My Icicles Are Bigger Than Yours

 Having grown up in Minnesota I tend to assume an expression of scorn when my Massachusetts neighbors complain about the winter blizzards.  "You call this snow?" I'd sniff.  "Back in Minnesota the snow was so deep we'd have to  go out by the second story windows."

But now it's official.  Worcester, MA has been cited as having the most snow of any city in the U.S. this winter--something around 100 inches since January 1st, last time I checked. 

By escaping to Florida  halfway through January, we cleverly missed most of the Blizzard of 2015 until now, coming back in time to experience the latest storm that ruined everyone's Valentine's Day plans and dropped another foot of snow on top of the  previous accumulation.

Here's a photo looking down at the stonewall-enclosed swimming pool.  That dimple in the middle is the diving board.  The drift against the back wall hides the rock garden and fishpond.  I'm not very optimistic that the fish will survive until spring--I'll let you know.

This is a photo of the pool from ground level.   At left you can see the backs of the plastic lounge chairs that I forgot to take inside in the fall.

Here's a photo of the front of our house that I took yesterday.  I used to wonder at the way that New Englanders never expect guests to come in the front door, but now I understand.  We use the side porch door as an entrance, and none of our neighbors have plowed out their front doors either.

Here's a photo of our house that I took today, after last night's blizzard.  You can see that the snow is deeper and that giant icicle at the left corner of the house is bigger.  Pretty soon it will reach the ground and be transformed from a stalactite to a stalagmite, I think.  This year I learned about ice dams and how they are responsible for the leak that's dripping into a bucket in one corner of the dining room.  Next year I'll know what to do to prevent them, but for this winter, it's too late.

And to make your day complete, here's the last photo I took in South Beach, Miami, six days ago.  Only five more weeks until Spring!

Confessions of a Christmas Tree Nut

Right now I should be addressing Christmas cards but I'm in the grip of my seasonal craziness which involves decorating...lots...of...trees.

I also decorate doors and chandeliers and kitchen shelves and the grand piano and of course the mantel piece, but what I do most is trees.  Each with a theme.  In every room.  Well, not EVERY room because my husband has started to crack down on that--especially in his office, despite the lovely all white (sprayed snow and icicles and pine cones) tree I did one year.  It shed.

I think this is a genetic thing inherited from my mother.  At Christmas time she decorated so much that you couldn't find a flat surface available to set down your cup of eggnog.

So far I've only put up, um, four.  And I'm going to show them to you now.

On the day after Thanksgiving came the Real Tree, which goes in the living room.  I realize that's much too early and it will soon be very dry, but daughter Eleni and her husband Emilio, with some other elves, insisted on dragging it home and putting on the lights as soon as the turkey was digested and the cranberry sauce was gone.  I usually pick a color scheme, and this year went with silver and white, with the only color coming from some crazy peacock ornaments I got from Pier One (which has great ornaments!  Have you seen the under-the-sea collection?  Squid and fish and lobsters and crayfish and mermaids.  Now there's a theme I haven't tried.)

With the peacocks, I also used lots of white butterflies (from the Dollar Store) and white birds and angel wings, so I guess the theme of the wonderful-smelling Real Tree this year would be wings.

In the dining room I always put a wire tree to show off my antique ornaments.  And I put a wire from the tree to the window latch so that it (hopefully) can't get knocked over.  You can see that we don't have snow yet in Massachusetts, unlike Minnesota, but we will soon.

Some of these ornaments are reproductions, but most are the real thing.  My grandmother had a whole tree decorated with blown-glass birds with those spun glass tails and often a metal clip to hold it on the tree.  I still have a few of hers.  I really love the fragile teapots once sold at every Woolworth's for pennies. They cost a lot more now.  The blown-glass ornaments usually say "West Germany" on the metal cap.  The  glass ornaments that were once screw-in lights were made in Japan between 1930 and 1950 and are a lot less likely to break.

In the library I always put my Shoe Tree, which started when the Metropolitan Museum in New York first started selling ornaments based on shoes in their collections.  

