The first snow of the season

As the weather man promised, we received about four inches of snow yesterday afternoon and into the night. With the back spotlight on, I could lie in bed and watch the flakes fall against a background of naked trees and night sky. High above the ground, the bedroom offers a somewhat treehouse view. This morning, the sun delivers the classic crisp, snowy Christmas card sort of tableaux, albeit a very windy one at the moment.

Outside our kitchen window we have a bird feeder which, in the warm months, attracts a nice assortment of avian visitors. Juncos, chickadees, gold finches, nuthatches, are regular diners. An occasional woodpecker, tufted titmouse or phoebe stops by. Now that it is 25 degrees and covered in snow, only the juncos are foraging on the ground, leaping on the feeder roof and finally making it into the protection of the feeder.  I will venture out in a while to spread more seed on the ground where they seem to dine the most and figure out where to hang a suet block to help them keep warm. Evidence on our deck indicates at least one bird spent the night under the cover over our deck furniture. Bird tracks in the snow mark their entry and exit.

Seeing these dusty gray birds this morning reminded me of an attack of envy I felt last weekend.  We did two stops on the 16Hands pottery tour in Floyd County. At the lovely home and studio of Silvie Granitelli, several feeders hung just outside the studio.  Suddenly they were covered in gold finches, tufted titmouse (titmice?) and one glorious blue bird no more than four feet away from me as I looked through the window.  I can't recall ever seeing a blue bird before and it just made my day.  Then I was envious. Why should these beautiful bluebirds be in Floyd but not in my part of Blacksburg?  Why are there still gold finches here when they have abandoned my feeders already.  What do I have to do to lure them to my forest? Some feeders are more blessed than others, it appears.

Friday, 12 Feb...another snowfall

It started snowing again early yesterday morning and isstill doing it at 10 a.m. today. At least it calmed down from the wind. Another eight inches of Ivory Snow flakes have covered my tracks in the drive from yesterday afternoon when I moved my little rental car out of the garage to the front off-street parking to keep from being permanently marooned in the house. Later, I traipsed across the street when I saw the snow plow moving around. Cute snow buster man Johannes agreed to do my drive again today and gave me his phone number so I could call whenever I need him. Those tracks were covered by the time he arrived this morning and scrapped off another layer of this dastardly stuff.

Testing the tiled front porch with one foot while hanging on to the wall, I quickly encountered something like jello on glass and gave up on the thought of sweeping snow away from the entrance. Wading through the piles from the garage to the bottom of the steps, I was able to shovel a little path from where Johannes left off to the brick stoop and clear the snow from the steps which are sort of a pebble aggregate surface not as slick as the tile. I cleared the porch as far as the broom could reach without me stepping off the aggregate. A treacherous patch of about three feet still sports a half inch of snow offering great risk to all who walk there. With my history of accidents over the last year, I refuse to venture on to it. I take a piece of cardboard and write in big letters "Geht nicht!! Glatt Eis! Vorsicht!!" and place it at the bottom of the steps. I have no more streusalz (combo of sand and salt for the sidewalks). Neither does Germany!

Upstairs, my balcony is a foot-deep drift created by a funnel cloud of wind and snow between two bordering roofs. It reaches all the way back to the deep-set wall of glass lining my upstairs hallway. I've never seen this happen. When the temperature finally gets above freezing, this melting knoll will drip into my art room below for a month unless I can somehow get it off. Under it lies another of the slippery white tile surfaces so I am not inclined to tackle it. Even the dreaded cleaning of my huge closet seems like a more attractive task.

Bill works in his house and I work in mine. We call each other to commiserate. About the safe room lock that won't lock until taken apart twice. About having no idea where the compiled folder of the tax papers I put aside for safe keeping actually is. About cabin fever. About eating the six leftover manicotti tubes for dinner last night with no stuffing in them just to get them gone. About being in withdrawal because I have totally run out of Pepsi.

We think we are being punished for leaving. Snow after snow complicates the moving process needed to get out of Germany. At our new home in Blacksburg, the flooring men can't get up the hill to our house to do the floor change we wanted done before we arrived. There is no escaping it.

And we're moving in February why??

(Photo is view from my home office door which opens on to the front porch of my beautiful home in Queidersbach, Germany.)

It has been snowing for a week.

All the locals told us it would be a hard winter. They were right, but seems a large part of the world is experiencing the same misery. Where we are trying to move from is covered in a white blanket even as the place we are moving to is getting pounded hard for the second time this year. "We haven't had much snow in five or six years," my cousin told me when I inquired as to the winter weather in Blacksburg.

It was certainly not our plan to move in February. We wanted to be out of here before then but all the accidents and recovery times just kept pushing us later and later.

This morning I cannot see the dense ivy at my front door. The trees are coated white yet again--the last coating never left, it just got added to. The funny front yard sculpture of a dog with his nonexistent head stuck in a hole in the ground is unseen, the only hint of his location being marked with a little mound of snow over the tip of his tail. Inside the metal body is a complete ant colony I discovered when I tried to move it to a new location. What are they doing now, buried in frozen darkness? I should have removed him and my favorite terracotta yard items into the garage while I had the chance this fall.

At the side patio I have been sprinkling seed on the bricks to make it easier for all the birds to find. I will run out soon. Seven fat blackbirds are either hunkered down in the deep snow, puffed out and unmoving, or hopping around pecking to find whatever they can not covered by the fall from last night. A netted bag of suet and nuts takes a while to get their attention. It is frozen and hard to eat. I should put on my boots and fill up the feeder. Grand tits, nuthatches, chaffinches and enormous jays are regular visitors. This morning, a solitary blackbird sits motionless inside the empty feeder, wondering why the filler-upper has been shirking her duties.

Inside the house, the packer-upper is hunkered down from the weather starting her third housebound day wondering why her "feeder" is so incredibly full and trying to get it ready to empty out.

A light at the end of the snowbank

I made it to Richmond on Friday, Dec 18, driving from Salem with no problems. Turned in my rental car, checked into a Best Western a half mile from the airport and settled in to see what would happen with impending snow storm. By Saturday morning, there were 6 inches on the ground here and triple that in many places in western Virginia and north of Richmond. Long story short, my flights to Dulles International and on to Frankfurt, Germany, were cancelled. Thousands of people were stranded in airports and I was glad to be in an hotel instead. Going online for change of reservation was not working so I took the shuttle to the airport and stood in line for over an hour in hopes of talking to an agent. Gave up when the snow started heavy again. Finally on Sunday morning I have been able to get rebooked out of here on Dec. 23, landing on Christmas eve morning. My cousin Dreama who lives near here has dispatched her husband to come get me in his 4-wheeler so I have been rescued from the hotel for the next few days.