Snow on Trees

The winter storm that moved through Pennsylvania Thursday morning into Friday morning dumped almost a foot of white stuff where we live. Penn State, where I work, sent everyone home around noon on Thursday, and cancelled classes for the entire day on Friday. These are things nearly unheard-of in these parts.

First off, almost never does a major storm with significant accumulations occur in November. And second, Penn State almost never closes! But both things happened, somehow. So I guess, practically speaking, that it is winter now, though the calendar says that winter isn't supposed to arrive for another month!

Since I got home early on Thursday afternoon, my husband decided that the opportunity presented itself for us to bake the nice, big ham that he had picked up at the grocery store on Monday. As a special Thanksgiving deal, a local grocery store was selling ham at 25 cents a pound, if you had built up adequate points from prior purchases to qualify. So the big ham set us back $2.19 in total. A real steal.

And so on Friday morning, before we went out and shoveled for several hours, I put all the ingredients in a crock pot to make a very nice ham and bean soup. Ingredients included one ham hock, a bit more than a cup of diced ham, three cans of beans (two northern, one seasoned limas), one large onion diced and sauteed, several small carrots diced, several small potatoes diced, three cups of beef broth, and a handful of crispy bacon.

"What is it about you and natural disasters?" my husband asked; "You always seem to head to the kitchen!" And he was right. There is something about wintry weather that makes me feel like doing just that. Usually, I am the baker-girl. But on this day, it was soup.

And six hours later, with the crock pot on high, we did indeed have a lovely soup (see the photo in the extras). It was a perfect reward for two hard workers who removed a foot of heavy snow from a hundred-foot drive way, two cars, and a large deck.

But first thing in the morning on Friday, before we removed any snow, I went out and took pictures of our yard. Above are some of the evergreens I planted the first year that I owned the house. I wanted something to form a natural barrier against the sights and sounds of the road.

I am a lover of fences for photos only; my nature rebels against them in my own yard. The deer and other critters must have access to move freely about, and I will not do anything to deny them that. So I sent away for trees, and they arrived, looking tiny and shriveled. "More dead twigs through the mail," my husband scoffed.

But I planted them, and we watered them, and they grew. Just look at them now! Just one more episode in life where faith and hope were rewarded (a bit of hard work helped too). They are twice as tall as I am now; you can barely see our house back there behind them. And don't they look just lovely in snow?

Here's a favorite song that seems to have been written just for such a scene: the Staves, with Winter Trees.