The Winter Wood Shop Beckons

The family car infringing on the "wood butcher's" lair.

I may not be much of a wood worker, but I do know how to buy lots of tools!

As you regular readers know, Winters up here in the North Country are long, cold and dark.  As we begin to forlornly count the days until Spring, it helps to have a hobby to stay occupied.  And now that the holidays are fast slipping away, we are once again sinking into that three month period of the year where everyone up in these parts focuses on these essential hobbies.  Why are hobbies so important you might ask?  Because intense activity is the only way to escape cabin fever, stir craziness, snow hallucinations, paranoia and snow blindness.  Anyone remember "The Shining"? Case closed, and oh by the way, writing your first novel is not a recommended hobby.  My hobby is wood working.  Real wood workers would call what I do "wood butchering", but at least it keeps me busy during the long Winter months.  Last year I completed a built-in entertainment center and library for our t.v. room.  It turned out pretty good, if you turn the lights down real low and squint sideways that is.  This year I'll be making a side table/stereo cabinet and a coffee table for the living room.   My wife, Catherine, is very keen for me to get started as she has been without her stereo for almost a year now, and I have to complete the side table to be able to re-install it.  I guess that means that an alternate title for this post might be "Wife beckons to get busy in wood shop."   The good news is that I was able to get enough high quality rough cut lumber from a local mill to finish these projects.  The bad news?  The garage isn't heated and it's hard to do woodworking with mittens on.   

Pies for Christmas

The pies, set amidst christmas decorations, grace the family heirloom china cabinet.

The great American classic, apple.

Up close and personal with three berries.

Tis the season to over-consume, and for me that means pies.  My Mom, a phenomenal cook, made great pies and I guess that set me on a lifetime path of pie appreciation.  My wife is also a phenomenal cook, but she's not particularly interested in cooking pies.  Which means that I am the pie cook in our household and I have been trying to perfect my skills off and on for years.  I did two pies for our Christmas dinner this year, an apple (using my secret recipe) and a three berry pie (blueberries, blackberries and cranberries).  For the first time I made lattice tops.  All of this of course is to approximate as closely as possible a Norman Rockwellesque Vermont Christmas.  And it seems to be working out.  We've got the snow, the cheery fire and now the pies.  The good news is that the pies seem to have turned out pretty well.  The bad news?  Looks like I'll have to share them with the rest of the family.  I guess Christmas isn't all it's cracked up to be after all.

White Christmas out the Wazoo

The cars new body work.

The dogs plow through the powder.

My snowshoe gets swallowed by the new snow.

The ice and snow close in on the river.

Well, the storm has passed, and we've pretty much dug our way out of the house. With the worst of the shoveling out of the way, I'd like to make a holiday prediction; we will have a White Christmas (notice the capital W). Of course, we almost always do up here in the North Country, but you never know. There was that sappy movie with Bing Crosby back in 1954. In the movie, Bing's character visits a ski resort owned by an old Army buddy. The resort is about to go bankrupt because of a lack of snow. This fictional ski resort is located in, you guessed it, Vermont. I know, pretty unbelievable. We all know that ski resorts go bankrupt on a regular basis, but from a lack of snow in December in Vermont? Boy, movie audiences back in 1954 must have been pretty gullible. When they made the film everyone knew the whole storyline was preposterous, but it did give Bing a chance to sing that song. I guess everything good comes with a price. In any case, this year the skiing and snowboarding over the holidays promise to be phenomenal what with 2 feet of new powder on the ground. I'm not much of a Winter athlete myself (not much of an athlete at all really), but I encourage everyone who does enjoy Winter sports to make the trip up here and enjoy our White Christmas. Even if you're not into Winter sports you're still invited. You can help me finish the shoveling.

Nor'Alberta Clip'Easter

The Christmas tree and lights soldier on during the storm.

The weather folks around here talk about two types of typical Winter storms, the "Nor'easter" (see previous post) and the "Alberta Clipper". An Alberta Clipper is a fast moving storm system with very cold air but very little moisture that zips out of Alberta, Canada and right across our region. Usually they move fast, bring only 3 or 4 inches of snow, and drop the temperature by about 10 degrees. I mean, they are from Canada after all; how could they not bring cold? I'm not sure whether the "clipper" part of the name comes from the idea of "getting clipped" as in tangentially hit or from the old clipper ships which moved very fast just like these storm systems. In any case, for the last 10 hours we've had an "Alberta Clipper" and an old-fashioned "Nor'easter" meet head-on right over our house. (Hence the title of this post.) That means lots of cold air from Canada running headlong into lots of warm moist air from down South. The result, again, lots and lots of fluffy snow. 12" so far and no let-up in sight. The bad news is that it's projected to snow continuously until 4:00 p.m. Monday. The good news? The last 12 hours of that will be only "light snow".

Bambi the one-horned deer

Our visitor looks for browse under the old apple trees. Good luck Fella!

A decent look at our deer's unbalanced rack.

Last year we had a good sized young spike buck transit the yard all Winter. I saw him under the old apple trees several times but never got a photo. He actually had the longest pair of spike horns I've ever seen, about 10 inches long. Well, this evening another or the same young buck crossed the yard via the old apple trees with an even odder rack. This deer had a small two-point horn on one side and nothing (or just a little stub) on the other. As you can see from the pictures, he looks pretty fat and appears to be in good shape which is important at this point in the year. It's a long slog till Spring. Maybe this is the same deer as last year, and he just has a different irregular rack. Pretty hard to tell from up on the deck, and I didn't feel like running him down to take a closer look. After all, the snow's pretty deep .

p.s. After originally posting this I had an additional thought on how Bambi might have gotten his wretched rack. He could have had the right horn broken fighting with other bucks during the rut.

And now...A moment of Zen

The house on a pre-holiday Winter's night.

We've had a light, fluffy 6" snow over the last 18 hours and the house looks quite inviting all lit up under this new blanket of white. Almost postcard perfect, so I thought I'd take the outdoor Christmas photo and post it tonight. Indoor Christmas photos coming soon.

Moon Over Vermont Redux

What can I say? We had a beautiful full moon as a backdrop for our newly lit Christmas tree tonight, and I couldn't resist trying to get a decent photo. Maybe one of these days I'll actually succeed. I promise it was much more impressive in person.