O Little Town of Bethlehem

 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. Luke 2:7

O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

For Christ is born of Mary,
And gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love.
O morning stars together,
Proclaim the holy birth,
And praises sing to God the King,
And peace to men on earth!

How silently, how silently,
The wondrous Gift is giv’n;
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His Heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still,
The dear Christ enters in.

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in,
Be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!

We got more snow during this past week. We like to turn the deck light on so we can see the snow out our Family Room Slider. It was fun to capture the outdoor nativity and it’s shadow in the snow.

We are going to see temperatures in the teens and very few days in the next week above freezing. More snow in our 10 day forecast. The county plows our road so I am brave enough to drive into town if I need to.

Happy 47th Anniversary to Us

For our 47th Anniversary which is today we drove to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho after church on Sunday for an overnight stay. We made dinner reservations on Sunday at Cedars Floating Restaurant. It was a good choice and we enjoyed our meal and time there.

When love is true, There is no ending. We hope to celebrate with you for years to come…

Tempura asparagus with balsamic and blue cheese crumbles. I love tempura veggies! Prime Rib for Dear, Scallops for me and then we shared with each other.

Complimentary Huckleberry Ice Cream.

We are going to do some shopping today in Idaho and then head on home. Coeur d’Alene is only 100 miles from Colville. It’s a great place for a getaway. Sales taxes are lower and gas prices are lower, too.

All of our Christmas decorations are up, the tree is trimmed, we had some snow in the early hours on Saturday so things are looking like a winter wonderland. I’ve been working on our Christmas letter so next up is addressing and mailing our Christmas Greeting for 2021.

Happy New Week to all of you!

First Snow Fall 2021

On Friday morning November 19th we woke up to 6 inches of snow on the ground. Our first significant snowfall of the season.

Snow is such a delight to our little grands. We received these photos via text.

Any snow in your neck of the woods yet?

Today I’ll be shopping for the things we need for our Thanksgiving meal and other ‘company’ meals. I’ll be off the radar the next few days while our company is here. Hope all of you in the U.S. of A. have a wonderful Thanksgiving! 

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever! 

Psalm 118:1

Rain, Glorious Rain!

We woke up to lightning flashes and thunder and the sound of rain in the wee hours of the morning.

A very welcomed event with hopes that the lightning doesn’t spark more fires in our area.

Love seeing the raindrops! No manual watering today!

The blue skies showing through the clouds have me smiling. Smoke is so oppressive.

Thank you for all who have visited here and commented. I’m off my game with visits but hope to see what’s going on with you all soon.

 

Garlic

We are novices when it comes to garlic and harvesting garlic. All the garlic that appeared in our raised planter was put there by someone before we moved in. It was a surprise last year when they popped up and our Daughter in law informed us what they were. This year we were a wee bit more informed and were told if we removed the scapes as soon as they appeared we would get larger bulbs. That advice was timely and good.

This is what the scapes look like and you remove them before you harvest the bulbs. They are good for eating, too. You can see the curly stem with a single bulb on the plant and you can remove them easily.

Next year we will be even smarter about how to pull up the bulbs and what to avoid. I watched a lot of youtubes on the subject after we pulled the bulbs up. Why not before you might ask? That’s the way I roll.  Hopefully I’ll learn from my mistakes.

Hanging the harvest in the Cold Room that we have in our garage using the deer hanger. It’s dark and dry (hopefully). We’ll check them in about 3 weeks to see how they are doing. When they are good and dry we will cut off the stalks, trim the stringy roots and brush off the dirt. Then we’ll store the bulbs in mesh bags like lemons or oranges come in, something airy. Then we’ll store them in a cool dark spot.

Going into the cold room this morning to take the photo I was hit with that pungent fragrance of garlic. It smells like an Italian or Greek restaurant in there!

On the weather front: Our little digital window thermometer tells us our high yesterday was 107 degrees. Today they are predicting 111. Time will tell. Dear is mowing today very early (6:30 am). Our neighbors aren’t close enough to mind too much. We continue to water in the coolest part of the morning.

