Got Buried In Snow (with 3 videos)

We didn't get buried, but our house sure did.

Boy oh boy did we ever get hammered in Wisconsin with this last snowstorm! It kind of made up for how mild this winter has been so far for us. 

It all started kind of nice on Tuesday into Wednesday.  It was very pleasant sitting in the She Shed looking out the windows at the snow as it started to fall. We knew we were going to get a lot. But at first, it was kind of floating down like a snow globe outside. Very pleasant.

It was so magical and gentle. It was almost to the point that I didn't mind that we missed out on our escape vacation trip a couple weeks ago. I do like looking out and how soft and white and beautiful it is. All of the sounds are muted and muffled. It's like in the movies.

I made this little video clip:

By dark, it started whipping up a little stronger. We snuggled into the She Shed with a couple good HGTV shows and movies on tv. I made up a hot steamy mug of Tom n' Jerry... which is an eggnog drink with some brandy or rum, plus a little sprinkle of nutmeg on top.

The winds started picking up. It was blowing in from the north and east. We were having a real "nor'easter"! And boy oh boy was it really crazy. The snow was blowing sideways!!! 

Before we headed to bed, I shot this little video clip out of the window from the She Shed. There was no way I was going to go outside in this weather!

Sometime during the night the wind switched and it now came from the South. This was a heavy wet snow and it was just splattering hard against the house. I got up about 1:00 a.m. and took a look outside. Here is the She Shed door leading out to Binney's little potty yard.

For the rest of the night, we could hear the winds howling and blowing. There were sounds of blasting sleet and snow hammering against the house from the south. Fortunately, our power stayed on all night. We snuggled in and slept the rest of the storm away until 6:00 a.m.

The sky was heavy and dark yet and we really couldn't see too well. I opened up the blinds in the bedroom to look out and this is all I could see! The winds that had been blasting across from the north and east blew all the snow down onto the little patio table and in front of the door to Binney's potty yard. Then the wet snow and winds from the south kinda froze it all into place. Look at that!  It almost looks like marshmallow fluff, but it's all firm and almost crusted over. 

Well, this poor little dog really had to go outside to the bathroom. She wouldn't go out the night before at bedtime so she was virtually dancing on her tippy toes to get out the door. I kept filming from the window with the camera while Steve took her down to open the door from the She Shed into the potty yard. 

He figured it would be too deep but she really really had to go. So he tried. Look at her reaction on this video clip!

Yep, that's as far as she made it. One plop in the snow and Steve had to dig her back out to bring her to the other doorway. 

We got up and made some coffee.... then I took a few more pics when it got a bit brighter out. 

When he had opened the door I noticed how much snow was clinging to the door lock and the door knob! This was really a wet heavy snow and it was stuck to everything. 

It was at least a foot deep in front of the doorway and closer to 2 ft deep on the picnic table itself. Look at how it molded and smooth itself out with the blowing winds. 

I looked out of the front windows and these are our stairs that go out to the mailbox and the street. I think we will have to do a little bit of shoveling this morning?

Amazing how much snow piled up on the front porch. Here is our porch swing! So hard to believe that last week we were sitting out here on a beautiful day enjoying the sunshine wearing just our sweatshirts. It was feeling like Spring was on the way. Even our apple trees and lilac trees have little green buds starting on the tips of the branches. All of our snow was gone and we were thinking of doing some yard work!  Mother Nature sure likes playing funny jokes on us. 

Look at the height of the snow on top of our coach lamp out in the potty yard. That is almost all snow, with just a tiny peaked roof on the light fixture itself.  Mother Nature IS amazingly hilarious!. 

The ones on the front of the garage were even more crazy....

 This reminds me of a gnome!

The drifts in front of the garage were two and three feet deep. But the wind whipped through between the garage and the She Shed...   it had literally swept the walkway clear down to the concrete pavers. But the snow then mounded itself up against the side of the garage in a high drifted pile about 3 ft up the siding. 

Steve felt so bad for little Binney that he trudged on through the yard and opened up the fence to get the snow blower into her potty yard. He cleared out a path over to her most favorite spot to go potty. What a guy. 

Since we were snowed in for the day and not going anywhere, I decided to tackle the painting in the bathroom and get a second coat up on the ceiling and work on the walls. I put on some soft music, and sipped my coffee in between sections.  

