March Snows

           March just can’t make up its mind what it wants to do.

          “That’s pretty typical of March,” I’ve been told.

          It was in the sixties early in the week and Bondi and I went for a walk. We both need the exercise.

          The very next day we got four inches of snow!

          Aye-yi-yi, doggonit, oy, and dagnabbit all rolled up into one. 

          Then guess what?

          It went back up into the fifties! It rained all night but stopped midmorning and almost all the snow went away.

          “I’m making that pinwheel recipe you gave me,” my Miss Rosie told me on our morning love call.

          “What recipe? I don’t remember.” Funny.

          “Oh, it’s been a couple of years anyway. It’s got dry ranch dressing and black olives in it?”

          That didn’t help. “Well, I made homemade bread,” I told her. “I’ll bring you a loaf.”

          Mike walked down to the Kipps with Bondi and me. Miss Rosie traded me a pinwheel for a loaf of Kat’s bread.

          Bondi and I thought it was pretty yummy. We ate the whole thing!

          My beautiful younger sister Phyllis was the one that introduced me to pinwheels.

          The next day was even more beautiful because the rain had passed and the roads weren’t too muddy. Mike walked with us again this day.

          Clouds over the Robinsons’ barn.

          The neighbor’s chickens. 

          Bondi found a stick and carried it with her for a little while.

          Winter stormed back in with a vengeance the very next day, shouting, “AND ANOTHER THING…” She dumped a good eight inches on us.

          “I think it’s more like ten,” my handsome mountain man says, but we all know how men measure.

          It was Saturday and normally the snow wouldn’t bother me, but we had an appointment to get our taxes done.

          “I think we should cancel,” I told Mike. Our appointment was right in the thick of the storm. “It’s not worth getting in a wreck for.”

          “Pffft,” Mike says. “It’ll be alright. I’ve driven in storms worse than this before. When I was driving truck, I’d just drive faster thinking I’d drive out of it.”

          “And did you?”

          “Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t.”

          “Well, it’s not your driving I’m worried about. Someone else could lose control and hit us and it wouldn’t even be your fault.”

          “I’ll tell you what. We’ll start and if the roads are bad, we’ll turn around and come home,” Mike mollified me. 

          Our pretty little creek.

          The roads were snow covered but Mike wasn’t having any trouble and the traffic was light.

          A truck lost his traction as he was coming up the hill and was stopped in the road. 

          “It’s snowing worse here,” I told Mike as we hit Rummerfield.

          “They were calling for it to be heavier north of us.”

           I saw on the news that Towanda ended up with ten and half inches of the fluffy white stuff. 

          We passed a couple of plows that weren’t plowing. I heard later they weren’t going to plow until the storm passed. I can’t help but wonder if that was a result of the current gas and diesel prices.

          By the time we were heading for home the plows had been working. There were places we could actually see the road.

          Coming back in our little road.

          My normally sheltered kitchen patio was piled high with snow drifts. Poor Bondi had to poop on the patio until Mike shoveled some paths for her.

          Speaking of poor Bondi…

          She jumped up into the chair with Blackie and had to submit to his ministrations. That’s just a fancy word meaning Blackie was grooming her.

         “Peg, what’s on your glass table?” you ask.

          I’m so glad you asked!

          I’ve been working on a project for Phyllis. I had it ready last week to be soldered and I did that this week. I suspected I’d have trouble hanging this piece since I’d made the ‘dome’ as large as I could and I was right. I tacked it together, put the rings on, added the chain, and checked to see how it would hang. Which, was not very well. The chains, rather than running up the sides, ran behind the glass. Besides, I wasn’t in love with the shape anyway.

Back to my glass table I went and did a dome-ectomy. Then to the sink to wash it. It was while I was washing it that I lost the foil from the bottom of the branch. I’d have to re-foil it.

I sat down at the kitchen table to do the re-foiling and my eyes fell on my fancy-schmancy scallop foil that I’m parsimonious with. That sounds better than stingy, don’cha think? I thought it would be pretty to use on the top of this piece. And since I was already using it, I decided to add it to the bottom of the branch that I had to re-foil, too. I’m quite pleased with this piece. Here it is, along with her Valentine's gnome.

Oh my gosh!

          I had such a dumbass attack. You won’t believe it.

          Do you get tired of hearing the stupid things I do?

Do I get tired of telling you the stupid things I do?

Never! I like for you to know that I’m just as human, just as fallible as you are — and in some cases, more so!

          I had to get my Cricut out to cut the LOVE sticker. Since I’d been cutting things, I just loaded the vinyl and hit the cut button, I was sitting there watching it and noticed the letters were being cut out and wrapping around the rail the cutter head rides on.

          Stop! Whoa! My pressure was set way too deep! It took me at least three tries to get it where it wasn’t mutilating my project and cutting mat.

          What is going on‽ I wondered.

          It wasn’t until it was done and over with that the answer dawned on me. I was cutting stencils before, now I was cutting stickers. The fact that they were both white was the only thing they had in common and what was throwing me! The stencil vinyl is thick and needs a heavy cut whereas the sticker vinyl is a lot thinner.

          Duh!

          So live and learn, don’t dwell, nobody’s dead and it can be fixed.

          After the complexity of the Love Birds and Valentine gnome, these cute little Easter bunny butts were just a pleasure to make.

            Speaking of pleasure…

          It was almost like Christmas to open a box and find all this stuff I can tear apart and play with.

          My best girl in Missouri had some old watches she offered me. I was expecting two.

          Somebody loves me.

          And somebody loves you.

          Me.

          That would be me.

          Until next time…

          Let’s call this one done!