On the Cataract front: My eye is doing well and Dear is administrating the 3 different drops 4x a day. Tomorrow we move to only 2 different drops 3x a day. Thank you all for your encouragement!

The Weekend

On Saturday we arrived to watch our grands at 8:00am and said goodbye to their mommy and daddy at 8:30. After playing for awhile boredom set in and since it was still drizzly outside we pulled out the Play Dough for some creative endeavors.

The sun broke through so after cleaning up the dough we bundled up for some outdoor time.

Our son rigged up a way to add a second swing so JJ and Addy could swing at the same time. It’s ingenious and we enjoyed singing lots of songs like Old MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Jesus Loves the Little Children, 6 Little Ducks, The Wiseman Built His House Upon the Rock, The B-I-B-L-E, The Muffin Man, This Little Light of Mine.

Off the swings and into the sand.

Sand is nice but mud is muddy.

We played until it was time for lunch so we kicked off as much mud as we could, washed up our hands and got lunch ready.

Hide and Seek, A non Easter Egg Hunt, pretend play in Addy’s room and then it was time for a relaxing time watching Pippa the Pig until Mommy and Daddy arrived just before nap time. We said our goodbyes and headed home with our trailer.

We decided to have an early dinner at our non-favorite Mexican Restaurant in Colville. It was fun to see a couple of our friends there and my cousin with her family. It was good to catch up with them.

Later in the day our Daughter-in-law on the Coast sent these beautiful images with the snow geese congregating in Mount Vernon, Washington State.

Thank you Laura for sharing these amazing captures with me and letting me share them.

Our Sunday was quiet. We had a guest speaker at church and then we bumped into a couple from church and had lunch with them in Kettle Falls. Home again for more quiet looking out the window at hail, snow, hail and rain. Very undecided weather. Looks like we’ll have a lot more mud to deal with for a while.

Hope your weekend was good.

Sunny Snow Day

We had a sunny day on Wednesday. It was a good day to venture out and enjoy some vitamin D! Temperatures were going to reach 40 degrees on this day which was a treat from the below freezing temps we’ve been experiencing. Our daughter in law sent us the photo above via text on Wednesday.

After working in the shop and running some errands we decided to drive to Chewelah which is 27.5 miles south of us. A beautiful day for the drive and worth the gas and time to get to our favorite Mexican Restaurant this side of the Cascade mountain range. It’s been three and a half months since we were able to sit down and enjoy a meal here. Some restrictions were lifted as of Monday and they could open at 25% capacity. We gave our favorite server a hug and had our own mini celebration.

Do you have a favorite restaurant that you miss being able to enjoy a meal in?

We are supposed to get another inch or two of snow Thursday evening into Friday morning here.

The Little Things

I bought a couple of these pillows to add to our couch. Good reminder.

It’s been freeze your face cold here. The Quail are huddling.

And with the wind comes an added chill!

Do Not Be Anxious

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

…“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Matthew 6: 25-27, 34

These bunnies are looking forward to Spring but are taking the Winter in stride enjoying whatever the weather hits them with.

We had a nice time with my sister and her hubby on Friday evening and Saturday morning. We had a good time at our dinner out. On Saturday morning our kids came over to see aunt and uncle before they took off to Idaho for a couple of nights. On Saturday evening we babysat the grands so their mommy and daddy could have a quiet dinner out by themselves. Our kids on the Coast are digging out from a major snowfall for that side of the mountains. Snow photos popping up all day Saturday in texts and on social media. It continued snowing on Sunday there, too. We didn’t get any snow just temperatures in the single digits and the teens. No outside work. My sister and her hubby will be driving back to the Seattle side of the mountains from Idaho and it sounds like they will have snow all the way home. Praying for their journey. We are supposed to  get 3-6 inches of snow on Monday.

Hope you all have a good President’s Day here in the USA and a good Family Day to our neighbors to the North!