It Came!

            It came!

          The snow came!

          Our first real snowfall of the year.

          "No, it's not," someone on social media pointed out. "It snowed in January."

          And that's true.

          Our week started with a heavy frost. I stood in the kitchen, drawing water for a cup of coffee, gazing out over the morning landscape. Mike was pouring his cereal. "Why does it look white out there?" I asked.

          "Because we got a heavy frost."

          After getting the critters fed, I pulled on my boots and went for frost pictures for you. The pond has a skim of ice.

          And winter flowers.

          Frost on the Bittersweet.

          Just a red leaf.

          Frost crystals on a leaf.

          I put my birdfeeders out. I think this woodpecker and jay are having a standoff over the suet feeder.

          And then it came. The snow. The flakes started to fall lazily from the sky. I took Ginger and Itsy out and this is what they think of it.

          By the next morning, we had around 10 inches on the ground. Smudge sat on the stump watching me fill the bird feeders.

          Then I went on a walkabout.

          I went down to the road and snapped a picture of the Robinsons' barn, then I headed up the hill to our upper barn.

          I hadn't seen a single critter track. Not one. In my minds' eye, I imagined all the critters snug and warm in their dens.        I'm the first one to make tracks in the snow, I thought. Then I spot deer tracks.

          Down the trail is my Bittersweet.

          The red stands out against the snow.

          And that made me think of the winterberry. I made my way across the ditch Mike made to funnel water into our pond.

          And that was a little tricky. I couldn't see where the soft spots, ridges, and valleys were and almost had my boot sucked right off my foot!

          But I got across and with no slips or falls and all my footwear intact.

          Winterberries.

          The barn on the hill.

          Mike got out the snow blower.

          He cleared the driveway and a path down to the mailbox as well as the mailbox itself.

           Mike got called for jury duty. "How can I get out of it?"

          He was asking the wrong person. "I don't think you should try to get out of it. I think it's your civic duty." Easy for me to say, right? I wasn't the one called. "I'll tell you what. I'll go with you and be your support."

          Mike was to report to the courthouse in Towanda at 8:30 in the morning. The letter also told him that parking is limited; we couldn't park in the employee parking lot, and if we parked in a 3 or 5-hour limit parking space, put our jurors notice in the window and we won't get a ticket.

          "We should leave early so we can get a parking space," Mike said. "We'll stop at McDonald's for breakfast."

          Towanda is like 19 miles. We left here at 7. Yeah, plenty early. I know when to pick my battles and this wasn't it. "I'll take my Nook so I have something to do while we wait."

          Here's something you won't see very often. Mike with no beard.

          "What happened?" you ask.

          Someone had a dumb-ass attack, or maybe senior moment might be a nicer way to put it. "I usually go in and pull the guide off and shave my neck," Mike tells me. "This time I pulled it off and started shaving my beard!" he laughed and shook his head. "Once I had a strip shaved off I had to finish the job."

          He wasn't real keen on my taking his picture.

          Crossing the Susquehanna from Wysox to Towanda. See the courthouse?

          We were early and had no trouble finding a parking space. We sat in the Jeep and ate our sausage egg McMuffins.

          "At least I'll have my Nook to help pass the time," I commented.

          "You can't take that in with you."

          "I can't? Why not?"

          "I don't know but that's what the paper says."

          "Well now's a fine time to tell me that! I'll just read on my phone then."

          "You can't take your phone either," Mike informs me.

          I got his paper out and read it. Sure enough, no electronics of any kind for me. You're not allowed anything that can take pictures or record. But because Mike's a juror he's allowed to have his cell phone.

          I ended up being the only bystander that morning and spent my time talking with a gal who held the position of Tipstaff. "I don't know why we're called that," Cathy told me when I asked. She also gave me a lot of history about the courthouse.

          The first courthouse burned. When they built the second one, they put the fire station right across from it. "I guess they learned their lesson there," Cathy said.  

         The second courthouse was outgrown and the current courthouse was built in the late 1800's. All of the woodwork is handmade and a testament to the skill and workmanship of the builders. The granite is from Italy. The walls are one-inch granite for the first few feet, at least on the level we were on, and from there up it's canvas. "It was to help deaden the sound."

          And I learned about Cathy too. She was an operating room nurse before retiring. Her friend worked in the courthouse and had been after her for several years to apply for the position of Tipstaff before she actually did, then six months after she got the job, her friend retired. We had a good laugh over that. Cathy likes the job and only works a couple of days a week. It's her job to aid the court. Hand out the paperwork to the jurors when they arrive and seat them, make copies, answer questions, things like that.     

