The snow only amounted to somewhere between 6 to 8 inches. Compared to the last storm, very doable.

Tonight with the bright moonlight, it certainly is lovely, casting tree shadows on the snow.

We watched regular TV tonight, instead of On Demand. There were two commercials in favor of high fructose corn syrup. How crazy is that? The actors tried to make the people saying that the corn syrup is not good for us look like extremists and stupid. They're saying that it's fine in moderation, I wonder what defines "moderation" to them and how much is OK with them, like a cc? Must be Monsanto making those commercials. Do they really think we're that naive.

I've painted three emu egg paintings so far, but I'm having trouble with the glare on the photos of them. I'm even using a diffuser over the light.

Here is "Emu Egg in an Antique Tea Strainer", 5"x7", oil on gessobord, $75. framed. SOLD

Have a great weekend.

It's been snowing since last night. The wind has started, which is causing down drafts in the wood stove. Brutal. I'm hoping we don't lose power. The painting above is the rose that I got as one in a dozen for Valentine's Day from Jay Sr. "Valentine Rose", 5"x7", oil on gessobord, $50. framed. SOLD I'm going to bed while I can still put my warming blanket on. Be safe and warm.

This storm coming up any minute now is being called a "snowicane" because we'll be getting very high winds along with a foot of heavy snow. I do feel weird complaining about it, but honestly, if I wanted Alaskan weather, I would have moved there. I'm dreading more snow. I'm really aching tonight because of working in it all day and because another foot of it will just complicate caring for the chickens even more. I took seven hens to my friend Kristin in Spring City today. What a fabulous place. Just beautiful. Gabriel is running for vice-president of student council. His speech was so great. I'll have to see if I can get a copy of it for the blog. Something I wanted to tell you yesterday was that when we were at the Brandywine River Museum on Monday, and Victoria, Andy Wyeth's granddaughter was giving us a tour of his work, there was a girl, about high-school age, I'm guessing, that was there for a paper she had to write. Victoria asked her about her schooling and told her that she and her grandfather didn't condone art school. They feel that she would be taught that it's OK to draw or paint from pictures and that it's not OK with them and that Wyeth never did that. I loved hearing that because when I started to draw and paint again after 25 years, my next door neighbor, Rich Alliger, who I consider to be a truly outstanding artist said the same thing to me. Way to go Rich. Good night, stay cozy.

Being pretty excited about Danny and Torri's return trip from Chicago, I forgot to post. Sadly, I fell asleep before they got home, but this morning he said he had a great time. We decided to meet Krista, to hand over Josie at The Brandywine River Museum yesterday a little after lunch. Since Krista called ahead to tell us she would be late, we decided to take a tour of some of "Andy" Wyeth's work, with our granddaughter, given by his granddaughter, Victoria. It was the best tour we've ever had in this country. The only one better was with John in the UK, where they have the ravens. I think it's the Tower of London, right? Anyway, Victoria was really wonderful. She was concerned about what would be appropriate, or not, for Josie to hear. She was very animated, extremely down-to-earth and friendly. She was also incredibly engaging. She sincerely wanted us to understand her grandfather "Andy", as she referred to him. The 30 minute tour just flew by. I can't wait to go back for her tour of Jamie's work. Krista got there and we spent a few more minutes looking at some of the other works, gave Josie to Krista and came home. Josie had me awake at 6 a.m. so I went to bed early. Today it just poured rain all day, non-stop. I worked on a new painting, since I finished the other three, but spent the majority of my day on the phone and computer. Tomorrow I'll be outside working on the chicken pens and delivering chickens, in preparation for the next snow storm. I'm exhausted just thinking about it, so I'm going to bed. Good night.

I'm totally wiped out tonight. My shoulders are aching and I'm ready for bed, so I'll make this short.

I met Krista at Terrain today to get Josie for the weekend. With the bright sun pouring in through the greenhouse roof, and all of the brilliant, spring flowers they have blooming, it was almost ethereal when we walked in. Very soothing--just what Krista and I both needed.

