Yes, we finally got some .. snow!
After weeks and weeks of rain it's such a relief to finally have something nice coming down from the heavens although it's still very dark and gloomy out there.

But not before the last bit of rain last week caused an over-saturated, old and dead tree-top to come down and take out the power-line coming into the road we're on:

                                                                           

It's hard to see but that was the tree-top in the picture above and below is the cable hanging down on the ground and over the fence.

We'd lost power at midnight and didn't think it would be back on until at least that evening and most likely for a couple of days, since we live on a rural road and due to the weather there were constantly lines down in the area.
But by some miracle they repaired it that morning and at 10.30 it came back on! Yahoo!
Nothing makes you more appreciative to have power than when you lose it for a couple of hours ..

James had to go out for an appraisal and almost brought back a generator since we don't have one anymore but with electricity restored and finances not quite 'up-to-par' (yet), we're holding off on buying one a little longer.



If you look carefully you can see how hard it rained here at times ... (those light stripes at the top of the pic).
The pond is full and overflowing again into the one below.

When you're a duck it doesn't bother you one bit I guess, although I took this picture of a female Bufflehead during a rare clearing in the weather.
The males showed up a little later but I scared them off coming around the corner with my camera so no pictures unfortunately ..

                                              

But yeah, temperatures started to plummet today, snow began to fall overnight and the forecast looks like this:

 

Not a whole lot of snow but definitely cold and icy!
This was the temp this morning:

                                                                      

Brrrr! We turned on the heating-coil that wraps around our water-hose. Hopefully that will be enough (together with some insulation wrappings) to keep it from freezing.

Fortunately we did all our groceries on Thursday and don't have to go anywhere until Wednesday when we have another appraisal.
I picked up 2 dozen of eggs as well today from our new fresh-egg provider (Kim) here in town whom I found recently on Nextdoor.
We go through a lot of them and don't wanna be without!

'My' wild birds are eating up a storm. I added another pole to my set-up and divided all the feed tubes I have between the two. This way there's a little more room for everyone ..

           

This weather definitely calls for comfort-food so I made a nice beef-stew:

           

And for this weekend there's a big pot of 'Snert' aka Dutch pea-soup:

                       

We'll see how cold it gets and how much more snow will fall and hopefully we won't loose electricity again.
It's one thing if it happens when it's a balmy 46F but it's a whole 'nother' story when it's in the 10s or 20s!