I had a good Christmas, my trip there was easy and uneventful. My days there were quiet and very nice. I spent time with my mother, who is 90 and seems old, older than at Thanksgiving. We ran errands before Christmas, did some Christmas shopping and got groceries. All very nice.
The weather was grand, warm with some slight rain. Christmas Day was lovely, we opened presents then had our traditional bagels and lox breakfast (courtesy of Mark). Yum that was tasty, as always. Oh, and did I mention that Christmas Eve we had lobsters, clams and mussels? Yes, Liza and I went to Champlin's for delicious fare. I cooked the dinner, that's easy, and we had a nice dinner. Christmas dinner was a delicious roast of beef that Mark cooked, so very tender and flavorful.
Was there more to Christmas than the food? Yes of course. Big excitement was at the bird feeder in the back yard: there was a falcon there who snatched first a blue jay, which it pounded into the ground before I scared it away (then it flew into the woods with the blue jay in its talons), then it snatched a cardinal the next day. Yikes, very dramatic. Liza wasn't pleased and doesn't want that bird at her feeder, eating the songbirds she likes to watch. She has a ton of titmice, chickadees, nuthatches, with a smattering of cardinals and towhees and an occasional woodpecker. Very nice collection.
I came home yesterday, leaving RI in the morning and making a stop in Hanover, NH to see a favorite cousin. I only visited with them for a couple of hours, but it was enough to make my ride home a long and dark one. Dark when I got home as well, because there was no power in my house. HORRORS! The house was cold, 33, my house plants had frozen and there was ice in the dogs' water bowl. Holy crap. I called the power company and that worked out well but it took the poor man hours to find my house (you can't very well say "look for the light in the woods"). We discovered the problem, a meter that was separated from it's housing because it had been hit by falling ice and snow from the roof. Rats! He fixed it quickly and easily, but that was only step 1.
The floor behind the washing machine was wet, which means the pipes there burst. I always (ALWAYS) turn off the pump and water heater when I go away, so at least there was no massive water leakage. I have yet to uncover the splits in the pipes, I'm saving that for the plumber who will hopefully arrive tomorrow morning to mend the several-times-mended pipes. I wrapped the pipes in insulation but there was no heat for 4 days, as near as I can figure, so the whole house got cold, very cold.
I got water from the Holts today (Annie called from Costa Rica in response to my email to her--they wanted me to move into their house. No, that might make too much sense for me), and the house is now too warm. It's not cold out, temp is 29, and we're not having the tons of snowfall that was predicted. We only got a couple of inches here though I suppose we may get more overnight. This huge storm has left us pretty much unaffected. That's a relief. I always used to say I preferred cold to snow, snow was so complicated to deal with. Now however, I say PLEASE, no cold, no sub-zero, just give us snow to insulate the well and the septic system. We have neither right now, just a few inches of snow on the ground. There was about a foot of snow when I left last week but it rained here, then got cold so there's very slippery ice under the snow. Slicker than snot, as they say (they? who says that?).
Tomorrow I'll go to Plattsburgh in the afternoon, time to get some supplies. I think I have to throw out most of what is in my fridge and some of what is in my freezer. Oh life is never simple here, is it.
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