Looks And Feels Like Winter

Happy To Be Hiking Long Point State Park With Evie Once Again

7:30

It's 8:00 and Evie just came down for her coffee and I have been up since 6:45, watching the morning wake.  It's 11º out and we must have gotten six to eight inches overnight so it's a winter wonderland out on the lake.  Because of the snow and cold, I see only two intrepid tents out on the lake.  Yesterday at this hour, there must have been ten to fifteen. At the moment, big fat snowflakes are dropping drowsily in front of our window.

Yesterday was a  day of intermittent snow so I ended up shoveling three times during the day with Evie's help in the afternoon.  We had our usual morning, relaxing with coffee but then Evie got busy making her Turkish wheatberry soup, straight from the Ottoman's cookbook.  About 10:00, I gathered the trash, not much for once, and drove off to the Transfer Station.  The roads were snow covered but not dangerous even though the plow had not been out yet.  At 11:00, we decided to brave the cold and wind and drove over to Long Point State Park.  It was as we expected, cold and windy but still, it felt good to be walking in the woods.  We passed three or four fishing guys ending their day, dragging sleds with canvas sides, to hold all their fishing gear.  Be prepared, no doubt their motto. When got to the tip of Long Point, we did not linger because of the wind and headed back to our car.  We stopped at the Bemus Point Grocery to pick up a few items because Evie was thinking about making a German Chocolate cake on Sunday.

The Beauty Of Hemlocks In The Winter

The soup was ready when we came home, so I had a salami sandwich to go with the wheatberry soup, thus the classic soup and sandwich for my lunch.  I started watching some basketball but if I don't know the players, I soon get bored so I watched another episode of Friday Night Lights, always a trip down nostalgia lane.  I finished my book, US AGAINST YOU and started a book called BITTERSWEET, about a young girl who comes to New York and ends up waiting tables and working in an upscale New York restaurant.  It was also made into a series on Starz I think.  I also downloaded on my Kindle another Daniel Silva Gabriel Allon thriller just in case.  I always have to have another book ready to go.

Dusk

Around 4:00, we both went out and shoveled, knowing we would be getting quite a bit overnight and we wanted to get a start on it during the daylight.  Of course, Shane, our plow guy has been by twice since then, creating a nice two-foot barrier of snow along the road. We did, however, enjoy a nice cocktail hour, watching the snowflakes fall, the sky darken, the fishing tents close up.  And because I woke up Friday morning thinking tacos,  Evie put together the meat sauce Saturday morning, so dinner prep was heating up the meat and getting out the fixings for our tacos.  We usually make taco salads rather than filling tacos, which always hit the spot to use a cliche.  We were excited to realize Real Time With Bill Maher was back on HBO, so we watched that, then a Colbert and some news.  Maher was not as good as usual perhaps because he started off by interviewing the insufferable 'know it all' former governor from Ohio,  John Kasich.  We get tired of his schtick (I have all the answers and its easy).