Second Sunday of Advent

This morning I woke up late, I don't even remember hearing the radio program Dirt and I listen to on Sunday mornings. My head was pounding, I couldn't move it and the dull rainy morning light felt like a ice pick in my head, so much for the drugs Dirt picked up for me to knock this month long migraine out.

Oh well, what else is new, but I didn't go to bed with my sheet of ice, a mistake I won't be making tonight.

I woke up to hear that Chinook Pass was snowy but still open. (It is a rather small but high pass over to the other side of the hill) So I stumbled out to the football room and suggested to Dirt that we go to Whistlin' Jack restaurant over on the far side of the hill.

We chatted for a few moments about passes and roads being open still because of our unusually warm November and December. Then it dawned on me! We could go up and get a Forest Service tree really easy! We were joking the other day about using one of my little nursery trees, but this would be an easy solution. FS trees only cost five bucks and thirty bucks in gas, but we get to see snow, definitely worth the thirty bucks.

Two happy snow girls

So, the girls and I talked Dirt into going to High Rock for a Christmas tree, but it really didn't take much convincing. Dirt really does love to go up and get a mountain tree. We have gone off and on for years, even before Bet and Anna were born.

We usually take people with us, my midwife and some other friends those first few years, Jim and Kathy for the in between years, and most recently my oldest daughter's in-laws who really are just our friends. But when you decide to go Sunday morning at nine-thirty and Dirt wants to leave no later than eleven it is hard to round up friends to go with you.

On the way up to the mountain I caught us up on the chapters in The Christmas Mystery, by Jostein Gaarder. It is a lovely advent book, a chapter each day, about a little boy in Norway and his Advent calendar. A most excellent book that entertains and delights. I'll tell you more about it in another post.

I know it is wrong to be jealous, but lately reading all the snowy blogs I have really been sad in my snow heart that we have not even had a threat of snow or frozen pond. But I got a little snow fix today. There are more shots of snow and tree getting but I am leaving them for the girls.

The stump of our tree

My only desire is to show how our taking of a tree up in the forest is part of good forest management. This stump is what is left behind after taking our tree. Our tree was crooked, and obviously having some issues with getting enough water as it has a few brown branches but those were assessed as easily taken out and not affecting the look. We like crooked, spacey narrow trees, they fit our house and we appreciate the very outdoorsy natural look. Speaking of look, did you see what is right next to the stump?

It's a new little tree.

By removing our tree we leave space for this little guy to take off and grow big. I like being part of our forest management and the use of our national forest.

We came home in plenty of time for me to get a fews gardening duties done. I leveled out a bed Bet had turned yesterday. But mostly I sat and sorted tulip bulbs that grew the last few years in pots and have multiplied themselves, I have a hard time throwing anything out and my propagation book says just to plant all the new little guys really deep and they will be regular size and blooming soon. I also managed to pot up to bigger pots a few perennials I hadn't found just the right spot for yet. Maybe in the spring I won't be so indecisive and they will get a permanent home.

Just a quiet Advent Sunday family dinner.

All the while I was outside, Dirt had been inside putting together a dinner from his left over barbecue chicken. He made salad, corn and mashed potatoes to which he added a sweet potato to. He loves to be creative in the kitchen and I love to let him. He has even been the grocery shopper lately. It all began with the gas prices going sky high and we decided it was crazy to have me drive twenty miles into town to shop when he had to drive by the stores to get home in the afternoon.


Well that pretty much wraps up a wonderful spontaneous Second Sunday of Advent. Dear reader, I hope you are enjoying Advent and taking time to ponder waiting.