The entire province has a blizzard warning for tonight and tomorrow. I’m so excited – maybe we’ll get a real snowfall here!
In anticipation, I’ve patched together my ancient webcam. If it is working, you can see an image here: http://LisaSchuyler.com/webcam/
Here is the latest image:
This might be a really short lived experiment, so check it while you can, mind you, the sun just set so I can’t promise you’ll see anything until tomorrow.
We were thinking about going to New Glasgow today and maybe catching a movie! That is the closest large theatre to us. We don’t see many movies in theatres anymore.
I googled today’s movie selections and am so disappointed! All the actors I can’t stand: Will Smith, Brad Pitt, Jim Carrey, Tom Cruise – every one of them with a new Hollywood blockbuster for Christmas, everyone of them a horrible actor, and everyone of them with a bigger god-like complex than the next. All put there by their fans. Sickening.
So I guess we probably won’t see a movie today.
Here is our Sally kitten. In the first 2 pictures she is snuggling in my fleece vest (while I was wearing it!) and in the second two she is playing with the new toys her and Zeus got for Christmas from Jeff’s parents.
She’s such a sweet kitten and is well behaved! I expected the Christmas tree to fall victim to a kitten, but she just sits under it and watches us. She seems to sleep under our bed. Zeus plays with her sometimes, but ignores her for the most part. Monty is very curious and they have started playing together a little bit.
Is there such a thing as a winter hurricane? We have wind up to 100km/hr here this morning (up to 140 in Cape Breton!). The power is out at home and the expected restoration time is tomorrow night by 11:30pm.
It snowed quite a bit over night, and now it is supposed to rain a bit before it gets cold again.
I have power here at work, and Jeff has power at work, but I think most of the rest of the province is in the dark! Jeff said he has a tree down in his work parking lot.
The waves were HUGE on the lake this morning. I need to get a weather web cam up so you can tune in and see.
It’s our 1st Wedding Anniversary today 
And Merry Christmas to my family who is together for Christmas today! Sorry we live too far now 
Steve French went to his new home today. His new owner seems like a very nice lady. After we dropped him off I cried. Lots of tears. I’ve always known we couldn’t keep him, but it is so hard to give up a living being to stranger. I think he’ll be fine there, but it was very hard to know that I can’t be there any more for a kitten I took care of for months. I gave his new owner a bag with a new package of new cat toys, a fresh pouch of cat treats, some soft food, and a new bag of the kitten kibble he’s been eating. He loves food so much – he’ll probably be one of those huge fat cats some day.
Sally seems to be doing ok. I think Zeus looked for him more. He likes to be Uncle Zeus, watching out for the little ones.
I don’t know if Sally is staying here forever, but being a calico, I think she will be easier to find a home for later on if we need to let her go. She is so cute and irresistible. I’ve booked a spay and declaw for her in early January.
Yesterday was my 33rd birthday and I spent it at home recovering from the flu. At least I didn’t have to go to work on my birthday!
I somehow caught a 3 day flu (I blame germy doorknobs and grocery cart handles!). I had a fever, tossed my cookies, was achy and moany, had a headache, and just generally whined a lot. By yesterday evening I was cured.
It must have been because my sweetheart of a husband stopped by at lunch yesterday to bring me a strawberry shake from McDonald’s, a chocolate birthday cake, and a big bouquet of flowers! Awwww!
Today I was back at work and received a delivery of more flowers! Dad, Patti-Jo, and Patrick had a vase delivered to my desk full of flowers (and water!) I’m so spoiled.
Mom got me beautiful 14K gold pearl earrings in a beautiful silver jewelry box. They are very pretty!
Today winter arrived – well not officially – but we finally got snow! And lots of it! Jeff had to close his office early and send everyone home because the roads were so bad.
I was following a really slow person home at 15 km/hr. The highway was really greasy. She was going so slow, and driving in the middle road, that I realized I was soon going to get stuck if she didn’t speed up.
Well, she didn’t speed up. Instead she stopped completely, in the middle of the road!!
I felt bad, because the truth is this lady has no business driving. I get stuck behind her often driving to and from work. I don’t know anything about her, other than she is female, short, and always drives (slowly) with her left tires in the left lane. I have to pass her often. Well today I had to pass her after she parked in the middle of the snowy highway.
I did feel bad for leaving her, obviously panicked, but I didn’t know what else to do. I’m not about to tow her car behind mine, or leave her’s in the middle of the road, and there were other cars behind me.
So I carried on. I knew I had to pick up speed if I was going to make it up the snow covered hills so I set a good pace of 50km/hr.
Darkness came and I stayed calm and drove on towards the warmth of home when a large doe walked out of the woods and proceeded up the side of the ditch.
I somehow kept my wits about me. I knew I had a really good chance of hitting her. And I knew if I panicked and hit the brakes too hard I would spin out on the greasy thick snow and if I didn’t hit her, I’d surely hit the deep ditch.
I eased the brake on a little and watched her walk up on to the road. I knew at the last minute I could break and take a hard right if I could get behind her back legs. She didn’t seem to notice me at all and proceeded to walk right across the road, inches in front of my car.
WHEW.
Dodged a real bullet.. I mean deer..
When I got home I gunned it hard and spun my way up the driveway. Jeff had called my cell before I left work and said he had driven up and down the driveway a couple of times to left a path for my car to get up.
I made it on the first shot but by the smell of rubber lingering in the air, I might have left some of my winter tires on the slope of the driveway.
