My Advent Calendar

December 7th 

I used Shutterfly to make this ornament after our two week vacation in Scotland in the Fall of 2017. The apartment we had through UnTours was in Dunblane and this was the cathedral there.

Here's a link to my blog post about this cathedral. 

Lots of good memories from that trip.  It was our first with UnTours.

We especially enjoyed shopping for dinners at the butcher shop which had these meat pies for sale.

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Today would have been my Mother's 107th birthday.  She managed to live to almost 95.  Miss her every day.  I'm sorry that none of my granddaughters never met her but I've made a point of telling them about her.

Here she is surrounded by her art work in the last months of her life.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

My Advent Calendar

 December 6th

This is an old ornament.  Likely someone gave it to us when Dan was the principal tuba player in the Baltimore Symphony.

[Technically this guy is playing a sousaphone not a tuba.]

My Advent Calendar

 December 5th

An ornament from Alaska. We visited there in 2007.

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Yesterday 5 trees were removed and totally shredded  chipped.  Quite an operation with one guy in the bucket trimming the trees then cutting off sections from the top down. Two others on the ground gathered the cut pieces and put them in the shredder  chipper.

Before

After view this morning.

See the bucket?

Cutting off the stumps.

That whole trunk will go in the shredder chipper.

After - view this morning.

Vicki asked if we'd be planting anything else there.  The trees were on our neighbors property and an threat for both our houses.  I don't believe our neighbor will replant.  There are some small hemlocks that she should keep topped to make a hedge.

I plan to plant shade plants on my side of the line along our driveway to try to keep the weeds out.

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The thermometer is reading 0º this morning.

I'm off this morning on errands, a bit of Christmas shopping and an over due haircut.

My Advent Calendar

December 4th

 I have at least 6 of these ceramic birds that I found years ago in a Vermont crafts shop. This was even before we moved to NH and we were visiting Emily who lived in Springfield, VT at the time.

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Another busy day today.  It's my homeschool day with Granddaughter #1.  It's been awhile since I was gone for two weeks in November.

Also today 5 trees that border our property along the driveway are to be removed.  They belong to the neighbor and were planted so many years ago to form a screen between the two houses. One is dead and the others diseased.

Here's the before photo.

You'll have to look closely for the red ribbons. Our barn is the green one. The standing stones mark the property line.

This was to have happened on Tuesday but the winter storm delayed it. It's a gray day again today and I have to wonder if they will show up.  If they do I'll share after photos tomorrow.