Hello all! I just woke up from my six-month long hibernation. My husband calls it a "beauty sleep". He's still alive. Barely. :twisted: Seriously, I've been so unhappy I haven't had the energy to be social, not even online. First we had that miserable summer, then we had a miserable autumn. The first frost came in mid-October and effectively stopped the late bloomers. November was frostless but very wet. From December until now we've had frost, more frost and a bit more frost. We had 4-5 days of rain in January. The small river by the stable couldn't take all the water coming down from the mountain so we had a small flooding of the paddocks. Nothing serious but we needed to put down a new top layer of gravel and sand. Yay! We've still got frost. I could live with the frost, but we've hardly had any snow to go with the frost. I expect to find 1/5 of my garden plants dead once spring arrives, whenever that may be. The ground's frozen at least 80 cm down. Forecast says frost for at least another week, and who knows what April may bring? Boy, am I fun to be with or what? Let me show you a bit of what I've been up to while trying to survive the frost: Just before the first frost in October we managed to dig up the potatoes. The girls planted two potatoes in pots in our living room. This is the result: Then the Sewer and Water department decided they needed to fix some water and sewer pipes in our neighbourhood. Our driveway disappeared, and so did our sewer (they claimed it was a mistake, but they didn't manage to fix it for two weeks) so our bathroom looked like this: My husband is a magician. He pulled out a peach-coloured chemical toilet from somewhere in our basement. I had no idea it was there which goes to show that our basement is full of weird and wonderful things! I have done a lot of this: We have tried some fun recepies. This bread is not full of mould. We've used red, green and blue food colouring and it was very tasty: Because of the frost (I have mentioned that we've had lots of frost, yes?) our autumn was very colourful: My friend and I did lots of this: I must admit I love my wool underwear. We've had plenty of visits from these: And our sunsets have been spectacular: As for that frost, we managed to put it to good use. We've made plenty of these: When we had our last mild spell I realized that the frost could be quite decorative in it's icy cold way: Yesterday I felt a small twinge of hope. The black alder started blooming three weeks ago, and is coming along very well: The earliest pussy willow started during the mild spell in November, but the little pussies (?) are growing bigger: People tell me I must be more than averagely fond of trees since I know where to find the earliest bloomers. I don't think I'm tree mad at all. Am I? We've got daylight from 07.30 until 19.00 now, and my view's just as pretty as always, but with too much white for my taste: Our Dapne mezereum has started to bloom. I don't understand how it dares, but maybe it knows something I don't: I have to rush off now. The horses need their nighties, kisses and evening songs, but I'll see you in a couple of hours. Take care, and don't forget that:
Wow, Droopy. What lovely pictures you have to share with us and so glad to see you here. I think we all have had one miserable winter....or at least a good portion of us. We go a dog in August so that helped throughout the winter and having animal chores makes us get outside even if the weather is mostly miserable, but I do feel better being outside. it is mid March here and not a thing is showing any bloom yet...bummer. right now it is snowing. We are all so ready for spring, I think. Sorry to hear your last few seasons has been so blah, summer is coming, though and hopefully it will be better than last year.
DROOPY!!!! YEA, you are back. I figured you were hibernating (I have my summer hibernation months) just glad you came back pretty much your perky self. The photos are gorgeous....well except for the one of the bathroom, it looks nice but not as gorgeous as the sunset and the icy ones. The potato crop is great, in the livingroom? WOW, the girls have their parents green thumbs! Is that Truls your are riding? I won't even ask about that wool underwear Don't Panic and always carry your towel.
Hi Droopy! Sorry it's been so rough on you. Spring will arrive and then we'll have lots more beautiful photos to see from you. And this batch was full of gorgeous photos! You managed to even make the ice look great.
