A Relaxing Sunday

It's been a laid back weekend. Friday we had ice - a very thin cover over the steps and driveway. Honey and I slid our way out and limited additional walking to when it got a bit warmer!

Today has been rather gloomy and while above freezing, it's cold out there. Right now its doing something - small snow flakes that come and go. Right now B is watching the Daytona 500 and Honey is asleep.

Dinner tonight will be roasted chicken. We purchased a SuperWave Oven at Costco the other week and this is the second chicken I'll make in it. It is a large class bowl with the controls on the lid and it cooks by a combination of halogen, convection and infrared heat technology (their words, not mine). It did cook the chicken faster last week and the chicken was VERY tasty. So, I'm doing it again with another Purdue chicken that's about 6 pounds. That gives us leftovers all week. This time I'm also cooking 2 baking potatoes and 2 carrots that I just added after cooking the chicken 25 minutes breast down. I turned it over, put in the veggies and back on for about 40 minutes. We will have a salad with it - a nice meal for a gloomy Sunday. I forgot to take pictures last week so I'm hoping to remember this time.

Last weekend in February - we will be glad when all the snow melts and it gets a bit warmer.

A Beautiful Snow Fall

This morning we awoke to a lovely site - the snow fall overnight was just beautiful! I got the camera and took pictures before we even cleaned the car off. Often the snow will melt or the wind will blow and what was once beautiful loses something. Here is what we saw

From the driveway looking at the sun just coming up

A bit later, I looked up at the trees still wearing the snow

At the end of the driveway looking at the house

And then we drove to the lake and saw the sun 

And I turned and got a picture of the shore line and the trees with all the snow

By the time we got back from breakfast much of the snow on the trees had melted. At the lake we could see prints on the ice/snow of both foot steps and snow mobile tracks. We have seen people out on the lake with tents and such ice fishing. That is something we are NOT about to do! This was really a great snow - looked nice and melted fast!

Well, where is the snow???

We have been told to expect the Blizzard of 2013 - where is it???  A small dusting of snow fell overnight and the forecast predicts, when all is said and done, we will have 4 to 8 inches. This amount changes hourly so who knows! As of now, snow should start in the afternoon and continue overnight into Saturday. We did stop and to take a few pictures this morning on our way to breakfast.

This was taken rather early in the morning :) 

The shore line shows no snow and just a bit on the ground by the trees

Also, on the way to breakfast this morning, we passed the lake overlook by the dam and there were several fisher persons out on the lake doing their thing. Not something we would do even in warm weather! 

Well, we are ready for the snow, the snow blower is filled and we have extra fuel. Now we wait! 

Who is Nanook of the North??

Like much of the East coast, we are experience really cold temperatures - soon to be colder! Right now it's 22 out. Yesterday we had snow showers and by this morning we had a bout 2 inches - but it was rather light crunchy snow. B cleaned the car off and we did get out to breakfast! We both bundled up. As I entered the diner I said, "I look like Nanook of the North!" Now this is something I say a lot when I'm all bundled up. I don't think most people get what I'm saying - that it's really cold out and I'm layered up to keep warm. So, I wondered, who is Nanook? When I got home, I Googled it and found he was an Eskimo (which is what I thought but wasn't sure) However, how did I know about him? Well, I'm sure it was my parents who first used that statement when I was a child.

Nanook of the North is a 1922 silent documentary film by Robert J. Flaherty. Nanook is an Inuit who with his family lived in northern Quebec, Canada. The first nonfiction work on this scale, this film was considered ground-breaking. It captured an exotic culture in a remote location. A DVD of the film was released and in 2005 was reviewed by Roger Ebert in a rather lengthy review. Part of the review states:
The film is not technically sophisticated; how could it be, with one camera, no lights, freezing cold, and everyone equally at the mercy of nature? But it has an authenticity that prevails over any complaints that some of the sequences were staged. If you stage a walrus hunt, it still involves hunting a walrus, and the walrus hasn't seen the script. What shines through is the humanity and optimism of the Inuit. One of the film's titles describes them as "happy-go-lucky," and although this seems almost cruel, given the harsh terms of their survival, they do indeed seem absorbed by their lives and content in them, which is more than many of us can say.


So, should you hear me refer to Nanook, now you know who he is! And I learned something also. 

We got snow again

Snow still falling. We shoveled the steps yesterday. This morning B is out with the big snowblower.