Nature's amazing colors

What an amazing sunset! Sometimes I am just awed by nature's color palette. At moments like this, I wonder if anyone else out there is thinking the same thing I am as they gaze at the skyline. I stopped splitting up the evening's wood, ran inside for the camera, snapped and stared.

Hairy beets!

I dug the beets out from under the snow-flattened row cover (should have taken it down a month ago), and was surprised to find so many. Most of them are not well-developed with hairy rootlets everywhere, but that won't stop me from cookin' them up tonight! Yumm!

Winter Carrot Harvest

I dug up the last of the carrots today. We had been harvesting them as we needed, but with the recent snowfall, and more due later this week, I figured it was time to dig them up. Between hungry mice, and a vegetable-loving Rottweiler (she some of last winter's crop) with her nose in the snow, we decided to pull them all. I weighed in 6 pounds worth! Take that and add it to all we've eaten, it was well over 12 pounds as near as I can tell. Definitely a crop worth having! Note Callie the hungry dog at the edge of the picture, eyeballing the harvest in my hands!

Snow at last!

Our first snow of the season started yesterday afternoon, but by 10 p.m. the ground was blanketed in white. Even the roads had accumulated enough to send the plow trucks out. We woke up this morning to a very Christmas-like scene. The heavy snow stuck to everything--four inches of the stuff! I've thought about getting out the xc skis, but with no solid base, I'm afraid I'll bottom out in muck. Heck, it was 65 degrees a few days ago! I don't think the ground in frozen enough, but this is a start, the first step towards a winter of fun.
The house looks lovely with its new colors, I just wish I'd completed the garage as well. Thankfully, I cleaned out the gutters Friday evening, just in time. But we still need to bury our potted plants in the garden and the balsam in the leaf compost pile. Maybe this year, we will decorate our Charlie Brown tree.
A day like this inspires me to get cooking for Christmas. We've got the fire stoked, warm enough to keep Callie (curled up in my chair) comfy. All I need now is more snow, and caroling in the background.