White Petticoat

This sort of looks like a lacey white petticoat... if you squint your eyes a little bit! Actually, the photo was taken from our greenhouse looking out into the south yard. The angle of the windows catches the snow and allows it to build up, making interesting patterns on the glass.

Snow is piling up here, and it's snowing again today. We have a fairly long road that we must keep clear, in addition to our driveway which is big enough for lots of jammers to park on Tuesday nights. Our plow guy is not as prompt or conscientious as last year, and Richard has managed to shovel everything out twice now before the plow guy gets here. Yesterday we went out and shoveled together. It didn't take very long, and it was good exercise. My method has four segments... 1) using the shovel as a push-scoop clear a path down the middle of the road or bisecting the driveway 2) again using the shovel as a push-scoop, work from the center of one area and push the snow toward the outside margin (in the driveway for example, push from the center toward the side) 3) shovel the show at the outer margin up and over the bank and 4) look at the beautiful snow on the trees, listen to chickadees, experience the cool air on my cheeks. I interject segment 4 whenever possible. Breaking the job up like this makes it easier to feel accomplishment and working together of course makes everything more joyful! Looks like we'll be going out to shovel again today if the plow guy doesn't come.

I'm making a pot of chili today with home-baked kidney beans. Usually we just use a can of beans, but here we have a bag of beans handy so we're doing it the old-fashioned way. We also have tomatoes we canned from our garden. Cornbread (made with real white southern cornmeal from Richard's mom) will round out the meal.

It's been nice having this week off from the bakery... time to update our fiddlehedz.org web site, work on the DEFFA newsletter, make soups and cook beans, and generally hang out together with no schedule other than dancing and playing music. Last night was the North Whitefield dance with Calliope playing music and Chrissy Fowler calling. We had a lot of fun participating from the floor and seeing lots of friends.

White Petticoat comes from the Portland Collection Volume Two. It's a really cool jig, but is still a hard tune for me to play. Not a problem, there are so many others from which to choose!