These are some of my gnomes. They hold meetings in a flower pot on the porch. I'm not sure but I think they talk about me behind my back...

Took this photo several months ago.

Quite cold today, but we're dealing with it. We had such beautiful, warm (for December - and in spite of the ice on the ground) weather the past two days, and that's made it hard to jump right into this cold stuff.

Still dealing with post-ice-storm messes.

Someone at concertina.net complimented my writing this morning, and when I reviewed my post I thought, 'Gee, that IS pretty good, today!' So, I'll add a copy of it, here:

We were hit pretty hard with the ice storm here, lost power on Thursday and just got it back last night. So, four days without power, for us; we're lucky -- a lot of the area still has no power.

Fortunately, we were able to go to relatives' and get warmed up. I stored my concertina and various other instruments and stuff -- parakeets, etc., with them. Slept at home in the cold, though, just layered on more blankets and kept the winter boots on at all times!

We've got tree limbs all over the place, a broken window on a shed, a bit of other damage. Phone line was snapped in two, but that's been fixed. Cable TV line snapped, but we no longer subscribe anyway...

The night of the storm was pretty strange. I thought it was an earthquake, didn't know the rain outside was actually ice and that I was hearing trees falling. Trees and branches fell the entire night. Though all power was out, I managed to text message with my daughter who was about 10 miles away -- things were the same there.

As I sat and played my concertina in the dark with a candle one night, after hurrying to keep my pet rabbit fed and his cage cleaned up, I realized that it wasn't just for fun or romance or meditation that people in pre-electric days played by candlelight. It's because they had to hurry up and do everything else while the sun was still up!

Some grocery stores, etc., have operated by generator. I went to CVS and had to use my flashlight to find what I needed on the shelf. The gas lines were very long at the one or two open local stations, since people needed gas for generators, I guess. Most stations were closed -- like everything else. So, I drove about 20 miles to a station my daughter told me was open and didn't have lines. If nothing else, when stuff like this happens, I want to remain able to GET OUTTA HERE!!! With my concertina, though....