the deer are back!

The deer, who disappeared about two weeks into hunting season, leaving the corn put out for them untouched, leaving no foot prints, have finally returned.

Not skittish at all, since they let me stand at the kitchen window and take pictures, where before I've had them bound off as soon as I raised the camera.

They did watch me closely, though.

There were actually three of them, but I never managed to get more than two in one shot.

How I spent December 25

and most of today, as well. Ahhh, warm feet.

(It took three tries to catch the flames, and they don't show up much at all.)

our clients love us...

...and they want to fatten us up. This is my share, among the ten of us, of all the non-perishable food items we were given. (We ate the fresh-baked cookies, the bean dip, the fruit and the cakes and the fudge that arrived earlier. That foil wrapped object? That's a whole Lane cake that was brought in yesterday, our last day open. I just got lucky.)

multitasking

Not me. The stove.

I spend an amazing amount of time for someone of my generation being grateful for all the modern conveniences and neat technology I have, but I take pains to avoid being dependent on them.

Turkey soup and dry underwear without using any electricity: points for my side. (Notice how the clean laundry is raised so it won't be casually rubbed against by the dog. Win.)

problem of the day

How to drive west safely while watching the dawn color the sky in the rear view mirror? I managed to stay on the road somehow.

door decoration

I gave up waiting for a sunny day, and did the best I could to be a human tripod.

My uncle the florist sent us this wicker door decoration, complete with pine cones and foliage, sometime between 1961 and 1964. We used it off and on for years, renewing the greenery and ribbons as necessary. This is its second year at the new house.

not exactly a decoration

but The Mirror finally got hung after spending a year waiting in the basement just so it could get seen on the House Tour. It hung over the fireplace (only heat source) in my grandmother's living room, and I don't have any idea where it came from, but it looks older than she was. It was always called "the mirror" without any other details.

going overboard

Even though the House Tour isn't a decoration contest, the tour organizers kept asking me (when trying to schedule pictures for the paper) if I'd done any decorating yet, and I kept saying no, because I wouldn't have time until the five days off over Thanksgiving, so I had put a few things up but not much. All this nagging had me going overboard. My usual decoration runs to a tree and a door decoration, and a centerpiece for the table. But gilding the bird's nest got me started.

I put pine cones in things.

I put the cedar I cut off the bottom of the trees in a washtub to keep it from drying out until I could use it, and when the tour organizers brought me the sign-in sheet and looked over the house they liked it and told me not to throw it out. I hope the guests liked it. I thought it was a bit back-country.

Then I put a tree up in what's now the guest room,

in addition to the main tree

and I put pine and cedar in things

and around things

and on things, combined with lights and ornaments as a sort of horizontal tree

Everybody liked the bird's nest, and a great many people walked in and exclaimed "Oh! You have a real tree!" in surprise and pleasure.

first snow

Not very much snow, but the first.

Enough to need sweeping off the walk...

...since my plan to let it melt off has failed.

I survived the House Tour

The house tour was as much fun to host as it is to go on, except that you don't see everybody else's house. I talked for five hours without a break. I will report later, with pictures of decorations, when I have regained my so-called sanity.