February 2022- Birthday and Hot Chocolate

February 1 – 14, 2022                                                    Most Recent Posts:
STILL stuck in Charlottesville.       January 2022: It’s All About the Weather
                                                               December 2021 & Happy 2022 Hopefully

First and most importantly February is
CARRIE’S BIRTHDAY  month

We couldn’t get together but we did Facetime when she opened her presents from me.  These are terrible pictures of my screen but they are all I have of her in the fuzzy zip up I gave her which is a light purple though you never know it in the picture.

The other gift was a photo book I made with pictures our visit to her house for her son Colin’s first Christmas and her father’s last.

My baby is 42.  Unbelievable.  NOT POSSIBLE!   She sure doesn’t look it.

Since I could not bake THE family birthday cake and eat it all myself (well I could but I shouldn’t) I baked chocolate chip cookies in her honor and did eat them all myself.  Half of them right off the tray as the evidence shows.

February is also HOT CHOCOLATE month!! 

Unfortunately for me, I didn’t find that out until 3 weeks of it were over. I immediately headed for Mariebette for Dark Cherry Hot Chocolate and asked if there was any way pretty pretty please that I could get some of the flavors from the first week of the month. 

No I was told by the girl in the scarf.  They are only made once a year.  But they will be back next year. 

OH WOE IS ME!  I hope I won’t be here next year in January or February. 

So I determined to have hot chocolate at least 3 times during what was left of the month.  Some of the flavors don’t really appeal to me.

Here’s the schedule of flavors.  Hope you can read it.  Oh my salted carmel!  And I’ll take February 1-4 please.

I did go  for Dark Cherry the day after I found out that February is Hot Chocolate Month.

I LOVE to sit and read with a cup of hot chocolate.  The Dark Cherry was fabulous.  It even had a montmorency cherry in the bottom.  At one time, the farm had 2 montmorency cherry trees.  THE ultimate pie cherry and the source of cherries for David’s reknown and not to surpassed cherry pie.  But I digress…..  at $6.12 for a large which was “maybe” 12 oz, I’ll have to limit myself. 

I returned on the next Saturday for Raspberry with my mouth watering.  I have no idea what happened but this chocolate, which I didn’t try until I got it back to my house and my book since they have no indoor dining, only outdoor and it was in the 40’s, was thin watery and tasted neither like chocolate or raspberries.  I was SO disappointed.   Still I soldiered on and came back on the very last day of the month for White Chocolate Pistachio which was very good.  Not as good as Dark Cherry but WAY better than Raspberry.

Technically this post is about the first half of February but well, hot chocolate month was all of February.

Back to the first half of the month which unfortunately much of is still winter as these pictures of frost on the plants and snow coming down attest.  Nature is beautiful in all her dresses but the cold temperatures keep me inside and not doing a daily walk on many days.  This is just not good for me and makes me grumpy.

On the days I spend inside, I pamper myself with my favorite indoor activity – READING with hot chocolate!

Here is where I hang out in my comfy chair, with an afghan made by my mother, the sun streaming in the window and a cup of my favorite hot chocolate, after Mariebettes Dark cherry, in my cup. 

The book I set down in the chair to take this picture is the one Laurie and I discussed this month in our book club.  It was excellent, a great story beautifully written.  The Round House by Louise Erdrich won the National Book Award and it was well deserved.  It’s also the book in the Mariebette picture above.

Land O’Lakes Vanilla hot chocolate is my make it yourself preference.  I try very hard not to have it every day.  WAY too many calories, WAY too much sodium and WAY WAY too much sugar and even too much fat for one cup of it.   No wonder it tastes so fantastic.

The temperatures do start to at least vacillate as in one day the high is 35 and the low 23 and 3 days later the high is 69 and the low 48.  Oh that 69!   This must be very confusing to the plants.  I know it is to me. 

On the 10th I saw these snowdrops which hopefully indicated spring was actually coming.  I was so excited

Thus encouraged, the next day  I took a hike out to Ivy Creek Natural Area where I found the creek frozen.

 

.Nothing was blooming, everything was leafless, the river was icy, the ground on the other side still had snow.  Don’t get your hopes up in the first half of February is the lesson.

It’s been a long time since I’ve done a winter in Virginia.

But still, it was great to be outside hiking even in the 50’s before heading back to rain and snow tomorrow.

The beavers have been around recently despite the chicken wire put up to protect the trees.

The geese and ducks have managed to find some open water to hang out in together.

I enjoy the beech toes and the lichen art.

Another non rainy, non snowy, reasonably temperatured day found me walking over to UVA gardens in hopes of some flowers.

