Two Bentos, a Dog, and a Mountain

Pretty February Sky

Backyard looks like a glacier

 The last few weeks we've had some interesting weather. One day -25°F. Four days later +40°F. We have a ton of snow on the ground. Some of the snow has been blown into drifts by the fierce winds we frequently have (gusts 50-80 mph are not uncommon). Last night we had freezing rain. Our front yard is buried in 3' of snow and the top is perfectly glassy smooth like ganache from the rain and then freezing again. One plus from this weather was a happy day for Panda earlier this week. She realized if she stood on top of the snow drift in the back yard she could see over the 6' privacy fence. A whole new world...

I found time to make a couple of bentos this week too!

Carrot, raisin & cream cheese roll-ups, fruit, string cheese & crackers for me. Dave's has chocolate animal crackers.

Another bento just for me. I love this box. Happy marching! Avocado & fruit in the bottom with a penguin pick to watch over the marching band, and the top filled with meat and cheese & crackers left over from the Super Bowl party.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! We had a little snow on Sunday, and a little more on Monday. The next few days are supposed to be a bit chilly too. Today it's only 20° so far and our lows this week are supposed to be in the low teens. Seems colder than normal but its probably just because I'm not really ready for winter.

A Spring Bento

The last couple of weeks we've had some really nice weather. It's been in the 40s and sunny a lot. Yesterday it was a little gloomy so I made a happy spring-ish bento for lunch.

Tomato, basil, mozzarella and a little balsamic vinegar. Tuna salad in a small pita and fresh pineapple & strawberries. A piece of the basil made it's way onto the pineapple by accident, and it was delish!

Today, our weather has gotten worse. Snow. I shouldn't be surprised really, we pretty much always get snow in April. We'll probably even get more later in the month, but mentally I had hoped to be past this and headed into spring.

This is the view out my home office window. The snow is starting to stick and come down heavier now. Maybe it won't last long...*fingers crossed*...and those of you that live in warm places (like Florida!) send some sun my way!

Fluffy White Snow

Here's a quick street scene from this morning. We woke up to about 4" of the fluffy white stuff today. Now I'm going to play Christmas music!

Sent from my HTC

Yep - The Snow is Coming

The last several days we've had a terrible wind storm. Gusts to 80 mph, power out for hours (ours was only out 5 hours, I've heard other reports of power out over 24 hrs so far), trees & limbs down all over, lots and lots of glacial silt blowing around & an air quality alert in effect until Monday morning (although the wind has mostly died down and the air isn't bad now). I noticed it was very cloudy by the mountains and had a look of snow. There's a certain look the sky and clouds get when it's thinking about snowing. You just know it's coming. I took out the garbage and noticed we were getting flurries. Not many, and they didn't "stick" but it was still enough to remind us it's not far off. Once the clouds lifted . . . well, see for yourself.

 This is taken right in front of my mom's house. Lazy Mtn on the left and hidden in the clouds is Matanuska Peak. It's got a good bit of snow on it. Lazy only got a light dusting on the top.

 The sun came out a little on Lazy and you can see Matanuska Peak better through the clouds in this one.

 This is the view from our office parking lot down town. This is Pioneer Peak.

Another shot of Pioneer Peak and the Palmer water tower.

Spring was a tease!

We had a couple of weeks of warmer weather, and then last night . . . 4 inches of  new snow! NOOO! It's still very cloudy and wet outside, but this weekend should be back in the 40s so what ever is left should hopefully melt.

I took this picture last night as it was snowing. The ground was still warm so the wet snow was only sticking to the branches & grass. This branch was in my mom's driveway across town.