restocking what melted

We've been enjoying some warm temps which means melting snow. But tonight it's being replenished. The dogs came in covered in big fat flakes. Kobie was nice enough to pose for me. By the time I got the camera it was melting fast, but he was such a good sport, let's let him think he was still covered in white.

ice candles

We hosted a small dinner party last night - 4 friends came over and shared a casual meal and wonderful conversation with us. They were nice enough to ooh and aah over my decorating and the food I fixed. Unfortunately, I didn't take photos of the table or the food - what was I thinking??!! However, the hit of the evening was the decorating on the patio. I had made ice candles and had them sitting on a snow-covered table with the icicle-lighted fence in the background. They did look quite festive.

They were easy to make. I bought a plastic mold and filled it with water (I used different amounts of water to get different height candles) - and let them freeze for about 12 hours. The Minneapolis Strib http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/homegarden/12357556.html did an article on the ice candles a week or so ago and showed how to decorate them - with evergreen pieces, cranberries, coloring, etc. They were beautiful, but with the white fairy lights and snow on the patio, these were exquisite. The daytime temps all of this week are supposed to be near 30, so I don't know if these will last until Christmas. But I have a long winter ahead to make more!

Mother Nature does her own decorating for the season

This is what I woke up to today (and, yes, the sun was fully up before I even opened my eyes this morning!). Seriously, Mother Nature is the Queen of Outdoor Decorating!

from autumn to winter in two days

I took this sunset photo last Thursday. This is looking to the southwest - so not even the primo sunset. The colors were so rich and vibrant. This photo doesn't really do them justice - but I wanted to show you that we still had open water on the lake - and if you could see the grass, it's still green.

Saturday we had a bit of a storm. It started about 9am, and came down for about 12 hours. All told, we ended up getting about 6 inches of sugar - nice and dry. The wind was ferocious and blew it around for a couple more days. It is absolutely gorgeous, and the pooches are coming back into the house way more energized than they need to be!!! Mark heard today that someone dropped a snowmobile through the ice over the weekend. The guy is okay, but you have to wonder what people are thinking sometimes. Hello, it was water - liquid - NOT FROZEN - just one day earlier!

I've been trying to get the inside of the house decorated for the holidays. It seems to be taking me forever - and I have boxes and stacks of things laying all over. But I think it's beginning to come together, and I hope to post some photos over the next few days.

This is the seat of one of the chairs on the porch. The wind blew so hard, about an inch of snow came through the screens. I thought this pattern was kind of cool.

We Have Winter

The winter garden.

All this snow is lovely - but not much fun to move around! For now it's stopped snowing, but wind is picking up. So we're not done yet!




The pooches wouldn't leave the patio (which we shovel) because the snow was too deep. So I went out with the snowshoes and made paths for them. Am I a good mom or what?!










Our soup and bread last night tasted good. But, I need to figure out a warm place to let the bread rise. It was better as toast this morning. Also, last weekend Mark used the last of our frozen, roasted tomatoes in chili, so had to use canned tomatoes in the vegetable soup. Not nearly as good. I may have to put in more tomato plants this year!!