There wasn’t much.  Some flowers had clearly tried to come up but been wilted out or frozen by the weather.  So when I saw these, one in each of 3 of the 6 gardens, I was surprised.  They brought a smile to my face.  Any signs of spring are so welcome.  I’m beginning to feel desperate.

The serpentine walls and gates of the gardens have withstood whatever the weather for over 200 years.

As has the University’s famous Rotunda.

  Today, I come upon it from the side and though I saw it almost daily for the 25 years I worked at the university,
the beauty of its design never fails to move me with awe and admiration for its designer.  There are things not to admire about Mr. Jefferson,  but his beautiful home Monticello and this Academical Village both of which he designed are not among them.

Walking through the columns above I see some first signs of spring near the rotunda.  They are like little buds of hope.

Although most of the historic statues in this town, made infamous by the 2017 Unite the Right rally, have been removed.  This statue of Jefferson, the University’s founder currently remains.  I’ll leave the decision of whether either of these is good or bad to you.

Another walk I do often is to my favorite place in town, the Gordon Avenue Library.  With all this time on my hand, cold temperatures and wet trails, I’m doing a lot of reading.  I’ve always been an avid  reader and library user since I was first able to sign my name to get a card.

Seeing what seems like a carpet of snow drops again makes me hope we are finished with snow.

But no, the very next day, it snowed again.  Way to bust my bubble.

It’s difficult to take a picture of snow falling.  This was my attempt.

This snow certainly didn’t  match what we had in January when shoveling the heavy snow for too many hours to free Ruby hurt my back and the pain remains.  Lower back yoga poses help but don’t eliminate it.  An appointment with the chiropractor is on my list.

This is what I looked like Valentine’s Day this year

.

Here’s where I was on Valentine’s Day last year, the Silver River in Florida  SIGH!

Hope you had

                                        
                                                                                           a Happy One!

January-It’s All About the Weather

January 1-31, 2022                                                         Most Recent Posts:
Charlottesville Virginia               December 2021 And Happy 2022 Hopefully
                                                                    November 2021 – Still in Virginia

I do so little these days that I can put an entire month of good, bad, happy, sad news in one post. 

The first three days of the month I was able to walk through the neighborhoods and enjoy unicorns and chickens in local yards.  Each brightened my day considerably. 

I imagine it is much easier to keep chickens in town than it was for us in the country where all manner of creatures including foxes and snakes managed to make their way through the fences and somehow into the wooden chicken house we thought we had critter proofed.

Still for many years, I took several dozen eggs a week into work to sell to buyers eager for free range organic eggs.

Then came the first of the snowS.

The first one was January 3rd to start the New Year with troubles for nearly everyone.  5 inches and downed power lines.

Because the woodstoves have not been used in over ten years, I am sure their seals are no longer adequate and need to be replaced. The chimneys would also need to be cleaned as well and wood would have to be procured from some where since my woodsman can no longer provide it. The farm road would be 3/4 of a mile of impassible snow.  And of course power outages are very likely for a house at the end of the power line that goes over a mountain and miles to the next occupied house on its line. Don’t get me started on why the farm is not on the line with the folks at the end of the lane.

For these reasons, though I would much rather have spent a snow storm at the Farm, and have such very fond memories of doing so in the past, I reluctantly find myself in Charlottesville overlooking Winnona.

It turned out to be a wise choice as the power was out at the farm for nearly a week which without wood stoves would have meant no heat, no stove for cooking, as well as well as no water (of course I could have filled the bathtub as we used to) and  no refrigerator.   When the 3 of us were there for years, snow was a cause for celebration as we had everything we needed anyway but now, alone, it seemed not wise.

All of these pictures are taken “in town” where many many people lost their power for 5 days or more but where those on this street were very lucky not to.  In fact, except for us, everyone I know in Charlottesville and its surroundings lost their power for days.

Judging from the pile of snow on the table, maybe it was a lot more than 5”

These 3 pictures were taken while it was snowing. You can see it coming down best in the 3rd one.

Not sure who made the tracks in the snow. It wasn’t anyone from the city clearing the streets but whoever it was made sledding more difficult.

What ARE Ruby, Winnona and I doing here?

On the left, Weather.com reminds me of what I’d be having were it not for the vandals-high 74 low 49; while on the right is what’s actually happening in my world high 39 low 16.

I am getting by with help from my friends like Mary who came up to help shovel my walk and Pam who knitted me a great warm hat and my wonderful daughter who gave me this amazingly warm fleece jacket for Christmas since my supply of winter clothing has diminished or disappeared over the past 11 years.

The second snow happened on the 7th.   Better sledding. 

