Snow! Snow!

          The story of Trapper John was well received and I have updates for you.

          We’ve got snow. We’ve got a lot of snow. And I’ve got snow pictures for you.

          I’ve taken pictures around our mountain home and have stories to tell.

          We went out a couple of times this week and there’re road pictures!

          This is one of the weeks where I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. Like, I want to tell you everything, show you all the pretty pictures, but hardly know where to begin!

          “Peg! What is it you always tell us?” you ask.

          Oh. You mean, how do you eat an elephant?

          “That’s it! That’s the one!”

          One bite at a time, my friend. One bite at a time. Or, like that beautiful lady, Jody says, “Put one foot in front of the other and trust God to put them on the right path.”

          And with one bite, one step, let’s start!

          I finished writing early last week — well, sorta. I finished my regular letter blog Saturday night (a week gone by now), proofed and posted it early Sunday. then started my Trapper John story. Then we decided to drive over to Tunkhannock. I don’t exactly remember what we were going after but I wanted to pick up some special food for our old cat. Macchiato only wants to eat canned food or treats these days and he’s very vocal about it. I worry that the canned food is bad for his teeth and treats get to be too expensive when he makes a meal on them. When Tiger was little, I’d buy Kitten Chow for him and the all the cats ate that.

          “Let’s get a bag of Kitten Chow for Macchiato,” I told Mike.

          “Isn’t it bad for him?” he wanted to know.

          “I think it’s better than soft food and not as expensive as treats.”

          Mike Googled it.  Adult cats can eat kitten food. However, it is not recommended, as its calorie-dense nature promotes obesity in adult cats. Pregnant or senior cats with appetite issues are the only two groups of adult cats that should be fed a kitten diet.

          Macchiato falls into that appetite issues group.

          We had a big nor’easter coming in so it seemed prudent to shop ahead of the storm. Here’s a couple of road pictures.

          Back at home, I fed Macchiato. He likes the kitten food. I closed the bag up with a strong clip and put it in the pantry. I need to monitor the other cats while Macchiato’s eating because they will try for it if they think I’m not paying attention. My solution, so I don’t have to stand in the kitchen and wait, is to keep a container of food in the bottom desk drawer along with a small dish and he comes and asks for it when he wants it.  

          After a while I heard crinkle, crinkle, crinkle. I recognized it as the sound of a cat food bag. Normally I wouldn’t pay too much attention to it because the cats do help themselves from time to time, but knowing Tiger’s torn bags of food open before, and knowing there’s a new kind in there, I thought I should check.

          “What are you doing‽” I asked.

          “Nothing,” said Mr. Innocent as he jumped up on the stool. “I was just making sure you closed it up tight!”

          Yeah! Right!

          The Kitten Chow now lives in the half-bath, just off the kitchen, with the door closed.

          I’d just made a batch of laundry soap. While at the store, I picked up two bars of Fels Naptha to replace what I’d used. I unwrap the soap and let it dry on the shelf for two months until I need to make soap again.

          After a while our new whole-house air purifier kicks up to high and won’t shut down.

          “I smell something,” I said after a while. “It smells familiar but I can’t quite place it.”

          “I smell it too. Did you spill nail polish or something?” Mike asked.

          “I didn’t. I haven’t been doing anything but sitting here writing since we got home.”

          And the purifier continued to run on high.

          It bothered me. The next time I thought about it, I got up and wandered back to the pantry in case the cats knocked something over. That’s when I spotted it. That’s when I spotted the freshly opened Fels Naptha sitting on the shelf and that’s when I recognized the scent. And I laughed. That purifier can pick up the scent of bar soap from two rooms away, then go to work to eliminate the odor.

          “Isn’t it just amazing!” Mike said.

          “It is!” I agreed.

          Mike’s got a tall cat tower by the front door. There’s a shelf for the cats to jump up into the transom window over the door. I don’t know what happened but one day it started to thump against the wall when the cats jumped on it. After listening to that for a while — like weeks, Mike decided to secure it to the wall.

          Tiger helped.

          My new double boiler pan came! You know what that means, don’cha? Eggs benedict! I never ever thought that the right size pan could make such a difference, but it does. I made the best hollandaise sauce ever in that pan! It was the same recipe I’ve made several times before but never did it come out as good as it did this time. It was so good that I took the egg whites that don’t go in the sauce, cooked ‘em, and ate ‘em with sauce on. It was worth the belly ache it gave me.

          “Belly ache?”

          Yeah. If I have too much fat, butter, oil, cheese, then I have a gall bladder attack. Normally I stay away from eating very much of it. And hollandaise sauce is made with a half-cup of butter, two eggs yolks, and a little lemon juice. So, basically, it’s all butter.

          “Was it really worth it?” you wanna know.

          To quote Lamar, that handsome neighbor of mine, “You bet’cha!”

          A good dose of that pink stuff and time usually help me get over it.

          “I hate that pink stuff,” my best West Virginia girl says.