Well hello there Droopy ... so good to see you've survived winter. :-D Your photographs are really lovely but, like you, I'm tired of white. We've had severe frosts then snow then frost then snow - well you get my drift. Today we've had about eight inches and it's still coming down. The weathermen say that it's to be like this for a good while yet. Where has spring gone? Not to Norway that's for sure. I wouldn't mind so much if we'd had a lovely, warm summer last year but we didn't and it was followed by a miserable autumn. Oh well maybe there's going to be wall to wall sunshine just around the corner for both of us. It sounds as though you've managed to keep yourself busy despite the weather and it's good to see that your still riding regularly. Now lets shout out together: BRING ON THE SUNSHINE!!
I'm sorry your winter has been so long, what with a bad summer and fall it must have seemed even longer. I guess you don't want to hear that I've started planting a garden and that my first rose bloomed today. I will get some flower pictures posted soon. Just hang in there and spring and summer will soon be there. According to the calendar the first day of spring is tomorrow. dooley
It's good to see you again! *big hugs here - help yourselves* Carolyn, congratulations on getting a dog. :-D Pets are the best mood-lifters I know about, bar small children. Hey toni, I forgot to say that we put the potted potatoes outside (once we were able to put anything outside). They grew in one of the girls' veggie patches. Sorry about that. The horse photo's my friend and her horse. She never carries a camera while riding but I do. We live in a very scenic part of the world. Slartibartfast won a prize for it if I remember correctly. ;-) And if we want to be able to move at all, wool is a must, both underneath and on top. Cheryl, thanks for the comfort and compliment. Ice can be fun, you just have to look hard. Hello eileen, I'm glad to see that you've survived winter so far too. I hope your snow arrived early enough to insulate your plants. Ours didn't. We've had lots and lots of sunshine but unfortunately the sun only shines during the day. The nights are bitterly cold. Brrr! I'd rather shout BRING OUT THE WARMTH! Dooley, I'm so glad that you've gotten to plant and have blooms already. :-D My time will come. I just hope we won't have snow on June 1st this year. We had that last year and it wasn't much fun. Our first day of summer is April 14th. What a joke, eh?
To Quote Droopy..... "We live in a very scenic part of the world. Slartibartfast won a prize for it if I remember correctly." Yes he did, I have always loved the way he did those fiddly-bits around the fjords.
Droopy, Welcome back from the long Winter sleep...... And while you were sleeping, you have some beautiful tales to tell about the sunsets and the ice,and toilets and just waking up to horsing around..... That seems good. Now you can Spring back with us.....We are glad you are back.
Good to see you waretrop. I've missed you all, but as I said further up: I haven't been much fun to hang out with.
Hi Droopy! I'm so glad you are back! I agree, winter has a way of making us grumpy. Thankfully today is out first day of spring so I have hope Your scenery is gorgeous, but I can relate to things being whiter than you like ... we had SO much snow this year and it just keeps falling!
Hi there Netty! This winter has been so weird weather-wise. We haven't had these long spells of snowless, hard frost for decades and I fear we won't thaw out properly before June. Snow is a good insulator, and I would have loved to have some of yours here. This feels like Siberia, and no milder weather in sight for at least a week.
Super, super posting....and allllllll those pics. Just grand. I am so delighted to see you on here, I hope that spring is on its way up there now. We could use some down here, that's for sure. Most of the bad weather that we have been having lately has been coming from the north and east...I can only guess how bad it must have been there. The mountains and the icy shots were pretty spectacular...not to mention the sunset, mountains, waxwing and Trulls. Now miss--you have to tell me what brand of spuds those were that you harvested. Did I mention that I was glad to see you back on here?
Good morning Sjoerd, and thanks for the warm welcome. We've got plenty of sunshine and I want to potter about in the garden but it's frozen solid. I'll just have to be patient but patience isn't one of my virtues. I have no idea what kind of spuds the girls planted. They helped themselves to two from a store-bought bag in the larder. It was a good yield though. I'm very glad to see you too. *hugs*
I hope all your plants come back fine.Strange weather here also for 3/21 ---30 degrees colder then normal.Flash flooding 2 weeks ago. Big ice jams.And another -they say major snow coming Sun.Main prayer at Church ---Weather.
