oh, did someone say, "ice"?  Yes, we still have our icicles.  They are getting bigger every day.  They are along the front of the house, and, of course, they are still along the back of our house and in front of my kitchen windows as if they are bars  on the windows of an ice jail. Under that pile of snow below is our air conditioner.  I don't think we'll be needing it for a w...

  So, This is Lunch Then? A frozen maple seed whirlygig, tugged from the snow with cold claws, stripped from a small brown twig, and clutched to his teeth in his paws, the squirrel's lunch is served alfresco washed down with water lapped from a fallen icicle in the snow. Would you be happy with a meal like that? Not me.  I wouldn't.  Oh no! No, no, I really don't think so. With a satisfied twitch of his bottle brush tail, the grungy-furred gray squirrel finishes his meal and scampers off leaving a trail  of tiny tracks in the snow as part of the deal. And I give thanks that I'm not a squirrel who eats frozen maple tree whirlygigs for lunch. I'm quite happy, thank you very much, to be a girl with a peanut butter sandwich, a glass of milk,  and a just-right yellow banana pulled from the bunch. *   *   *   *  * Although it was still bitterly cold, we had a bright, sunny day today with amazingly clear blue skies. The icicles outside my kitchen wi...

The much ballyhooed blizzard of 2011 came and went here, and although we had loud, blustering winds mixed with sleet and a significant amount of snowfall, it left us no worse for wear when all was said and done. First is a picture from before the blizzard.  My son had some leftover french fries that he put outside on the snow on the ground thinking that a squirrel might come to eat them before the storm hit.  He was right, and we had fun watching it sit and gnaw on the frozen potato sticks. Some parts of Ohio had large amounts of ice and freezing rain.  I heard that one Columbus hospital reported having more than 300 people come in to be treated for injuries that occurred as a result of falls on the ice yesterday.  We had snow first and then freezing rain and then more snow, so we didn't have problems with things icing up the way those farther south of us did.  I tried to get a picture of some of the freezing rain that we did get as it was coming down. We had lo...