Winter in Washington

One thing that I had forgotten after many years in the south in the winter:  Even when we get cold weather - even when we get snow, there is still a greenness underneath, and it pops right back when a day or two of cold is gone.

We see a lot of birds in the winter as a lot of migrating birds only come this far on their journey south.

Of course, these guys never leave - there were over a hundred on the lake the other day.

We had our first "real" snow yesterday - but it's pretty drippy out there this morning, so doubtful any will last to greet

Christmas tomorrow.
Christmas Morning Update:
We did wake up to a white Christmas - not much snow in the areas that get sun, but about 2" in the open areas of the woods.  Here's my boot print

in the deep area.

A nature decorated Christmas tree.

I wonder who's out on this beautiful sunny morning walking with me.  I don't think it's a neighbor's kitten.

These lead right to the garden gate.

Looks like the Great Blue Heron has been on the dock!

The ice has been creeping further down the lake.  All the water fowl are congregated in a smaller and smaller area.

Ron's Broken Ankle

After nearly two weeks, the bandages came off for the first time.

Doesn't look too bad from this angle,

But he has an incision on both sides of the ankle.  

Right side

Left Side

I was horrified when I saw the leg, but was very encouraged when the Doctor was kind enough to show us the x-rays.  The doctor that did the surgery did an amazing job of putting both misplaced fractured bones back in place.  It looks like it is healing really nicely and we have hopes he will be walking on it again in a month or two.

What a difference a day makes

Yesterday we had sunshine most of the day - Still no frost, so everything is green. 

However, it's been raining for days and days and we have little lakes everywhere.  I've put my greenhouse on hold until we have more favorable conditions for building.....and

and, my building partner isn't going to be much help for the next 6 weeks.  He slipped and fell on Thursday and broke every bone in his ankle. 

Yesterday I found one nice big Chantrelle mushroom that I added to the homemade beef vegetable soup.  Even though it was sunny, it really wasn't warm, so soup sounded good.

And today we woke up to this!

Fortunately, it's still 35 degrees outside, so it's only sticking to the grassy areas (so far).

I think we're getting a message that we need to slow down!