Goodbye 2010. A toast to the year now ending...

How will you toast 2010 as it ends and welcome 2011?

My favourite photo from Christmas...

Enlightened

Stay snug!

Feasting upon Beauty

On the Feast of Stephen

Evening Grosbeaks!

Merry Christmas, Every One

It's Christmas Eve...

Halls Decked? check!

Wreath? check!

Happy Awesome Solstice!

Photo courtesy of my marine biologist niece, Dianna, in South Carolina tonight!

Solstice occurs at 6:38pm EST.
Meanwhile...
The total lunar eclipse is occurring from around 1:00am to 5:00am EST, with absolute midpoint at 3:17am. The last time this occurred on the day of the solstice was 21 December 1638. The next time will be 21 December 2094. Fascinating that it's always on the 21st when this happens.
More here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/20/AR2010122006447.html

Snow? check!

It Really Leaves a Big Hole

We are grateful for what remains.

Counting the Years

Wind Clean Up

Note that one of our Tree Guys is a woman! :-)

Wind Damage

I so see parallels with what's going on in DC. What sort of damage will come when big weak trees meet up with strong ill winds?

Windstorm

Female Hairy Woodpecker

Happy Feast of St. Lucia!

"St. Lucia invites you to breakfast!"

FYI! The blog was eating posts earlier today, then posted all of them again! There should be 19 or more posts, so if you don't see them don't give up, just check back. ♥

It's Cookie Baking Day at my house!

NOT!

Ah well, I guess we can wait one more week, so that everyone arrives on a good weather day!

Cardinal in Snow

Cupcake Hat made by Susan!

Here is Ally and her Mommy and Ally is wearing the Cupcake Hat that Susan made for her!!

Coming down the other side...

...to an old familiar path. Now I can get to the ridge trail from either end!

ON TOP!

Celtic view from near the top

Happy Feast of St. Nicholas!

Since we'll be at Daughter's for Christmas, we're thinking of not getting an indoor tree this year.
We always hate to cut one down and this year our local tree place is running out of trees!
We may put up some greenery around the livingroom windows instead.
What are your plans? Anything new?

Come up higher

The view from above...

The highland path...

...was skillfully created by a dear naturalist neighbour who is well into his 80's now.
He is one of the locals who strongly encouraged my wildlife biologist son in his early days.

We're going up there.

Suddenly I remembered that I had been up that hill before.

HAPPY CHANUKAH! (at sundown)

Try as I might, I could not find photos of our Menorah alight!

First we need to cross the stream...

Come on over this way...

...Quite a nice surprise was waiting for me.

Shall we resume our walk?

The path brought me to a place I used to frequent before the trail to it was closed the usual way!

A beautiful Saturday to you!

Bonus: Name that bug.

Who is going out for Black Friday?

All together again for another Happy Thanksgiving!

Moving on...

I'll come back to this walk another time. (It definitely gets better!) :-)

Underneath!

The roots look like Celtic knots! (This mound is twice my height!)

Straight-Line Wind Damage!

This must have happened in the freak nor'easter we got back in July!
I had no idea it has come so close to my back yard!

But what's this?!

The root system is twice my height!

Someone's handiwork at the end of a log-footpath!

Onward

Lovely

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOWARD DEAN!

79th Governor of Vermont


50th Chair of the DNC



1st Always





A clip from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dean

An early front-runner for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, Dean denounced the 2003 invasion of Iraq and called on Democrats to oppose the Bush administration. Dean showed fundraising ability, and was a pioneer of political fundraising via the Internet; however, he lost the nomination to Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. Dean formed the organization Democracy for America and later was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee in February 2005.

As chairman of the party, Dean created and employed the 50 State Strategy that attempted to make Democrats competitive in normally conservative states often dismissed in the past as "solid red." The success of the strategy became apparent after the 2006 midterm elections, where Democrats took back the House and picked up seats in the Senate from normally Republican states such as Missouri and Montana. In the 2008 election, Barack Obama used The 50 state strategy as the backbone of his candidacy.

Dean was named chairman emeritus of the DNC upon his retirement.^[2] He was mentioned as a possible candidate for Secretary of Health and Human Services^[3] and Surgeon General under the Obama administration.^[4] He currently holds no elected office or official position in the Democratic party.

Want to take a walk?

Vermont one week ago...

...after a visit from the White Witch of Narnia! Then came the sun and warmer temps.

Ah, Romance...

Flower Girl

What is it about a white dress?