This became a kind of mania and now I can't afford to buy the newest ones from the Museum, but I've added lots of cunning real (baby-sized) shoes, and people keep giving me more.  My favorites on this tree are the Chinese baby shoes that look like cats and the fur-lined baby moccasins and the tiny Adidas sneakers.

On the porch I've put the  Kitchen Tree, or Cookie & Candy Tree.  This was inspired by some friends who live in a tiny apartment and decorate their tree only with cookies and candy and pretzels and candy canes.  Then, when Christmas is over, they put it all outside for the birds and other New York fauna to enjoy.

As you can see, I've cheated quite a bit--adding ornaments that look like kitchen utensils and non-edible gingerbread men and peppermints.  An authentic Kitchen Tree should have chains of real popcorn and cranberries (which we did back when I had children small enough to enjoy stringing them.)

Last year  Trader Joe's sold little gingerbread men with holes already punched in their heads so I could string them on the tree, but this year the gingerbread men are frosted but the holes are missing, so I just  stabbed them with the wire hooks and it worked fine (and any that broke, I ate, of course. They taste better frosted.)

That's four trees so far and counting--I still haven't started decorating the tree in my studio that holds my stash of ornaments from Mexico and India, but that will come soon, and I haven't  shown you my Santa Claus collection and the miniature town in the bay window in the kitchen and the many creches we have from around the world....But let's face it, I have to get back to those Christmas cards.

The Faces of Civil War Vets

I'm re-posting this essay--originally posted two years ago--- because  it was very popular--drawing nearly 1400 "hits", and because we have added the expert commentary of  Mark W. Savolis, Head of Archives and Special Collections at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. to help us interpret this wonderful photo.  All additional comments and information are welcome!

 Favorite Photograph Friday.

Since Memorial Day has just passed and flags are flying all over town in tribute to our country’s  military defenders, it seemed appropriate to share with you this photograph of a group of Civil War veterans assembled in Reading, Massachusetts in 1894 on the occasion of the 250^th anniversary of the town. 

I love this photo because of the faces—especially of the older men.  Each one is worth a portrait.  And you can see how proud they are of their uniforms and accomplishments.  Some of the younger men, like the boy who’s second from the left in the back row, clearly are too young to have fought in the Civil War.  Perhaps only the front row are the Civil War vets.

This photograph, which is a large albumen print mounted on cardboard, is approximately 8 by 10 inches in size.  On the back someone has written, “Reading 250 Anniversary, Commander Harley Prentiss and staff, 1894.”

(Every time I find an identification like that on the back of any old photograph, I breathe a little prayer of thanks and vow that I, like my mother, will always identify photos before I stash them away.  Of course I don’t, especially because most of my photos exist only in my computer.)

A little Googling got me this information:  “Harley Prentiss served in the 50^th Regiment of infantry of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in the late war of the rebellion.”  

And in a listing of soldiers I found: “Sergt. Clerk Harley Prentiss. Age 18 – Reading. Enl. Aug. 11, 1862.  Mustered Sept. 19, 1862. Mustered out Aug. 24, 1863.  Subsequent service Co. E – lst Battery heavy artillery.  Died in Reading MA.”

Now I am not one of those photo collectors who specialize in the Civil War.  I know these collectors (who are mostly men)  could tell me everything about these medals and uniforms and insignia.  If someone would like to fill me in by leaving a comment below, I’d really appreciate it.

I’m guessing that the man  seated in the center  of the first row is  Harley Prentiss, with the feathers (cockade?) on his hat.  If he enlisted at age 18 in 1862, he would be 50 in this photo in 1894.

But this guy, with his dashing hat labeled “194, G.A.R.” also looks pretty important.  (I do know that G.A.R. stands for Grand Army of the Republic.)

And this man on the far right—what’s that stick he’s holding?  I notice that some of the belt buckles have stars on them and others have eagles but what’s on this buckle, I’m not sure.

I’m hoping some of you Civil War experts out there will fill me in.  But in the meantime, let’s all raise a glass to honor the men and women who have been risking their lives in defense of our country since 1776.