          And I hear her say it every time I have to break it out. Sometimes I’d shiver as I swig it but wanted to feel better so I’d swig away. Then one day I noticed it didn’t taste so bad. It was sweeter. The label says NEW & IMPROVED FORMULA. You know what they say about a spoonful of sugar!

♫ A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down ♪

          I bet you sang that!

          It snowed twice last week. The first time for four days and the second time for three. When it was done, we had nigh onto 24 inches of that glorious, fluffy, white stuff.

          Mike didn’t wait for it to stop. He went out at least four times that first day to blow the snow away. He says it’s easier when there’s not so much of it.

          I let him do it.

          I trooped out to dump the food scraps and see he made a pass by my burn barrel. Don’cha love the illusion the snow gives my wire screen?

          I think we got about eight inches of snow that first day.

          “You can’t measure from the ground,” Mike said.

          “Sure I can. I just pull the tape out and stick it down as far as it’ll go.”

          Mike was not amused. “No. Some of it melted.”

          Okay. Whatever. “Make me a snow board like Snedeker has.”

          Joe Snedeker is one of our weather guys and some people say he’s weird. Some people find his antics entertaining. Most mornings we’ll just sit here and shake our heads. He definitely livens things up, that’s for sure!

          “I have a board,” Mike says.

          “I’ve got a lawn chair,” I says.

          And my snow-measuring board was born.

          By the end of the second day, we had ten more inches of snow and it hadn’t yet stopped.

          Tiger spent a lot of time watching the birds. I set a pan of seeds on the patio to lure them closer.

          I watched this Starling trying to get a bite of suet. His jab sent the feeder swinging.

And he just waited for it to swing back to him the next time.

          Spitfire and Smudge took a turn watching the birds. 

          I spent a little time watching the birds too.

          Here’s a Starling and a Hairy Woodpecker sharing the suet feeder.

          The Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers look alike only the Downy is smaller, with a shorter beak.

         And this upside-down guy is a Nuthatch.

          “Hey, Peg. You wanna go for a ride?” Mike asked.

          “Really? Where?”

          “We’ll go out the back way by Walker’s and come back in by Williams Corners.”

          I agreed, got ready, and took my place in the passenger seat — a heated passenger seat no less. Mike pulls the Jeep out of the garage and I get a look at the streaked and spotted windows.

          “Wait a minute, mister! You invite me to go on a picture making tour and you don’t even wash the windows!” I mock-complain give-him-hell.

          Mike put the Jeep in park, opened the garage door back up, and got a rag to clean the windows.

          I smiled.

          I’ve already done a round of snow pictures this season and didn’t think I’d do another but here I am, doing it! I was quite taken with the way the snow dressed the trees so you’ll see a few of those pictures.  

          I’m not going to caption them all. If you have a question about any of them, you can always ask.

          Our neighbor’s house from the road. They have a beautiful piece of property.

It looks like we were out before the plow.

          The hunting club at the bottom of the hill.

          “Peg, what’s that stone building?” you wanna know.

          It’s an old ice house. They’d cut blocks from the river and store them here.

         The Game Commission building. It burns Mike’s butt every time we go past and he sees the John Deere sitting outside, especially now that it’s covered in snow. They just built this equipment barn a year or so ago.

          “Why didn’t they make it big enough to put the John Deere in too?” he asks like I have an answer. “We pay for that tractor and they oughta take care of it.”

           “Is that an eagle sitting in that tree?” I asked and fumbled for my camera with the big lens.

          “Where?” Mike asked.

          “Over there,” I pointed. Putting the big lens up to my eye I couldn’t find it. “It’s gone.”

          “No, it’s not. It’s still there but it’s not an eagle.”

          Then I spotted it. I was so let down by a bunch of snow-capped leaves.

           Cows.

           When the snow finally stopped the first time, Mike thinks we ended up with 24 inches.

          I spent a couple of three days, right here, at my computer writing the story Trapper John and listening to smooth jazz on the iPad. And that’s what I was doing when I hear the chimes over the kitchen sink tinkle. I didn’t have to look. I knew what it was. Smudge has claimed a spot on the top shelf beside the spider plant as his. And the spider plant is his own personal salad bar.

I tried, guys! I tried for years to keep him down. But he wouldn’t give up. For my own sanity, and the sake of peace, we’ve come to a compromise. It’s his shelf to use whenever he wants, for as long as he wants, and I have to let him. Some compromise, huh?

          Sitting here, writing, I was, Mike watching TV in his recliner, when Smudge let’s out such a scream that we all jumped from our seats.

          “What happened?” Mike asks coming into the kitchen.

          “I don’t know.” I was up and looking for Smudge. I thought he was dying. “It’s Mr. Mister!” I was incredulous. “Smudge sees him through the window!”

          Those two hate each other and I don’t know why.