We called my brother Pat when we got home because he is the official, family, telephone Santa Claus. Josie was totally thrilled. She had a sandwich for dinner, an ice cream sandwich!....take that, Food, Inc., just kidding about Food, Inc., not Josie having ice cream for dinner. After that, not surprisingly, she was super-ready to entertain us with her dancing, while Jay Sr. played the piano. This kid has some serious moves. Continuing with the dancing theme, we watched "Gypsy Ballerina" with her. It was just terrible, but Josie liked it.

Happy Anniversary on the 16th to Krista and Carter.

Enjoy your weekend everyone. Paintings are still not ready, but I'll post one on Monday, no matter what. That's if I don't forget.

I said I'd tell you about Valentine's Day--

Jay bought me a bunch of gorgeous roses. They're pink, shaded with green. And as usual a lovely card. I am a lucky woman and am still crazy in love with him, crazy being the operative here.

We started off by going to Terrain in Glenn Mills. I had some money left on my gift card that Krista and Carter gave me for Christmas. They have wonderful sea salt caramels and their indoor plants were on sale. I picked up a plant that's in the Gloxinia family, with deep, flaming orange/red, bell-shaped flowers.

After that we came home and got ready to go to dinner. On the way, we stopped by Nectar in Berwyn, where Torri works, for a drink. Jay had white wine and I had one of their signature blood orange martinis. It was perfecto! Torri also made a pear drink for me that I really liked. It would be just the refreshing thing to have all summer long.

So then we went to Alba in Malvern for dinner. I could go on and on about the place, but I'll give you the link to check out instead. Needless to say we thoroughly enjoyed it. Everything was just impeccable. www.restaurantalba.com We were thrilled.

We came home and decided to watch a movie, but I couldn't find the remote control, so we had to watch some lame documentaries, which I thankfully fell asleep during. I won't go into detail, but my reaction about the lost remote control wasn't pretty.

Danny woke me up when he came home and gave me a bouquet of antique-type roses, so beautiful that they totally made up for the remote control fiasco.

Since the two paintings that I told you about yesterday still need to cure for at least another day, I started another one tonight. Hopefully at least one of them will be finished tomorrow.

I'm going to pick up Josie tomorrow. We have family stuff going on all weekend.

Danny and Torri are going to Chicago to have dinner at Alinea www.alinea-restaurant.com/ I am so envious.

Even with Josie being here I should be back tomorrow night with a report.

It's embarrassing, but I keep forgetting to post at night. I usually remember when I'm falling asleep and too tired to get back up. In any case, the first blizzard was wondrous and exciting. The last one, not so much. It has certainly rocked my world and big changes will occur here because of it. We'll be re-homing the chickens, rabbits and quail. I can no longer care for them properly with this kind of weather and the predators. I'm five feet tall and trying to walk through four feet of snow is brutal. I just can't physically do it anymore. So it'll be goodbye to the animals except for my new canary--gratis Bailey Hale--and my tree frog. The canary sings all day and is such a joy. His name is Valentino and I love him, but after these decades of raising chickens and rabbits, it's breaking my heart to see them go. I'll miss them so much. On a happier note, we really had a lot of fun being snowed in during the first snow storm with Celeste, Jay Jr., Danny and Torri. Then Bailey and the Murrays came on Sunday to pick up the Ninja turtles and some chickens and stayed for dinner. It was Super Bowl Sunday. I didn't watch even a second of it, but we had a great time. We killed a magnum of Gloria Ferrar sparkling wine from Carneros, CA and Bailey made blood orange gimlets and of course we had some Dark and Stormys. The Murray kids were adorable as usual. The second storm was no fun and everything started collapsing outside. The pictures are pretty descriptive. The snow looks so beautiful and peaceful, but is sinister in the danger it presents to the animals. I am so ready for spring. I have two paintings in the works; one is of the emu egg and pomelo that Danny bought for me and the other is of one of the roses out of the dozen that Jay Sr. gave to me for Valentines Day. Which is another story for tomorrow.

I'm home and grateful to be here having a Gimlet in honor of Bailey Hale. Maryland snow starts early tomorrow morning and as much as I would like to spend the night and be there to wake up with and hang with Josie all day, I need to be here to get the final feed and water out to the animals before the snowstorm. Jay and Celeste are planning to be snowed in here, which will be fun. I spent all day out on the road doing the food shopping first, so other than a few things that I forgot, which Jay and Celeste will pick up, I feel secure even if we lose power. Wood stoves are a wonderful thing. If we don't lose power I'll try to post tomorrow night, otherwise I'll be back on Monday. Either way, enjoy the snow and your weekend.

