A Balloon that Knew When to Quit

I love balloons, helium balloons to be exact. As long as there is any lift left in one, it stays in the house. My birthday comes just before Christmas. Until the day was over, the balloon John bought me stayed in the kitchen where I could interact with it. I moved it to the bedroom to make way for Christmas, and I could continue my celebration in private. It was almost two months after my birthday when the balloon took matters into its own hands. It had floated proudly beside the computer until it lost its oomph. Where did it come to rest? On top of the waste basket!!!! This has to be the smartest balloon I ever had, knowing when and where to call it quits.

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Sneaky Snow

It’s a good thing I didn’t know snow was forecast, otherwise I might have gotten up several times during the night to peek outside. As it was, I saw the flaky symbol just before going out to walk. I thought, “Yeah! Right! Snow! Tell me another one. All those times you said it would snow last week and nothing came? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Looking at the map, I saw a big blob of gray. With my luck it would slide right by. Marla was out with dog Albert, and I told her snow was close. As we chatted, first one flake and then another flitted by. Snow was really coming down as I strode down the big hill. I took a photo at the stream, hoping to show the flakes. Some were already sticking to the boulders.

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Coming back, I needed a shot to show John that Qualla was white. At that moment he was having breakfast with grandson David in NY.

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The toy camera insisted we take Amy’s house, because Amy was in South Carolina. She would need to know what she was missing.

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The camera also said my now white hair should be recorded. That little gadget has a sense of justice, uncommon for a camera. If I accidentally take unflattering photos of others, I should be willing to expose myself to the same treatment. I didn’t realize it would be a front and back selfie.

021216 Selfie front and back.JPG — Anne collared by snow

I wondered what I would do with John away. When you’ve been with someone over 50 years on a daily basis, you don’t take that absence lightly. I usually soak up the silence, but this time I put on some Celtic music in the living room. Did I strain to hear it? No, it was blasting, and I could hear every note three rooms away. Evidently, this was going to be a day of surprises.

Storm – Milk, Bread, and Eggs

In a snowy area, there will always be someone laughing at the run on bread, milk, and eggs before a storm. John heard a commentator on the radio wondering what would happen to all the supplies people scooped up. A newspaper showed a photo of the bread section, as bare as Old Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard. Our forecast promised 3 to 5 inches of snow, gradually whittled down to 3, and then 1.

Well, guess what! I checked our supply, and we were almost out of two items, milk and eggs. We went out in an early flurry, buying everything on our small list. To Ingle’s credit, no shelves were picked over. Much as I dislike being a carbon copyist, you know we’ll become part of some storm statistic.

I’ll bet there aren’t many couples that would sit down on the morning of a storm to watch the 7^th and last episode of a documentary on the Roosevelts. If we were going to make an emergency run to town, it would include dropping things at the library. We should have known better. These two errands stopped the snow in its tracks. I meant to go out to measure the snow where it was piled up. It might have been as thick as an “i” lying down.

Snow for Nathaniel’s Birthday

At 4:49 am, I texted grandson Nathaniel with a cheery birthday greeting and promptly went back to sleep. Since he gets up early every school day, he replied at 5:43. He had a snow day on Long Island and sounded disgusted that there was no snow on the ground or falling. This was the boy that prayed for snow on his birthday in 2013, and we got a blizzard with an accumulation of 31 inches. He claimed he prayed for an inch, and Grandpa said, “Yes, and you prayed it 31 times!”

020913 N shovels.jpg — Nathaniel shoveling snow the day after his birthday, 2013

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, we had fierce snow flurries throughout the day with nothing on the ground. By turns the mountains disappeared, came back, basked in strong sunlight, and hid again. Toward dusk I could see snow at higher elevations sticking to trees and clearings.

I took a picture when it was snowing on our deck with a background of snow falling on the mountain under a blue sky. The flakes would probably have shown up better if I’d used the flash. Would you have joined me in looking for a snowbow?

020816 Snow, sun and blue sky.JPG — Sun shining on snow as it fell on the deck and the mountain under blue skies

Smell of the Farm

Where I grew up, folks used to laugh at city people who objected to the smell of a farm. Knowing that, John and I used to say to each other as we drove in farm country, “Smell that fresh country air!”

I hadn’t thought of that for a long time until we walked to the creek on a breezy morning. The wind was coming off the mountains and swooping over the farm, catching every nuance. John took a deep breath and said, “Mature manure.”

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Policeman on our Porch

Joyce, our next door neighbor, called us after she got home from work. Did we know anything about a small silver car parked in her driveway? We didn’t. We can’t see the front of her house from ours because of big evergreen trees. She and John came to the conclusion she should call the police. She had already checked through her house and found no evidence that anyone had tried to enter. Joyce called again after looking through the windows of the car and seeing a sweater and pocketbook. The longer you live with a mystery, the more it gnaws at you. Joyce was concerned that perhaps a woman had been abducted. Who was the owner of the purse? Who might have taken her? Where were they now? John offered to stay with her until the police came, and she eagerly accepted.

