‘Tis The Season

The holidays are here, some decent rainfall in the past few weeks has resulted in the hillsides turning green again, and Christmas decorations are in place.

For the past two years because the COVID pandemic put a damper on holidays, we set up a smaller tree in the living room instead of our traditional 9 footer in the family room.  A new red rug was added this year in hopes of reducing breakage of ornaments in the event they slipped off the branches.

Having the lights pre-wired on the tree is a great time saver so it only took a few minutes to assemble the tree.

Then time for the ornaments.  I have been collecting glass ornaments for many years.  We have some really nice fabric covered boxes for storing the collection.

At this point I do not use all the ornaments on the tree.  I have decided on bird, flower and geometric ornaments for this tree.  (The Santas, snowmen, clowns, animals, musical instruments, toys and other random items worked out nicely for the smaller tree used the past two years.  )

It took a lot of trips up a ladder to decorate the top part of the tree.  Then the rest is easy.

Ready for Santa.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

 

Martian Sky

No, the colors were not photoshopped.  This is what happens when there is a wildfire near enough to color the sky.

Snow?

And then late this afternoon, a random thunderstorm came through. At first it looked like snow — only instead of flakes it was round. A bit later it harder and louder as the hail came down. It was cold enough that instead of melting as soon as it stopped bouncing like previous hail we had encountered, this time it laid on the ground until from a distance it looked like a light dusting of snow,

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Tree up, most gifts wrapped and on their way, working on the rest of the preparations. Meanwhile, since there has been a little rain in the past few weeks, the hills are starting to change from summer golden brown to holiday green.

On the mend

Two weeks post surgery to repair the broken wrist. The heavily padded splint has been traded for a spring green cast. Am looking forward to the Ides of March when the cast comes off. Then according to the doctor, it will be several months before strength and flexibility are back.