The weather continues to be challenging here. With Monday’s wet snow, I had half a lilac bush break apart and fall onto my composter. That was a fun clean-up project. Power has been intermittent all week. Trees that were weakened by Monday’s storm gave up when the weather turned colder and windier, and so they continue to fall on power lines and other things besides my composter. As with the summer’s flood, the guy with the chainsaw is rather popular this week.
Friday brought warmer temperatures, above freezing anyway. But it started raining Friday evening and there has been very little break in precipitation, though it turned to snow Sunday morning. There was power all day though, so I broke out some snowy winter music and did the seasonal change-over on my house. The last of the autumn stuff, left out for Thanksgiving long after the season has ended, is put away. Most of the holiday decorating is done though I didn’t do much outside… the way the weather is going, I may not this year. Doesn’t seem much point.
December 3rd is Tree Dressing Sunday, so I put up the tree. I have a plastic one because I have high ceilings and narrow spaces, and nature just doesn’t grow tall skinny trees. I also don’t have a way to transport live trees anymore. And, speaking of transport, aside from the cut-your-own farms around here, there aren’t many tree vendors that aren’t shipping firs into the state. The closest come from neighboring New England states, but many come from hundreds of miles away — all wrapped in plastic mesh.
So the choice is between a hefty oil budget for shipping, a nasty wad of plastic trash, and a tree that doesn’t fit in my living room or the pre-lit plastic one that I bought years ago. Eventually, it will be horrid toxic trash, but I figure when it gets there, it can be put in its box and stored forever in the attic. Meanwhile, it’s quite nice to be able to put the thing together, fluff it up, plug it in and have a thing upon which to hang my ornaments. I can be done with the whole project in an hour.
And then there is time to bake bread and clean the house and wash the laundry and fix the handle on the front porch door and roast the remaining pumpkins and devour my Fedco and High Mowing Seed catalogs. There was even time to go see one of my friends in her chorus debut, performing Handel’s Messiah. It was a good weekend, for all that the weather was terrible.
Hopefully, when you are reading this we still have power. This round of wet snow is up to about 4 inches already and it is forecasted to continue all through the night.
Here are some pictures… none of the tree… those just never turn out well for me. But there are plenty of other things that are more photogenic. I confess, I’m mostly sharing these for my mom… who loves Christmas… and who made the winter village in the second row.
In my quest for the proper mood music, I ran across this weird thing. It is called ambient music, but it’s really just soundscape. It is about perfect for dark, midwinter days.
©Elizabeth Anker 2023
By My Solitary Hearth 
Your decorations look lovely. Apart from the increasing heat, we are now day five sans domestic water and only get electricity for six hours a day in two sessions. This makes planning to bake Christmas fare rather tricky. I have yet to begin 🙂
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