Palm Sunday

As far as I know, there are still some folks East of here without electricity.  We were just on the edge of some big snow, it seems, and our eight inches could have easily been thirteen! 

We thoroughly enjoyed it and there are remnants of snow girls and a snow fort outside.  The weather has turned now, looking more like Spring, which helps with the Easter Mood.

Still, there had to be the obligatory snow photos.  I never tire of those.

I remembered quite last-minute that it was Palm Sunday.  So, I scrambled around getting things in order and planning a supper with Becky. 

The children love making their own bread, so it was not hard to talk them into bread cockerels from All Year Round.  Laurel had a bunny in mind, as our friend has her own pet rabbit.

I am enjoying this little gnome bringing carrots to the rabbits entirely too much.  I wish you all a lovely Holy Week! 

Sugar Snow

Sure enough, we kept close to home this weekend.  No travels over the river and through the woods to the Maple Festival.  I guess I could have felt sad about it, but we were pretty happy here in our own little snow globe. 

I started buckwheat pancakes in the morning and the batter was ready for lunch, for our own maple festival.  We had the sausage (not burned, like they always do, bless their hearts) and apple sauce (blackberry and very local!).  I told the children that if they wasted syrup, always the precious commodity, I would charge them $8.  They wasted syrup.  I cleared no profit. ;-)

The children went sledding while I set the house to rights.  There are times things feel like such a mess, and there are times it all feels so tidy.  While they were out, our dear neighbors served them hot chocolate, just like the Bobbsey Twins.  Those books always seem to include hot chocolate. 

This was around mid-day, these photos.  We probably cleared six to eight inches of snow that packed down as it fell.  It snowed all day and into the night, a heavy and wet kind of snow.  A couple inches piled on while we had supper with my parents, and they saw stranded cars on their way home.  We were so glad to be in our cozy little house. 

The plows passed in the night, the only kind of snow we've had all year that really required plowing.  Today I'll urge the children to go out and enjoy the snow while it lasts.  I can already hear dripping.

A Branch of Spring

Oh, the March winds blow and the swirling snow
Say that Winter's holding on,
But we've all heard in the call of the bird
That Old Winter soon will be gone.

Snow in late March, of course.  What would it be without it?  Terrible winds and driving sleet and beautiful sights all for a ten-minute drive.  The upside of a snow this time of year--it does not stick around long and it is less likely to cause ice accumulations on the roads.  Now that I am a minivan person, that is a blessing.  Driving on snowy roads is out for me for the foreseeable future.  Luckily, I mainly work from home and walk to the "main office" down the street.

The snow at the Snail Place was much prettier, so I succumbed to the urge to drive up there.  No disappointment, except in myself for having left my mittens at home.  And snow suits for the children.  If there weren't a wind advisory today, it would be so tempting to run up there.  It's not a place to go in the wind, though, and I have bigger fish to fry right now.

Back at home, we gave away the last of our hickory nuts.  I raised the shade to find this little friend on my window ledge, undisturbed by the sudden loss of privacy.  We enjoyed watching them clean the snow off the nuts and then eat their way through them.   I think I may collect more nuts for the squirrels next Fall.  That seems silly, seeing how they have walnuts galore, but life is like that.  Small joys, always.

A Branch of Spring I will bring to you,
And at your door I'll stand.
It's nothing but a sprout, but it's well budded out 
By the work of life's own hand.


~Enki Festival Songs

Late Winter Scenes

Didn't we have a Spring bouquet just a last week?  Of course!  That is March for you, warm one moment and blustery and cold the next.  This week saw three snow days for the local schools, and we took them to nurse each other through a cold.  Back in the swing of things, we did have a little time to see the snow before it all melted.

There is bright green grass under the snow, daffodils weighed down by wet flakes, and birds singing in all the trees.  It is March and it's nearly half gone. 

I've been working on a hap of some kind for awhile now, since late January.  I ordered the softest tentative Spring colors.  I've completed one a couple times with different borders, none of them knitted, and then I unraveled the whole thing.  I've never done that, as I've always been pleased everything I've ever made.  Haha.  But, really, I've never done that, so now I am working my way through another hap with the same yarn and a knitted border.  Knitting with squiggly yarn produces some lumpy results, but I am hopeful blocking will tackle that problem.

