First REAL snowfall of the season

Are you all sick of weather and landscape photos from me yet? I can hear you all from here..."This crazy woman started a blog to show off her artwork, and all she posts are pictures of her yard."

I bet you haven't seen this angle from our back yard yet. We have the illusion of living in the wooded glade!

Well, the truth of the matter is that I've spent very little time in my treehouse lately, partly because of the holidays...mostly because of the holidays...but also because of housework, and Super Mario, and telephone calls, and the job...oh my, the job has been occupying a lot of my thinking time. AND...the new soap website, too. It's on my mind, even if you aren't seeing any evidence of that yet.
So, without further ado, let me show you our first real snow, which occurred on New Year's day, or rather the evening of. And into the next morning, of course, causing me to drive the lovely Gypsy in the snow and slush, and chemical treatment. Sigh.

Angels trumpet in the dark, as snow drifts down (above)

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Ooops! Guess we don't need a hose reel in this weather!

But after the snowfall, after the flurries and dark winter night - morning has broken...

A view of our pond in the early morning after the storm (above).

And a view of the neighbor's pond, in the hopeful new light (above).

Oldtimer rose at 5:15 am to run the snowblower and clear the driveway. He had everything looking so nice, but...

...once again the Willoughby Hills snowplows took out our mailbox. We go through one a year. (See photo above, lower right corner - note the sad little Christmas bow, buried in the goop). I told Oldtimer that I want a neon sign that says "Mailbox!" with an arrow pointing down. We can suspend it from the maple tree, and make sure it's on when the snowplows start running up and down the road.