Confessions of a Christmas Tree Nut

(This is a re-post from the past, but this year I've already got my four trees --described below--  up at home in Massachusetts, thanks entirely to the patience,  talents and assistance of family members.  Right now, I'm in Manhattan, about to take the subway with daughter Eleni and granddaughter Amalia to Rockefeller Center to see the ultimate Christmas tree... then the Radio City Christmas show.  Can't wait!  As to the annual Christmas card and letter--I haven't even started!)

Right now I should be addressing Christmas cards but I'm in the grip of my seasonal craziness which involves decorating...lots...of...trees.

I also decorate doors and chandeliers and kitchen shelves and the grand piano and of course the mantel piece, but what I do most is trees.  Each with a theme.  In every room.  Well, not EVERY room because my husband has started to crack down on that--especially in his office, despite the lovely all white (sprayed snow and icicles and pine cones) tree I did one year.  It shed.

I think this is a genetic thing inherited from my mother.  At Christmas time she decorated so much that you couldn't find a flat surface available to set down your cup of eggnog.

So far I've only put up, um, four.  And I'm going to show them to you now.

On the day after Thanksgiving came the Real Tree, which goes in the living room.  I realize that's much too early and it will soon be very dry, but daughter Eleni and her brand new husband Emilio, with some other elves, insisted on dragging it home and putting on the lights as soon as the turkey was digested and the cranberry sauce was gone.  I usually pick a color scheme, and this year went with silver and white, with the only color coming from some crazy peacock ornaments I got from Pier One (which has great ornaments!  Have you seen the under-the-sea collection?  Squid and fish and lobsters and crayfish and mermaids.  Now there's a theme I haven't tried.)

With the peacocks, I also used lots of white butterflies (from the Dollar Store) and white birds and angel wings, so I guess the theme of the wonderful-smelling Real Tree this year would be wings.

In the dining room I always put a wire tree to show off my antique ornaments.  And I put a wire from the tree to the window latch so that it (hopefully) can't get knocked over.  You can see that we don't have snow yet in Massachusetts, unlike Minnesota, but we will soon.

Some of these ornaments are reproductions, but most are the real thing.  My grandmother had a whole tree decorated with blown-glass birds with those spun glass tails and often a metal clip to hold it on the tree.  I still have a few of hers.  I really love the fragile teapots once sold at every Woolworth's for pennies. They cost a lot more now.  The blown-glass ornaments usually say "West Germany" on the metal cap.  The  glass ornaments that were once screw-in lights were made in Japan between 1930 and 1950 and are a lot less likely to break.

In the library I always put my Shoe Tree, which started when the Metropolitan Museum in New York first started selling ornaments based on shoes in their collections.  

This became a kind of mania and now I can't afford to buy the newest ones from the Museum, but I've added lots of cunning real (baby-sized) shoes, and people keep giving me more.  My favorites on this tree are the Chinese baby shoes that look like cats and the fur-lined baby moccasins and the tiny Adidas sneakers.

On the porch I've put the  Kitchen Tree, or Cookie & Candy Tree.  This was inspired by some friends who live in a tiny apartment and decorate their tree only with cookies and candy and pretzels and candy canes.  Then, when Christmas is over, they put it all outside for the birds and other New York fauna to enjoy.

As you can see, I've cheated quite a bit--adding ornaments that look like kitchen utensils and non-edible gingerbread men and peppermints.  An authentic Kitchen Tree should have chains of real popcorn and cranberries (which we did back when I had children small enough to enjoy stringing them.)

Last year  Trader Joe's sold little gingerbread men with holes already punched in their heads so I could string them on the tree, but this year the gingerbread men are frosted but the holes are missing, so I just  stabbed them with the wire hooks and it worked fine (and any that broke, I ate, of course. They taste better frosted.)

That's four trees so far and counting--I still haven't started decorating the tree in my studio that holds my stash of ornaments from Mexico and India, but that will come soon, and I haven't  shown you my Santa Claus collection and the miniature town in the bay window in the kitchen and the many creches we have from around the world....But let's face it, I have to get back to those Christmas cards.

The Faces of Civil War Vets

 Favorite Photograph Friday.