          Have you ever done jury duty? This is my first experience. Once the doors were closed, the jurors had to fill out a questionnaire. Those were taken into the back and fed into a machine. Then they come out and assign each of the jurors a number for the voir dire process. That's where they question you to see if you have any views that would keep you from making a fair and impartial verdict. Mike's number was 33. They expected to pick two juries this day.

          And then we waited. Mary, the lady who gave the jurors their instructions, helped to pass the time by giving the history of the courthouse. I'd already heard much of it from Cathy but still listened and learned a few more things.

          "The statue on top is not Lady Justice as many people think because she is not blindfolded. But the most interesting thing about the statue is one night there was a storm and she was hit by lightning. In the morning, when they came to work, her head was laying on the courthouse lawn. They couldn't find an exact match and the one they did find was a little too large for the body. You can see it from certain angles, but you're not likely to notice it if I hadn't told you," Mary said. When she ran out of facts, and after a pause, Cathy joined her.

          "The first court was held in a bar," she told us. "It was located on the corner where the bridge is. The judge would ride in on his horse every couple of months and hear cases. In the meantime, the prisoners were housed at the sheriff's house and his wife would feed and guard them."

          Mary explained the jury selection process telling us that their names were drawn at random from various places such as tax forms and driver's licenses. "We sent out 180 notices, 74 replied and only the 47 of you showed up."

          "What happens to the ones who don't show up?" I asked.

          "Their names are automatically rolled over to the next draw."

          And we waited. And we waited. And we waited some more.

          Around noon the judge came in. "I had 10 cases before me this morning," she explained the delay, "and they've all settled. I want to thank you for your service and you're all dismissed."

          Mike and I decided to go on up to Athens and have lunch at the Chinese buffet then do our shopping. It was a long day until we got home and some little girl pooped on the floor while we were gone. Yeah, Itsy. She's been doing that occasionally over the past few months. At least twice now she was headed for the door and just plain couldn't make it. I scolded her. I know she feels bad about it but I have to scold her anyway or she'll think it's okay — which it's not, but what are you gonna do?

          "Diaper her," I hear my beautiful sister Phyllis say.

          If it comes to it, I will. But right now it's not too big of a deal because we don't have good carpet on the floors.

          The next day we planned to make a trip to Dickson City. Mike needed one more furnace run and we needed to go to Home Depot to get it. When I went to feed the outside cats that morning I discovered their plastic plate was broken. How the heck did they do that?

            I didn't take many road pictures but I did take one.

          I was ready to pee by the time we got to Home Depot. I think their door pulls are really clever. You don't have to use a paper towel to open the door then look for a place to toss it as you hold the door open with your foot. If there's not a trashcan nearby to toss it into, I'll stuff it in my pocket until I can find one. Home Depot is the only place I've seen with these foot openers on the restroom doors.

          I have been busy this past week, drilling Kentucky Coffee Tree seeds to make rosaries. My shop is cold, too cold for me to work in for very long. Especially since I put the seeds in a vice to hold them while I drill and the vice was really cold!

          "If I could bring my drill press in here," I told Mike, "I would."

          "Why don't you bring your Dremel in and set it up?"

          "You wouldn't mind?"

          Mike not only didn't mind, he helped me get set up. Now, whenever I have a few minutes, I'll drill a few seeds. And I really like using the Dremel too. It's a higher speed than my drill press and the seeds don't break out on the bottom as they did at a slower speed. But this is a job I need to get done for two reasons. One, I want to get the rosaries sent off to Momma, and two, I want to clean up the mess it makes.

          "Just be careful you don't break the bit," Mike advised.

          I was sitting there, happily drilling away when the seed I was drilling on slipped. I didn't have the vice tight enough. I put the handle in the up position totally expecting the seed to be stuck on the bit as usually happens when it slips from the vice when all of a sudden — POP! ZING! It shattered! It was gone. A piece of the bit flew across the kitchen and landed on the floor. I found the seed on the floor in the other direction and it was a total mess.

          "I don't understand what happened!" I cried.

          "It probably got in a bind when you were backing it out," was what he thinks happened. Then he went and got me another drill bit. "This is the last one I have in that size, so don't break it."

         

          Lastly, I got this picture of Kevin and Kandyce enjoying a cup of tea (or maybe it's coffee) from Grandma's china.

          Clara would be so proud! You know she believed in using her china. This is a picture of Clara Catherine and Jesse Luther Kraft.

          Let's call this one done!