John locked our doors and turned on the porch lights as he walked next door. A bit later he called and said Joyce would feel more comfortable staying with us. Would I take his towels out of the bathroom? I did more than that. I cleaned the toilet and vanity. I also flicked the duster around the guest bedroom. I was very thankful I had changed the sheets on the bed that very morning.

I wasn’t expecting a policeman on the porch, but he began his search with me. I answered that I didn’t know anything about the strange car and explained that my husband was with Joyce. He told me the car was registered to someone in Clyde and that he suspected the driver was a high school student because of a parking sticker on it. He asked about the other neighbors and said he would check Amy’s house.

“Let me call her first,” I said. “She is alone and might be shocked to see you on her doorstep.”

I quickly outlined the problem for Amy and offered my phone to the policeman to talk to her himself. After her house was ruled out as harboring a fugitive, the man asked about the other neighbors. I lost sight of him as he headed across the street. That may have been when he noticed a car coming down the street.

A few minutes later Amy called, wondering what was happening. She was watching from her window and saw flashlights bobbing. It was John coming back, so we put the speakerphone on to hear the report together.

“It was Jean’s granddaughter and her friend,” John said.

Jean owns the house across from Joyce. We knew one daughter lived with her, but we didn’t realize there was a teen living there, as well.

John continued, “The girls went shopping at Walmart. The friend didn’t want to pull into Jean’s steep drive, so she parked in Joyce’s, and the granddaughter did the driving.”

Things were back to normal, so Joyce didn’t come to our house. I was a bit disappointed that we wouldn’t have a fun house party, but solving the mystery was better. Was there anything gained by this flap in our serene neighborhood? Yes, indeed! We had a freshly cleaned bedroom and bath, all ready for company!

Logan Hits a Tree

We volunteered to keep Logan again while his parents went to the airport. To diffuse some of that high powered energy, John met him at the door and immediately went sledding with him. The toy camera and I followed. The run was pretty fast, and the camera caught the action. Listening carefully, you might hear Logan laugh just after he hit the tree and rolled off the sled. If only we had captured a few more seconds, you could have seen the boy run up the hill still laughing.

As if that were not enough exercise, Logan and John still had energy to horse around inside. I liked the demo of the tandem exercise machine. Which person do you think used the most calories?

Official Mehrling Measurement

The full moon was brilliant at 4 am, casting distinct shadows on the thick layer of snow left by the big storm. I did not have the photographic skills to capture it, so just imagine it with me. It was stunning.

I took a photo at a more reasonable hour when the sun obeyed its appointed call to rise. The air was crisp, as you’d expect at 5F.

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I dared to step outside when the temperature had risen to 16F. The green ruler pronounced our snow to be 8 inches deep. For all I know, it may have settled to that depth, but that is all we can prove. It is enough. We are satisfied.

012416 Official Mehrling measure 8 inches.JPG

Logan’s Heroes

A dear friend labeled one of our Logan stories with a takeoff on the old TV show Hogan’s Heroes. I am definitely not in the hero class, but John is. Any man in his mid-70s who will stay outside in 21 degrees F for an hour while a 5-year-old sleds has earned his badge, cape, wings, or power helmet. Hip, hip, hooray!

We had it easy compared to Shawn and Bob. All we did was play with Logan while they went to the airport. Shawn’s flight was canceled because of snow yesterday, but today they trekked out to the airport. At the time Shawn got on the plane, there had been no flight in or out of the airport for one or two days. Bob stayed for quite a while before driving home. He and John finished cleaning Amy’s drive and front steps. That’s when the call came, that the flight was not leaving after all. The plane had not been de-iced, and the fuel truck was stuck. I don’t know how long the passengers were confined to their seats, but they were finally returned to the terminal.

John went outside with Logan as Bob headed for the airport again. The boy used both of our sleds — a butt board and a plastic sled. I don’t know which was more successful, but at the end Logan was able to go from the top of his drive well down toward the creek. John was getting chilled and knew he had to go inside. He gave Logan the word, this is the last run. The boy suggested he would stay out by himself, which was not an option. The final run was prolonged, but Logan dragged the sled up the hill. As old man and little boy headed across the street, Logan said, “Thank you for taking me sledding.”

They came in cold and wet. John persuaded him to take off his pants and put them in the dryer. He didn’t want to be in our house wearing only underwear and a shirt, but heaccepted one of John’s tee shirts. I asked if I could take his picture, because he looked so cute in that outsize shirt. He declined, and I put the toy camera back in my pocket.

There is a moral to this tale. Keep a few of your children’s or grandchildren’s toys for your old age. You never know when you’ll need to entertain a child with them.

Storm Dressed in White

The snow raced the forecaster’s prediction and won. We thought we’d wake to rain and found about three inches of snow standing at attention on the railings. It was fun watching the mountains come and go. I reveled in watching the heavier snow blot out the view and sculpt toppings for pots. It added a white mask and high hat for the bird feeder. The snow designed a fancy scalloped edge for the railing and sometimes blew from the roof, pretending to be a blizzard. To me it was a gorgeous day.

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012216 Bird bath sculpture.JPG