No rush, and it was transforming the walls and ceiling into something soft and harmonious with the accent wallpaper on one wall.  The wallpaper was put on by Peggy, the previous owner. She had personally ordered it from a place in Italy and begged me not to strip it down.  I am usually not a fan of wallpaper, but this textured thick stuff is soooo pretty! It's embossed and thick and has tiny metallic lines that almost look like embroidery to the surface of each leaf. 

The new paint is such a pretty green and I find the color soothing and almost reflective. It doesn't soak in the daylight, it kind of reflects it outwards and looks softer and lighter during the day. At night it seems to give a hush and a peaceful feeling to the room, that we noticed the effect in the kitchen. Now when I relax and take a bath in my tub, it will be soothing and peaceful and relaxing. 

Steve helped with the brush cutting in on the high spots and I finished rolling all of the walls. Made it right to the bottom of the can with none left over. I was worried we'd have to wait a couple days for the snow to subside before we could buy another can of paint. Soon we were putting back the little pieces here and there like the mirror and robe hook and pictures. We were done!

Now to take a wonderful hot soaking bath

 in my bubbles

 looking out over the

snowy terrain outside. 

Since it was a "Snow Day", the grandkids were out of school. The highways and streets were finally cleaned up. Towards later afternoon, we went and grabbed three of the grandkids because we needed to babysit them for the evening anyhow. Their parents had to travel to Oshkosh, and the roads were clear enough to go. 

We took a little detour to the grocery store to stock up on good things. They decided they needed garlic breadsticks and meatball subs and spaghetti for supper. They couldn't decide on which flavor of ice cream to get for dessert. So we bought two. Why not? 

A little unicorn headed girl

 got piled up with everything 

because she wanted to "help"... Lol

Clayton had already done the snow shoveling at his house and then decided to help clear off Grandpa's gas grill at our house. Yes, that is one big hunk of snow that solidified over the top of the grill. He actually picked it up twice and had to grab it again to pose for a picture. That shows how dense and thick this snowfall was.  That also means it was a lot harder and heavier to shovel.

Kids helped to make supper and we had a lot of giggles and silliness around the table. What a great way to finish up a "Snow Day"?

It was time to bake up some cookies, and all three took turns with parts of the recipe. Our granddaughter Whitney showed us the special technique of how to crack an egg. Clayton is using it in this photo below. It works so well and doesn't leave any pieces of shell behind.

Here's a video that the grandkids made on another day of how Whitney's Way works to crack an egg:

The house smelled so good with the aroma of baking cookies. The girls were counting them up and figuring out how many were going to stay at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and how many were going to go back home with them. We doubled the batch so we had 4 dozen pretty big cookies. 

Yummmmm 

(the white chips get browned on top and taste almost like toasted marshmallows!)

The recipe is from my friend Hilary who lives out in New York. It works flawlessly every time and you have to use shortening, not butter. We substitute the dark chocolate chips with the white ones and we omit the nuts. The recipe is foolproof and they come out perfect and light brown when baked on parchment paper. 

The "Snow Day" was over, babysitting was done, and it was time for us to crawl in bed. The roads were cleared and the snow was taken care of. Time to get back to normal. This morning we woke up to beautiful sunshine streaming in. What a change from looking out of the very same window the morning before????

Notice that Binney now has a nice area all snowblowed out to do her business, and she does not have to get dumped into a puffy deep pile of snow any longer.

We left the snow on the picnic table on the patio. I think it looks kind of cool. We'll see how long it lasts. I'm sure it's very heavy. 

This morning the snow is all sparkly and beautiful like crystals or diamonds. It's kind of hard to capture in a photograph, but I think you can see it. More magic of Mother Nature.

And guess what? 

The weatherman just announced 

that we have 

MORE 

snow coming tonight!!! 

Day 34 - An Easter Miracle - and Trees

(Day 34 of self quarantine) 

For Easter, 

some people want eggs, 

some want bunnies, 

some want ham. 

But this Easter, our family wanted 

LIVER!!!!

Yes, can you believe it? Our darling little Great-nephew Bennet Bicigo has been suffering and struggling for a year now with liver cancer. The first tumor was removed and a second one grew back quickly, and even larger. He just had surgery last week trying to remove it and it was too big and instead he was put on a liver transplant list.