          Mid-week, between our two blasts of snow, we decided to treat ourselves to Popeyes Chicken. They’ve been advertising a new pull-apart chicken. “It looks so good,” my commercially-swayed husband says, “let’s go get one.”

          We decided we’d leave here in time to make lunch our first stop. While making travel coffee, I spied icicles hanging from my patio roof.

          Sometimes, if you squint your eyes, tilt your head, and hold your tongue juuust right, you can see the profile of an old man with a beard.

 

 

     Someone didn’t clean the snow from the top of his car. By law, we’re supposed to.

         “You can’t really get it off the top of a trailer,” Mike tells me. “I think some places have a brush they can drive under now but I bet they have to pay for it.” We followed this guy for quite a while. “It’s not really a problem when it’s powdery like that. It’ll just blow off. The problem is when it melts a little and refreezes. Then you’ve got chunks of ice coming off there.”

This is a common sight here. Branches and sometimes whole trees laying on lines.

 “Peg, what’s that window say?” you wanna know.

           I know, right! I wanted to know too. I could see enough of it to Google. It’s a quote from The Little Prince.

 It is only in the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

           We had to drive through Scranton to get to Popeyes.

            It was just past eleven, like ten after, when we got there. We go through the drive thru.

          “We’re not open yet,” the disembodied voice comes over the speaker.

          “How long will it be?” Mike asked.

          “Umm, about twenty minutes I think,” she says.

          “Okay,” Mike says and we pull in the parking lot to wait.

          And wait we did! It was more than half an hour before they started service. We had a bit of a mix up while ordering. Mike wasn’t understanding her but I was. I was giving him the answer to her questions but he wasn’t understanding me either. In the end we got no slaw and four times too many French fries.

          I think my pull apart chicken is under there somewhere.

          We ended up with pull-apart chicken, fries, and a biscuit in two boxes plus two more boxes of just fries.

          They only gave us one sauce for our chicken but more than made up for it in napkins.

          “Holy cow!” I said when I pulled ‘em from the bag.

           “How was it?” you ask.

          The chicken was a little spicy and a whole lot dry. I don’t think we have to run right back there for that.

          I haven’t had a tummy ache in weeks and then all this deep-fried food gave me my second one of the week.

          Can you say pink stuff?

          We headed back out of Scranton and hit Sam’s Club before heading home.

           We only needed a few things. A jumbo pack of toothpaste, industrial size Parmesan cheese. Somehow Two-Bite Brownies found their way into our buggy. I’ve told you before but I’ll tell you again. I’m not much of a chocolate eater, in fact, it verges on the brink of dislike. But these things! I’ll tell you what! These things are so good!

          On the way home Mike became obsessed with the driver of the truck behind us.

          “That’s either a woman or a really short man,” he said looking in his rear-view mirror. “I can only see the forehead.”

          I didn’t turn around and look. Some things are harder for fat people than for thinner people plus, with my Cadillac eyes, I wouldn’t be able to see anyway. The truck followed us through the lights and Mike continued to comment. “I don’t know how she can see over the steering wheel.”

Finally, I used my camera and took a picture to see what he was going on about.

          “Peg! Do I see toilet paper there in the back of your Jeep?” you ask.

          Is this a trick question? Yep. You do. I think we are officially hoarders, at least of toilet paper. But, like I also said, if it makes him happy, go for it.

          I had to zoom in. “I think it is a woman.”

“When we get out to where it’s two lanes I’ll slow down and let her pass, then you can see if it is or not.”

          Suspicions confirmed. We find ways to amuse ourselves.

          This one is the ice on the Susquehanna.

          Look at the size of the drift off my kitchen patio!

          Have I ever told you my husband is influenced by advertising?

          This week he saw something touting the benefits of Oolong tea. Guess what shows up at my house?

            Yep. Oolong tea.

“It’s good for me,” Mike defends — not that he has to.

Oolong tea will help boost metabolism, aid in weight loss, manage type 2 diabetes, prevent cancer, help improve heart, brain, bone, and dental health. It also has the ability to treat inflammatory disorders and elevated cholesterol levels while providing vital antioxidants and robust skin.

If you drink tea at the Chinese restaurant, this is the kind of tea you’re usually served.

      Mike’s developed a new game for us to play. It’s called, Guess How Many Water Trucks We’ll Pass Before We Get to the Bridge. Yep. A guessing game. I told ya we find ways to amuse ourselves. 

“Two!” I guess.

We can’t both say the same number.

“I say…” he thought for a minute. “Four!”

Mike counts as we go up the mountain and back down. We hit three and I’m out. I think that day we ended up passing eight.

“That’s what I meant to say!” Mike says.

But I don’t let him get away with that. “You can’t change it now!”

           I told you at the very start of this week’s letter blog that I have an update from Trapper John. He’s visited a couple of times and I’ve had some very interesting conversations with him. I really want to do his story justice so I think I’ll do another extra letter blog this week. I even have a name for it. I’m gonna call it More Trapper John.

Let’s call this one done!