In school news, we've begun new blocks for both of the children.  Roan is making his first book, a fairy tale verse reader of "The Mud Pony."  It's the tale of a boy who makes a clay pony that comes to life.  It helps him to find his people, takes them through a battle, and sees him become chief of his village before returning to the earth.  This is just Roan's kind of story.

Willow is working on math, per the Christopherus syllabus.  We've been carrying over for awhile without much issue, but borrowing is a new skill.  For this, we turned to Enki's grade three materials.  Tricky Mischief returns, learning to borrow jewels from her place value boxes to pay for a ship.  She often cartwheels her way along, so Willow made a moving picture of her making her way through the Kingdom of Jewel.

Well, the sun is up and the birds are singing, so it's time for me to get moving on my next tasks.  Happy Friday!

Hidey Holes and Snow

The North wind doth blow and we shall have snow, 
And what will poor robin do then, poor thing? 
He'll sit in his barn and keep himself warm 
And hide his head under his wing, poor thing. 

  ~Traditional :: Enki Grade One

In the spirit of "The Four Friends" math story from Enki, we took our turns at playing Minnie Minus.  In the story, she saves bits of food all Winter to share with her little friends, leaving the goodies in "hidey holes." Paddy Plus and Max Multiply find them and begin to bicker, one stuffing himself silly while the other picks them up by tens.  It is Dominick Divide who straightens everyone out and proclaims "an equal share for every hand," thus introducing the four math processes.

We took our Autumn stockpile of hickory nuts and scattered them at the bases of trees and in little hollows here and there.  It took a few days for the squirrels to find us out, but they made quick work of the gallon or so of nuts we put out, including the pile that was accidentally dumped by our front walk.  I would love to see where they have hidden them!  I'd like to think it was a real treat, since we have no hickories of our own.

The snow is pouring down today, "heavy" as the forecast described it.  We have had many dustings this year, many flurries, but not so many inches of snow.  It is good to see the air filled with snow as I sit here.  You can see my little helpful elf clearing off what snow he can reach. 

This Winter, with its false Spring and other surprises, seems to go on.  Snow could easily come for another month, or not.  Some things are starting to leaf out and the dogwood buds are opening, perhaps in time for Easter.  I'm supposed to go out to the post office today, which of course falls on a snow day, but maybe it will prompt us to take in the sights.  It sure is pretty nice just to look out the window here at home.

Nature School :: The (No) Ice Rocks

No, really. NO ICE AT THE ICE ROCKS. In February!

What a strange thing it was!  I thought, surely, this Winter was colder than the last, though we have had less snow.  I guess that warm spell last week really was too warm.  We visited a whole three weeks later last year and saw ice.  Oh, well.

The children soon set to being amateur geologists, speculating about the stone walls that line the road.  There's lots of mica and quartz present, with some iron in both.  I'm no Roadside Geologist yet, but there's still time.

Now, it was still chilly at the Ice Rocks.  Coats and cold fingers were the norm for us.  As we walked from the sunny end to the shady one, there was frost still on the mountainside.  And we did see a little ice on a few rocks, but it was clear and very thin.  I guess we were just about two weeks too late.

We had planned to visit some time back, and I had made contact with an area ranger over the Winter, trying to find a time when the road was open.  Closures and construction put off our visit, along with the unexpected changes in our family.  The ranger told us this morning that he'd call me when the rocks were iced again next Winter.  He wants to make sure we have a special visit, even if the roads are closed!

Our visit this time was still full of wonder, of its own unexpected kind.  We enjoyed the rock walls, the intrepid plants growing on them, and the fun of speculating about secret passageways.  We found a couple locks on the rock, which I guess must be for ice climbing.  I don't know.  It made me think of the special entrance to the Lonely Mountain in The Hobbit.  Willow said we had to return on Durin's Day.

There was plenty of water, which was nice to see, and the children enjoyed little showers.  All the rain has helped ease the warmth we've seen.  Roan is our rainbow finder, and he often runs outside to locate one when the conditions are right. 

And with that, life calls.  There's a chance of snow Friday and it sure would be nice!