Amazingly and miraculously, on Easter Sunday, a liver became available from a donor. Thank goodness for people who are willing to put other lives ahead of their own grief, and offer an organ donation from a beloved family member who is dying.

Little Bennett went through an extremely long surgery on Easter Morning, and we got the happy news last night before bedtime was that the liver was in and it was functioning! It's an Easter miracle for the Bicigo Family!!!

This is my older brother Steve's (Butch) youngest son Darren and his wife Chelsea who have Little Bennet, along with their little daughter Lilyan.

The world has been tumultuous and they have had a financial crisis during this questionable time of employment. I never solicit donations on my blog, but this one is awfully special and close to my heart.  A GoFundMe page has been started on their behalf:

Link to little Bennet's GoFundMe:

Bennet's Fight

from the page: Please add them to your prayers, and reach out if you might be able to help them in any way (both are facing losing their jobs due to the duration of his stay exceeding FMLA), I would be grateful, and I know they would too!

~~~~~~~~~

We are counting our blessings as Steve is finally starting to feel better. He's not totally up to snuff, and we're not sure exactly what it was that took him down so low and made him feel so miserable for a good two weeks.

Since his energy returned, a bit, we decided to hop on a new project that we have been thinking about.  It was a beautiful day earlier this week, with sun shining and warmer temperatures. A very kind friend of an old neighbor friend offered to let us dig up some beautiful young White Birch saplings from their woods.

We grabbed the shovel 

and in no time flat 

we had a trunk full to bring home!

They range between about 6 to 10 feet in height, so we staggered the variety of heights amongst each clump to make them into a nice landscaping feature.

These should transplant very well because where they were taken from is very similar to the land we are putting them on, and only 6 miles away.

By putting in a clump of 4, if one of them dies off we would still have a nice clump of 3 which I think is the most attractive way to grow white birch trees. We planted the clumps of birch trees in the front yard, balanced on each side of the house, so they are evenly lined up with the corners of the front porch. 

Let us hope they grow quickly and offer good shade and become a beautiful accent to our home.

~~~~~~~

They also told us to dig up a bunch of these small little fluffy White Pine trees. They are so soft and lush, and remind us of the huge white pines that were in our yard when we lived along the river. These little pines were actually located just around the curve from where our old home was. Perhaps some pine cones from our own original trees were part of the seeds that eventually spread down to create these children of the children of the white pine trees from our old yard?

We planted the little white pines into L-shaped formations, about 10 feet from the borders on each front corner of our property. They should make a nice accent and a definition to each side of our property, as well as a nice little backdrop. Might set up maybe a bird feeder or bird bath to look at from the front porch after they grow a bit?

Steve said he loves the sound of the wind passing through the long white pine needles --- kind of a whispery sound on the breeze.

While we were busy doing this planting, Steve remembered a cute little spruce tree back in our own woods. We moved that up to transplant into the front yard, front and center between the house and garage.  He said he hopes that someday it will grow large and we can decorate it with Christmas lights!!!

~~~~~~~

On Easter Sunday, I baked two adorable little Easter Bunny cakes. I was almost out of powdered sugar, but just like the old adage:  "Hey Neighbor, Can I Borrow A Cup of Sugar?"  my neighbor Sheryl had a bag to lend to the cause.  I decorated them up, and dropped them off at both of our daughters homes, along with some Easter surprises for the grandchildren. It felt good to do a little something extra special, even though we weren't going to see the children in person.

Our Easter Dinner was made extra special this year in spite of the corona-virus quarantine. Our oldest daughter cooked up a big family celebration meal at her home. Her husband got some aluminum takeout containers and with the help of their oldest daughter, they cooked up a wonderful meal. Their son kept their younger daughter busy, and they also colored wonderful Easter cards for Grandma and Grandpa.

When the meal was ready, they divvied it up among all of the takeout containers. They split the meals into two transport bags and had us come to their porch to pick them up.

One bag held a complete meal for us, and the other bag we transported out to our youngest daughter's home with her husband and two children. So everybody got a wonderful Easter dinner and we kept together by social media while maintaining our social distancing in each of our own homes. What a wonderful thing for them to do, and was an extra special effort during these difficult times.

Of course, she gave us so much food I think we will get two more meals out of the leftovers!!!

