Nature's New Fashion Statement

This is the front yard this morning, about 730am

Apparently, white is the new earth tone. Everyone is using it to cover those unsightly...everything.

OK, not really, but I thought that sounded less cliche than "winter wonderland," or "white Christmas," which it definitely is and will be, but I feel I need to be more creative and a little less predictable.

We went shopping yesterday for a few necessities and just as we were calling it quits, mother nature decided to drop some snow on our heads. We obligingly stayed home after that. I smoked my cheese...does that sound middle school of me? Like cutting the cheese, except more "sophisticated" somehow? "Well, it was fine in here, until Jim Smoked the Cheese, then everyone started gagging and choking." Hmmm, yeah, I think that could be a new phrase for fart...somehow it gives a slight hint to the aroma one might expect from a fart thus described. "A burnt cheese smell hung in the air, as though someone had smoked the cheese moments earlier." yeah, very descriptive... OK, how did I get on the subject of gas exchange?

This is the front yard lst night bout 730pm

I began by talking about the snow, which appears to be about five or six inches deep out there now, but, since I just got up and am bare...foot, I don't plan on testing it anytime soon.

The other day I got home and saw the quail leave the front of the house. We have quail(California Quail, Callipepla californica) , by the way, that hang around the houses with bird seed. We don't usually have seed, since we don't have a decent tree to put a bird feeder in, but quail are ground birds and so I went in the house and found some seed from when we were in California and spread it on the ground...wow, you would have thought I had given them a new lease on life..which is possible given the temperatures lately. They scratch around just like chickens. I had no idea. They are neat little birds. I have some video, too.

We bought LED lights for the tree this year, since they are supposed to last some 10,000 hours and be more efficient. I opened a box the other day and only half of the damned string lit up. Then last night one of the strings on our tree suddenly and without any visible cause blinked a few times and went out. I am more than a little miffed. They cost a little more than the regular lights and, one would assume, with the billing they have received from the press, they would be better...not so.