Ice in the Air

The weather is due to turn this weekend, to be more like February, but for now it is a chilly five degrees.   The furnace is hardly warming the house before it comes on again.  Someone once mentioned to me that we have a lot of fluctuations in our weather.  It would seem so.  We can have snow in May and warm days in January.  But yesterday, yesterday it was snow and rime ice.

After our lessons, I drove us up to the Snail Place, just to look.  It was around 15° F then, with a little breeze.  The branches were like lace, just the way I love for them to look.  It is hard to remember the steamy green of Summer on days like these.

The sun was hitting the trees and sending the rime ice down like snow. You can see it here on the ground, with my ever-present wool shoes.  It was squeaky and powdery, both the ice and snow, not the soggy kind that makes a person wet and cold quickly. 

Today, after lunch, we'll bundle up and head to Raccoon Branch to see what accumulated in the woods.  Schools are still closed today, probably because of the cold and the slight melting that happened yesterday.  Here, of course, we keep on going and we have recess in the snow.  I prefer to take Sun Days, when the Spring weather is simply too lovely to be stuck indoors and the children are giddy with excitement. 

January

~ Be Blest: A Celebration of Seasons :: Mary Beth Owens

Snow Study

The return to school work involved plans for a week of Winter stories for Roan and weather study for Willow--a perfect match.  I know that many people try to plan concurrent blocks for their children, but I have generally kept the work separate, since everybody hears most every story, anyway.  It's definitely more Wintry this year, so we spent two weeks on our one week blocks.  When a powdery snow began falling Friday night and most of the day yesterday, even better!

It was so easy to see all the flakes and their beautiful details.  It's a treat when the forecast shows no snow and it showers down all day.  It's too bad it didn't amount to six inches, but we're going to look for more snow today.

See?  Tiny crystals!

I remember finding the most snowy part of a hill, after the bulk had melted, and sliding down as much as I could.  I was wearing out the snow, I guess.  For this snow, the pine needles covering the ground at the Roland Estate provided the extra slippery runway we needed.  It's so nice that they encourage us to play in that yard, too.  There are many times I really, really long to live in the country where we could spread out more in a yard of our own.

Willow spent several days, earlier in the week, on her snow crystal pictures.  We read Snowflake Bentley and The Big Snow among other stories, which gave her inspiration.  Her printing is coming along, I think.  She seldom uses capital letters out of place now.

We saw plenty of frozen waterfalls and icicles coming out of rocks on our drive through the Grandfather Mountain area.  I had her make a picture of the Ice Rocks from memory, since our visit is still a ways off.   Well, it's time to sign off and make waffles.  We got a waffle maker for Christmas and everyone is very excited!

Nature School :: Whatever the Weather

It was drippy and almost warm today, a sharp contrast from a week ago.  There are still bits of ice on the river and piles of it, here and there.  We traded our cold and dry for warm and wet, which we did need a little of.  We went to Linville Falls yesterday, quite the adventure for us, what with getting lost and all the fog and mud.

I had my sights set on the Ice Rocks in Doughton Park, but the warm weather made the Park Service decide to do some road work in that area.  The ranger was so courteous as to call me after I had inquired about access to the rocks, and we'll try again in a couple weeks.  The thing about the Blue Ridge Parkway is that it has many closures in the Winter months.  It's not feasible to plow the whole length or keep it all open when the high ridges are so inhospitable. 

Linville Falls, having been frozen pretty solid last week, seemed like a good consolation prize.  The Parkway was closed in that area, too, so I took an alternate route.  It was impenetrably foggy.  Like so thick you could run a stop sign before you saw it!  Not that I did, but it was close!  I was doing some very slow driving, to be sure.  US 221 is a beautiful road and there were giant boulders and frozen falls along its route.  Somewhere in all that fog, I got a little lost.  Back on track with the help of some locals, we found the trail head.

I was hoping to hike the Plunge Basin Trail, which would have put us waaaaay down at the bottom of this photo.  Its approach is from the Parkway side, so we couldn't get to it without an extra mile.  Instead, we walked to all the other overlooks.  There's one at the top of the photo, and a couple along the way, one being so far you can barely hear the falls! 

Everywhere, the frozen water and the frozen earth gave off so much fog.  It was pretty comfortable, though I hear it was sunny and warm in some places.  Forty feels pretty good right now, to be honest, though I am looking forward to some more ice-building weather.