Soup, wind, snow, and critters

 February 8, 2026

Early this morning, around 4:30ish, the half moon hanging in the southern sky, was shining its light through the frieze of icicles hanging along the edge of the verandah roof. Gravity is making the glacier of snow on the roof slide ever so slowly down off of the roof, and its edge has melted a bit on sunny days, so looking out the window one can see the moonlight shining through the icicles, a glinting crystal filigree against the darkness. 

When it is this cold, (-27 C -17F), we like to pop downstairs and feed the fire once during the night. That is enough to keep a good bed of glowing red coals in the stove. The house is banked up well with snow, but we really detest going down into the crawl space below decks to un-thaw pipes, so it is well worth the little jaunt down the stairs to feed the fire.

Today was a good day to get a pot of Split Pea and Ham Pork Hock soup going. The veg and herbs are all out of my garden, except the split peas and celery. When celery was in season, I froze a lot, so I'd always have it for soup making throughout the winter.

The aroma of the soup simmering on the wood stove, greeted us when we returned from our morning snowshoe around the perimeter.  We are certainly having a wonderful, more traditional winter. This week has been pretty consistently cold, with random snowy days, and others of blue skies and sunshine. 

Friday was a snowy-blowy day, and particularly at night, the wind buffeted the house, it's banshee-like screams across the edge of the slightly open bedroom window, had me crawling out of my warm nest to shut and lock the window in order to have peace. One could still feel and hear the wind gusts hitting the house. 

The aftermath of that was a still, crisp and sunny day, and a lot of digging out, particularly where the wind had drifted the snow. Thankfully, Nellie Belle has her transmission back in place, her wheel back on, and is in service, the big blower making short work of the driveway. 

Some of my daily welcoming committee...how many can you count?

What is this Blue Jay doing??....snow bathing?

One of the resident ravens has snagged a piece of chicken skin off of the 'treat rock' snowbank, and is just getting airborne. 

A dusk-light picture of Foxy checking out the 'treat rock'.

                           

Suddenly, one realizes that it is still daylight well past 5 PM. It is getting to crunch time to get the garden plans finalized and seed orders sent.