The 8th would have been David’s 75th birthday and he so loved to play in the snow at the farm.  I suspect I would have been out there, power or no, had he been here. He would have made it possible. I miss him in so very many ways.  This photo is from 4 months before he died, he’s doing one of his favorite things.  In 3 days he will have been gone for 3 years. That seems impossible.  It’s definitely been a rough 3 years.

But I go on.
More snow and I’m getting serious cabin fever so I decide to go out and try to get in 10,000 steps.    The streets have been plowed and  sidewalks under threat from the city have been shoveled.   But the much touted walking/biking path across the railroad tracks and through McIntire Park looks like this.  Apparently the city doesn’t have to follow its own rules.  

Later I can get out for groceries.  Much of the power is back on.  There are parking spots around the mountains of snow.

Between snows, luckily I was able to drive Winnona the 60 miles to the repair shop where she is now in line to get her side windows put in and a few other things done.  I drove her in on the 12th.  She is still in line on the 31st with no indication of when work on her might even begin let alone be completed. 

I was able to locate with the help of a number of other people most notably my friend Jody in Vermont, the roll up driver’s window at a salvage yard.  It was sent to the shop on the 21st and still hasn’t arrived.   I’m trying not to fear the worst since I have no idea where I would find another.

I had some pretty bad overdoers back pain for a long while but I have recovered mostly from the 3 hours of shoveling I did to get everything out and drivable.    It’s just a twinge at this point but is not completely gone.

Perhaps the best thing this month was the book boxes.

It was such a treat and so exciting to get the Book Box Laurie gave me for my birthday,  (See most recent post above),  that  with all this freezing weather and snow, I order myself some of the past boxes that were on sale so they could empty their stock. 

They came all at once in the mail in bright red plastic coverings.  SO exciting.  I will “parcel” them out to myself one at a time.  Notice snow boots on the right. Hmmmmm

So here it is, the end of the month.  More snow, Continuing freezing temperatures.

         HIGH 29 - LOW 15 degrees.

Not quite as much snow as the earlier ones, but poor Ruby, neither she nor I are used to this.

Twice during the month I have made new reservations in the Florida State Parks for 11 months to the date despite the fact that I am still cancelling the ones I made for this year.  The new system is – If you can believe it – MORE difficult than Reserve America.  I have made reservations for all of November, all of December and almost half of January thus far but not at the parks I wanted.  I was unable to compete there.  So I’ll start out at Fort Clinch, move to the non Ocean side of Gamble Rogers for the first time ever, to Wekiwa Springs, to Alafia and to Highlands Hammock.   I tried over and over for Anastasia, Ocean Side Gamble Rogers and Oscar Scherer to no avail.  There are just too many folks out there on the road these days and perhaps my mobile hot spot internet connection is not fast enough.  Anyone with better mobile internet ideas please comment.

With the snow and cold weather, I did A LOT of reading this month and waited until I had finished the current book before opening my first book box.

When I took it out of the weather proof red bag it was a sturdy white box.  I’m doing the details step by step because it was so much fun and I want to remember it.

It looked like this when I opened the lid except that this picture was taken after I’d opened the paper so there is a tear by the sticker

This is what I found.

I moved the things around so I could see them.  The book was wrapped also in red tissue paper with a red ribbon and a book mark.  It prolonged the suspense.  The brochure on the top fight told me that with this box the Travelling Reader was taking me to Marlow in Buckinhamshire England.

When I opened things up I found the book was The Marlow Murder Club.  It is definitely my next read.

Here are some close ups of what came with it.

So I’ve got a cup map of Buckinghamshire to drink my sold by a local shop in Buckinhamshire tea and 100% Real Belgian Milk chocolate “drinking chocolate” also from a local shop. I can drink and read and eat Mandarin & Lime drops.   Sadly the great chocolate tin was dented but the chocolate inside unharmed.

About all that reading…   Here’s some of it. You’ll notice Three Women and a Boat which was what started the book boxes.  It was such a great book that Laurie and I read it together in January, 2nd time for me, for our weekly book club.   Feast Your Eyes was the book I had to finish before opening the box with The Marlow Murder Club.

I’d like to add Feast to our book club list as well as The Painted Drum.  They were both terrific and I’m happy to read them again.

I have others I’m currently reading but I’ll include them when they are finished.

 

This has been some year to have been trapped for the winter in Virginia.  The RV situation is still up in the air and I’m nervous about the whereabouts of that very hard, nearly impossible to come by window.   But thanks to my friends, my books, and the great fun of the book boxes I’m beginning the new year smiling.

Maybe a haircut should be on the calendar for February. 

Looking forward to hearing your comments on my January.