Winter Wonderland

I intended to publish this post March 26, 2013, but discovered today that it's still in draft form, even though people have seen and made comments on it.  Seeing this sure does make me wish for snow...so far, we have no signs of any.  

I've been enjoying every minute of this early spring snow.  We woke up with about 4" of snow covering everything, with more falling on and off throughout the day.  I find a peaceful easy feeling when watching snow fall, and so far, it's something I don't think I will ever grow tired of.

Since yesterday, I've continued to try to get some good snowflake pictures, and though this is still a little blurry, I like it (these are flakes that fell on my scarf when I was outside).


We decided to take a walk through our woods and then drive Big Bear (our ATV) up into the mountains to see what we could see.  Everything looked like a winter wonderland...undisturbed snow covered everything as far as we could see (except for the trail...we were not the first to venture up the mountain), and it was just stunning.  These pictures don't really do the scene justice, but imagine being surrounded by these woods, with a little snow falling and no other sounds...wonderful!

 

I've got a few more snow photos for you...I don't mean to bore you with them, but you can figure these are probably the last for this season!

Our deck...it really makes me want to buy a fire pit and grill something when there is snow all about!...

 ...the first icicle from our new deck rail...

...a portion of the creek...

...an interesting ice formation...

...a snow mushroom (lol, Mountain Man was excited about these)...

...and finally, a Pileated Woodpecker...we've never seen one around here before! 

I'm feeling grateful to have been able to enjoy the snow one more time this year.  I must admit that I really appreciated the heat of the wood stove as it warmed up my tingling toes and fingers after our little mountain sojourn.  And I'm appreciating more flurries as they flit about right now.  Life is good.

I decided to make us a good warm-us-up dinner, so I made Venison Stew with Beer and Paprika, a Pioneer Woman recipe that I modified simply by using venison instead of beef and adding mushrooms.  The perfect tasty ending to a snowy day!

Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,
Lise