I took Finn's finished portrait for his "mom" to view this afternoon. It gave me extreme joy to see and pet Finn once again. He is so stinkin' cute. Pam loved his portrait, but when I showed it to Finn, it immediately got his attention and he also approved. He really looked it over and then wagged his tail. Thank you Finn. It doesn't look nearly as good on here as it does in person. There's a lot of glare on the left that I darkened and the detail is lost in the white. After it dries some and I put a temporary varnish on it, I'll take a picture of it again and post it. I believe it'll look much better. I'm pretty wiped out after a lot of stuff today, but before I go, I need to wish my beautiful and brilliant niece Lauren, a Happy 21st Birthday! It was on the 24th. All my best wishes honey. I love you. Good night.

This snowfall feels nice. Almost insulating, even though I'm indoors. The enveloping silence is magical. I like it.

This morning I went to a different local post office. It was like going to a different planet. Seriously, my usual post office has employees that are as difficult and miserable as they come. It's a dark, depressing place, although the outside is kind of quaint.

Now picture someone's house that was converted into a post office and the host is there to greet and help you with actually packing your package, not only that, he does it with a grateful smile.

Then there's the addition of bright, cheerful light from curtained windows and table lamps and then there's beautiful, classical music playing and whimsical, witty signs that make you laugh, or think. So imagine my shock today when I went into the alternative post office and a woman with a baby in a car seat was at the counter and the gentleman--in the true sense of the word-- was helping her pack up two packages to ship. Not in any hurry or annoyance. Truly helpful.

Then I step up to the desk to hand over my 20lb. package. No, wait, "Mr. Lee" comes out from behind the desk to help me. Honest! I've already made a shipping label, so all that needs to be done is place the package in the cart, but I'm so thankful for this experience that I ran out to the car to grab a dozen eggs for Mr. Lee. I hand them to him and he becomes emotional and can't thank me enough for the eggs, like they were gold! I am so totally impressed that I can't wait to go back. Mr. Lee, where have you been all of my life? I love this place, but I am really pissed off that I've had to put up with so much crap from the employees from the other post office for all of these years. Oh well, I'm so happy that I now have a choice to go to Mr. Lee's post office.

Krista , Jeanie and I discovered Skype today. Boy, we're really having a lot of fun with it. Krista has me conversing with Josie's Barbie and Ken dolls. Trying to trick me into thinking that Barbie is really her. Krista, here are two hints, 1. you have to find a way to make her lips move and 2. since I'm your mother, I know you don't have blue eyes. Then the Johnson kids answered when we called Jeanie's house. All three of them talking to us at once. Jonah telling us his jokes from the joke book that he wrote, Isabella singing something and Gabriel being Ninja, or was that Isabella?

OK, my work here is finished for tonight. Enjoy the snow.

Bill Keim was 30 years old and a friend to Jeanie and Danny. He died about two weeks ago. A tragic, accidental shooting. He was smart and I always enjoyed his many times here. He was the kind of kid that was comfortable with people of all ages, so he and I talked a lot about photography and how to solve the world's problems. I went to high school with his mom, Peggy. She was always laughing, bright and cheerful. She still has that same sparkling smile. It just broke my heart when I saw her at Bill's memorial service. Jeanie came home way in advance of the services, so I spent a lot of time with her. As much as I love and miss her kids, we got so much accomplished and were able to yak it up without interruption. She left early yesterday morning. I'm already missing her. Last night Jay and I went to my friend Peter's house for a great party. The food was terrific, but the people were so much fun. I love being this age, so much of the bs is gone and the genuine in most people prevails. We laughed a lot. I really needed it. I'm pretty much finished Finn's portrait, but I don't want to post it yet until his mom Pam sees it. He's such a cute little dog. I also finished reading "Still Life With a Woodpecker". Once I understood the language Tom Robbins wrote in, I could finally begin to enjoy the book. I still think he's nothing short of a lunatic (must be why he's so into lunaception, he's most likely strongly affected by the moon) or he was just doing too many drugs at the time. Whatever. So that's it for tonight. Stay warm.