Last night a person contacted me by email for a kitten. I told her about Steve French and took some photos of him and we emailed back and forth. She has an 8 month old kitten and it looking for a playmate for him. The catch is she lives in New Glasgow, and not only do I have to drive him to her, I have to give her $30 to cover half of his neuter surgery. I guess that is a small price to pay compared to keeping him for the rest of his life. He is a real nice cat – he sure loves his food though! I think he’s going to be a big boy!
Yesterday it hit 20°C in town yesterday! It didn’t really feel warm and balmy though. It rained and poured and the winds were gusting to 90km/hr through the afternoon, evening, and into the night!
Today it is back down to -2°C’ish. The lake is really high with all the rain that fell yesterday.
Remember my neighbour’s dock? He puts so much time and effort into it and his shore line. Last spring the ice break up destroyed his dock and left it a splintered pile of lumber and metal. He spent days redoing it this summer, and as of this morning, it is under water!!!
We drove around the lake to check out the high water.
We saw all kinds of ducks. My little camera doesn’t zoom across the lake very well, so I can’t identify these.
Our house!
Oops! A tree came down in the wind, right on someone’s shed.
Hunting season has drawn to a close, but this is where Jeff was bow hunting this year – up and over the hill behind this farm.
More ducks:
Today we got our first Christmas tree together today!
We debated the cut-your-own fields, and we scoured two different tree lots, and then we found OUR TREE!
We decided against cutting our own, since there isn’t a speck of snow and everything is muddy after our heavy downpour yesterday (more on that in my next post). Dragging a tree out of a tree farm through the mud didn’t seem all Christmasy.
We settled on Edward Chisholm’s tree yard in the Canadian Tire parking lot. They always have trees moving there so we hoped they would be freshly cut. A lot of Christmas trees are cut here back in early November for export.
Did you know that is one of the biggest crops in Nova Scotia? Christmas Trees! Balsam fir usually. I would never have imagined a balsam fir Christmas tree. Balsam fir in the boreal forests of Ontario are thinly branched and known to be the most flammable of trees.
The balsam firs here are thick and strong and smell INCREDIBLE!
This tree yard also had a few pines. I like a pine Christmas tree, but wanted to try the traditional balsam fir of Nova Scotia first.
I always wondered how they baled the trees. When you see tractor trailers of Christmas trees going by on the highway (often exported to the US), the trees are all wrapped up. Now I know how they do it!
They use this baler. It has a motor that is started underneath with a pull start cord. The tree goes in, butt first, from the far side. The operator starts the baling twine around the base, and then grabs the bottom branches with 2 metal hooks that pull the tree through as the twine is wrapped briskly around the tree. Lickity split, the tree is bundled, and easy to handle.
And here is our tree!!
They say you should saw off the bottom of the tree before you pop it into your tree stand full of water.
Monty thought that piece of wood was meant for him, so he scooped it up as soon as it hit the porch.
We got a heavy duty, last a life time, tree stand manufactured in New Brunswick. It was really easy to use. Underneath I have Grandma Stock’s tree felt that she passed on to me a few years ago.
The tree was a little bit too tall if we wanted to fit our new angel on, and we did, so Jeff took it out to the porch to cut a few more inches off the stem.
And presto!
Jeff surprised me and told me to open my first gift. It it a beautiful Nova Scotia seagull pewter Christmas ornament that says “Our 1st Christmas XO” on it. awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
Here it is decorated!! Most of our Christmas decorations we received as wedding gifts last year. Every one is treasure.
And here is our angel for on top!
It smells really good in here! We put up the rest of decorations. I’ll get another photo of the tree for you once all of our presents are underneath it 
I’m posting this today to come clean.
I’ve taken on a new addiction this fall that I let take over my free time. This morning I decided to quit cold turkey. So far no shakes.
I’m addicted to a Facebook application called “Mousehunt“. A clever little time waster that baits your brain every 15 minutes by giving you another chance at catching a mouse carrying gold.
If that wasn’t bad enough, my brother created another Facebook application with the same addictive claws. A game called “FableIsland” that lets you mindlessly fish or gather twigs and vines every 15 minutes.
I let these games take over to the point I have been sneaking checks at them at work. Just 2 seconds, I tell myself. I’ll just load it quick and hit the ‘hunt’ or ‘fish’ button real quick. And only once, then I must wait until I get home.
Then I get home and instead of doing something productive, I’ll check to make sure I have enough cheese in my mousetrap or enough worms to bait my hooks with. And if I busy myself between 15 minute checks, I can get 2 hunts or fishing tries in while I sit here for 20 minutes.
If I’m going to sit on my computer I might as well be tweaking my ads or website or doing something for a client so I can make money or do something useful with my time. And I can’t risk jobs by checking in on a Facebook game!
I’m sorry Brian that I can no longer play your game. But I’ll sneak a peek over Jeff’s shoulder when he plays. If only I could donate to him all the vines and branches I’ve collected.
Now let’s see what addiction I can tackle next.
I had been bragging that we didn’t have winter here yet, and then it arrived over night on Sunday night.
I had 2 bad days of winter driving.
This morning I woke up and all the snow was gone!
It was +14C on the way home from work, but it is so windy outside – I’d say gusts of 60-70 km/h. We now have a freezing rain warning for tonight and tomorrow. We could see 12 hours of freezing rain, so we are debating taking the vehicles back down to the highway level rather than up here on the side of the valley. You know, because of that big deep lake that would intercept our vehicles if we lost traction going down an icy driveway 
Hopefully the power stays on!
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9:22PM update: We just watched the outdoor thermometer plunge before our eyes so we just drove our vehicles down to the highway level and hiked back up in the rain. Kinda hoping for either a miss or a big hit with this freezing rain storm because I don’t want to drive to work and back in freezing rain.