~~~~~~~

We woke up this morning to a final April Fool's Prank! 

We knew it was being forecast in the 4 to 6 inch range. We're very lucky to only get about 2 inches. It was still coming down this morning at 7 a.m., so we crawled back into bed for a while and waited for it to stop. By 8 a.m. the sun was out and everything started melting! Hopefully this will be the last snowfall of the year!!!

I popped out the door onto the front porch to get a couple pictures of our little L-shaped rows of White Pines in the two corners of the front yard. They show up better against the snow than in the grassy photos posted up above.

I saw the little neighbor girls next door quickly making a snowman this morning. It will be the last one of the season and it's going to melt fast. Goodbye Frosty, until next year.

The day is zooming by here, it's already after lunch.  We reheated some of our Easter Dinner leftovers for lunch. Thank you, Erin and Waylen!!! 

Getting Ready to Get Snowed In for the Weekend?

Sadly, we had a tragedy today in Oconto. At 3 a.m. this morning there was a house fire on the other side of town. A mother, three children and a pet perished in the fire. It is heartbreaking. The poor firemen battled the blaze in the sub zero weather and are still on site today yet. We don't know the family personally, but the next of kin are in our prayers.

~~~~~~~~

The weathermen have now upped the forecast and we are due for 8 to 12 inches of snow on top of some sleety freezing icy mess. Doesn't sound like it's going to be very much fun?

We don't have to be anywhere this weekend, so we will stay home, snug as bugs in a rug.  They already spread brine on our county highway road in front of our house. It's one of the main drags out of town to the north, so the trucks have been spreading in readiness for the icy storm.

~~~~~~~~

I got two coats of paint on the mantle and it sure is looking nice. I had two dogs that were supervising from the comfort of the couch behind me.  I enjoy painting and it was peaceful and nice this morning to get the first coat on.

I decided the difference in the original color of brown was like melted milk chocolate chips ... the contrast of the new color which is more like melted semi-sweet chocolate chips! Lol!

I am thinking maybe 

I better bake some cookies

 while this thought is in my brain?

The new brown color matches the leather on our two mission recliners and I think it looks much nicer.

It also matches the faux-leather brown of the couch. I think it even matches the dogs, too! By afternoon I did the second coat, and then we took a nap.

My sweet friend Juanita loves the color brown, as do I.  We are both October Sisters and this lovely rich brown is just right up our alley.

The little handle that I found at the ReStore for the firewood cubby door sure looks cute. The new paint was dry, so Steve attached it this morning.  Now it balances off the little black matchstick holder and the black frame around the leaded glass fireplace screen.

Someday in the future, we will convert the woodburning fireplace over to a natural gas one. We enjoy the warmth from the one we put in down in the She Shed. Having one in the livingroom will be great, especially in a power outage.  We will be sure to select one that can operate even if the power is out.

Once the second coat of paint on the mantle is dry, I can put back my little tulip accent lights and my few little knicky-knackies and doodads.

Maybe a third coat is needed? 

~~~~~~~~

The dogs were pretty happy to supervise the separation of their dog food into smaller containers. We ordered from Chewy and it was a better deal to get the big 47 lb bag with the free shipping, and the $15 off coupon. We don't have anywhere to store a bag of dog food that big!  We save these large plastic containers from pretzels and reuse them over and over. It will probably take the dogs 4 months or more to eat up this much dog food! They have tiny tummies and only eat about half a cup of day.

We store them up on the top shelf in the laundry room and just take down one container at a time. I think it helps keep it fresh?

~~~~~~~

The other day, Steve and I stopped at the courthouse and city hall. We started digging into the history of this house. One part has been here since the early 1900's, the other part is also an older home that was moved here around 1960 on two big metal I-beams.  That half was put onto a new foundation and joined together with the original structure on the old foundation. Two small houses became one interesting National Folk Farm House style home. We are looking to find out more as we go along. Trying to find interesting things...  we will let you know what we find!

~~~~~~~

Supper just came off the grill-

Salmon and baked sweet potato for me

Salmon and baked potatoes for Steve

and some steamed veggies for both. 

Yummmmm  Gotta go eat!