It's rare to see snow in November these days. Okay, let's rephrase that: in our increasingly snow-less winters, we are especially unlikely to see snow in the last weeks of Autumn. And yes, this is a marked difference from years gone by. I remember when I moved to Wisconsin, part of the Thanksgiving ritual was to take a walk before getting started on dinner. The landscape was often snow-covered and beautiful. Currier & Ives stuff. That was then (forty-five years ago). These days kids can't even count on snow for winter break.
Nonetheless, today it snowed. Not significantly, and not early on. Indeed, there's sunshine to start us off!
Now that we no longer have a drought, sunlight in the morning is very lovely indeed.
But I do have a list of things to accomplish and on that list is picking up more croissants and breads from Madison Sourdough (downtown).
I know that many in France cannot survive without their daily croissant in the morning, but I'll say this: if you quit that addiction for a few days (because honestly, granola or oatmeal are much healthier), then when you do return to your beloved buttery crescent roll (especially with homemade blueberry jam!), you are in heaven.
I have done my final potted plant transport for over-wintering at the farmhouse. (Additionally, I'm over-wintering the giant orchids in the sheep shed.) Our windowsills are full! Not all will thrive, but I expect all will survive until next spring. A few images for you:
The rest of the morning is spent on organizing the farmhouse so that things run smoothly and Ed eats healthily in my absence. I'm going away tomorrow for a much anticipated "walk." I planned that walk for Friday, but I need a chunk of Thursday (i.e. tomorrow) to get there.
And pretty quickly it's 1:45 -- the time I have to leave to pick up the kids at school (it's a bit of a drive from here).
And this is when the snow flurries arrive. Are you near kids (anybody's kids!) when the first snow of the year hits the great outdoors? You know the excitement then. I think it rivals the arrival of Santa Claus!
It's the scheduled after school ice cream day, which I suppose makes no sense, except that kids don't find the mix of snow outside and ice cream inside to be odd.
And in the evening, the flakes grow in size, landing niftly on the kids' hair, their jackets. You'd think they'd been poured over with chocolate. Squeals of glee!
I'm home again. With soup ready for us now. All it needs is a few minutes in the microwave and a generous hand with the grated cheese. On the couch, sorting through thirty free days of Paramount Plus on our "big screen." So happy to be here. But also thinking about my walk, not here. On Friday. More on that tomorrow.
With love...
