Day 7

The run

I always carry my cellphone in the side pocket of my snowpants (which are hand-me-downs from Nick when he was 12), in case I fall and break my leg and then I can phone for help instead of literally freezing to death!  (When we had been here a couple of months I asked Tim what could have possessed us to come and live in a place where you can die of the cold!)  So today I tripped BAM over a fallen branch hidden in the snow, and went flying, landing on my hands and then my face, but was none the worse for wear except that my hands and face were rather cold and wet for a while.  And a bit shocked, but carried on regardless, congratulating all my bones for not breaking.

The portrait
It is amazing how much time is spent doing stuff with all this snow we have here in the northeast.  Tomorrow it is going to snow, so you have to prepare for it, so Nick and I went to the dump this afternoon to collect buckets and buckets of sand and salt to fill our bins all the way up our steep driveway.  Prior to that I had brought many sled-loads of wood up from the woodpile to the house, to feed the ravenous woodstove that keeps us warm.  And then when the snow comes, once it has stopped falling, and sometimes before it has stopped, the whole team (Tim, Anne, Nick, Matthew and any hangers-on, of which there are usually one or two) has to snowblow and shovel and sand for an hour or two!  It is very good exercise but also time-consuming! 

So this is very late, a watercolor of me drinking my lovely hot tea, which links me to my mother, who loved tea and had many cups each day, except hers was black and mine is milky and sweetened with honey.