Candy canes in the driveway

We have candy canes in our driveway.  Doesn’t everybody?  (Of course I know that everybody does not.)  Every year, just before the first snow flies or maybe just after, the candy canes are put out, lining the driveway so we will know where to plow (and where to drive) during the winter months.  Most people around here with any length to their driveways have them lined with something.  If you look closely in the photo above, you can see reflectors across the street lining the neighbor’s driveway.  We didn’t need the candy canes this year because we didn’t have the usual build-up of snow.

Sunset on Tuesday

It’s early in the season to be taking them down.  With winter being as mild as it has been, it’s tempting.  Being a slightly superstitious soul, I also think it might be tempting winter if we do put the candy canes away for the season.  It’s a little like washing your car.  Rain is likely to follow such an event.

Effects added in Picnik.

We’ll leave the candy canes for now.  One more month.  Winter should have made up its mind to stay or go by then, and any snow we get after that point usually doesn’t hang around for long.

The sunset photos are from Tuesday evening.  The different colors are a result of changing the white balance.  In the third photo (up there ↑ somewhere), I added some star effects in Picnik.  Otherwise, the colors are a result of the camera and Mother Nature.

We did not need our plow guy this year, either.  That’s probably just as well.  He’s either retiring from the plowing business or he couldn’t afford to fix the vehicle he uses for plowing.  We tried calling some other plow guys, to set something up in case we did get enough snow to plow, but no one returned our calls.

We have had that problem a lot over the last year or two.  Nobody seems to want to work.  Or maybe they don’t want to return phone calls.  I can’t tell.  Several months ago, M and I went to visit a number of fireplace stores in the area in search of an insert for one of our fireplaces (the gas fireplace).  We wanted something that would put out heat rather than suck it up the chimney.  Out of the five places we visited, only one (the last) offered any solutions or help.  The employees and/or owners of the other fireplace stores were either lackadaisical, didn’t know enough about their products to give us any meaningful information other than “yeah, that might work,” or they came right out and said they didn’t want to do the work.

Naturally we went with the last place.  That turned out to be an excellent decision as they were not only extremely helpful in offering well-informed solutions, they were willing to come back to the house several times after the installation to tweak the system.  Perhaps the lack of help at the first four places was the universe’s way of directing us to the right guys for the job.

Reading at sunset.

That’s about it from the Bogs for today.  Thanks for stopping by.  I’d show you today’s view of the pond, but I decided not to pick up the camera today.  It was quite beautiful this morning at sunrise with the back of the pond all lit up by the sun.  You could see the glow of the buds on the trees.  The maples have a red aura to them, while the willows are surrounded by a yellow-green flare.  The surface of the pond was still and smooth, everything mirrored perfectly in its reflection.

It’s cloudy now, with a high wind warning from 7pm until 10am tomorrow.  If we hurry, we have just enough time for a quick stroll around the pond before the rain gets here and the wind starts whipping.  Batten down the hatches.  They’re saying those wind gusts could get up to 60mph.  Yikes.

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