Snowed In

We're snowed under here in the Portland Metropolitan area. It snowed hard all night long. Just a few minutes ago, I heard our weatherman say that we'd have to go all the way back to January of 1980 to see this much snowfall in a single event.

Mike was out earlier to help our neighbor who had high-centered his little Subaru on our shared driveway. They dug it out, and then he came back and filled the bird feeders and traded out the hummingbird feeder for a thawed one. He says we have about 12 inches accumulation.

As I'm writing this, he's chaining up our tractor so that he can plow our driveway and the driveway we share with our neighbors. Temperatures are going to stay in the teens at least through Sunday, and so this is going to be around for a while.

Snow has drifted up in the catio....

...and Sadie is completely stressed out, as you can plainly see.

Also, there is this one very impressive icicle. There are quite a few icicles, but this one wins the gold medal.

Yesterday's roaming around took longer than expected. I stopped off at the farmers to pick up my eggs. Farmer Brian was out, and so I had a chance to chat with him for a while. During our conversation, I admired the stalks of just-harvested Brussels sprouts he had in a wagon hitched up to his tractor. He reached into the wagon and handed me a stalk. Score! Do you think my hint was too heavy-handed? (Honestly, some people will do or say anything for Brussels sprouts.)

Also on my agenda was a trip to the grocery store. Since "heavy snow" was in the forecast, the grocery store was absolutely mobbed. It took me far longer than expected to get my shopping done, and so I didn't get home until around 2:00. After my grocery shopping experience, what could I do but lie down and take a nap? Matthew, Valerie and I had to reschedule our dinner planned for last night, so Matthew called me later in the afternoon. We ended up chatting for over an hour. Getting a "just because" phone call from my kiddo was a perfect way to end a busy day.

So, all of that to say I didn't get much sewing done, but I did have time to sandwich my small quilt.

Also, I made a nice size practice piece so that I can practice the all-over design I want to quilt on Stars and Stripes. 

Just before getting started on dinner, I checked the sourdough starter. The bubbles had disappeared, and so I fed it earlier than the instructions told me. That seemed to make it happier because it looked like this when I got up this morning.

Recently, I purchased some 3/4 liter Weck jars to use for starters. I prefer storing them in glass to plastic, and these jars have tapered sides that make stirring easier than, say, a mason jar. 

Besides, I can see the bubbles on the side of the jar now too, and that makes me feel downright bubbly myself. These are the sorts of things that excite old people. Young people, you have a lot to look forward to.

I'll feed this again later today, but today's bread-baking adventure is to try some Pane all'Olive, or olive bread to you. I happen to love the stuff. I tried baking it one time before, but it was so salty it really wasn't very good. I'm trying it again today using kalamata olives. The recipe is in this book...

...and so this is a no-knead bread. I'll get it started after I finish here, and it should be ready for baking tomorrow morning.

So that's my day. There's no quilting like snow quilting, and that's what I'm planning to do.