Since Memorial Day has just passed and flags are flying all over town in tribute to our country’s  military defenders, it seemed appropriate to share with you this photograph of a group of Civil War veterans assembled in Reading, Massachusetts in 1894 on the occasion of the 250^th anniversary of the town. 

I love this photo because of the faces—especially of the older men.  Each one is worth a portrait.  And you can see how proud they are of their uniforms and accomplishments.  Some of the younger men, like the boy who’s second from the left in the back row, clearly are too young to have fought in the Civil War.  Perhaps only the front row are the Civil War vets.

This photograph, which is a large albumen print mounted on cardboard, is approximately 8 by 10 inches in size.  On the back someone has written, “Reading 250 Anniversary, Commander Harley Prentiss and staff, 1894.”

(Every time I find an identification like that on the back of any old photograph, I breathe a little prayer of thanks and vow that I, like my mother, will always identify photos before I stash them away.  Of course I don’t, especially because most of my photos exist only in my computer.)

A little Googling got me this information:  “Harley Prentiss served in the 50^th Regiment of infantry of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in the late war of the rebellion.”  

And in a listing of soldiers I found: “Sergt. Clerk Harley Prentiss. Age 18 – Reading. Enl. Aug. 11, 1862.  Mustered Sept. 19, 1862. Mustered out Aug. 24, 1863.  Subsequent service Co. E – lst Battery heavy artillery.  Died in Reading MA.”

Now I am not one of those photo collectors who specialize in the Civil War.  I know these collectors (who are mostly men)  could tell me everything about these medals and uniforms and insignia.  If someone would like to fill me in by leaving a comment below, I’d really appreciate it.

I’m guessing that the man  seated in the center  of the first row is  Harley Prentiss, with the feathers (cockade?) on his hat.  If he enlisted at age 18 in 1862, he would be 50 in this photo in 1894.

But this guy, with his dashing hat labeled “194, G.A.R.” also looks pretty important.  (I do know that G.A.R. stands for Grand Army of the Republic.)

And this man on the far right—what’s that stick he’s holding?  I notice that some of the belt buckles have stars on them and others have eagles but what’s on this buckle, I’m not sure.

I’m hoping some of you Civil War experts out there will fill me in.  But in the meantime, let’s all raise a glass to honor the men and women who have been risking their lives in defense of our country since 1776.

Confessions of a Christmas Nut – Part II

I’ve got my (four) Christmas trees up early this year—because, when daughter Eleni and her husband Emilio and our brand new granddaughter Amalía came for Thanksgiving, we knew that they would not be back for Christmas. (They’re going to Emilio’s family in Nicaragua.) So, under Eleni’s direction, they bought a Christmas Tree the day after Thanksgiving and decorated it the same day so we all could take “Christmas photos.” 

Here are some shots of three-month-old Amalia gazing at her first Christmas tree in wonder.  We stuck to a mostly silver color scheme this year for the “real” tree, with some spots of red. The other trees—the “antique ornaments” tree, the “shoe tree” and the porch “cookies & candy” tree are pretty much the same as last year, so I thought I’d reprise last year’s blog post and photos below.

 (The happy family--E, E & A, and in the 2nd photo, Aunt Marina, better known as Tia Marina, trying to stuff Amalía into her stocking.)

It’s great that the Thanksgiving deadline spurred me to get the trees done early, but about now, I suspect that my Christmas cards are going to turn into New Year’s cards  (or Valentines!) if I don’t get them designed, printed, addressed and sent out this coming weekend.

How’s your holiday to-do list coming?  Any secrets for streamlining it?

Here's last year's post.  Click on the photos to enlarge them.

A Christmas Tree Nut

Right now I should be addressing Christmas cards but I'm in the grip of my seasonal craziness which involves decorating...lots...of...trees.

I also decorate doors and chandeliers and kitchen shelves and the grand piano and of course the mantel piece, but what I do most is trees.  Each with a theme.  In every room.  Well, not EVERY room because my husband has started to crack down on that--especially in his office, despite the lovely all white (sprayed snow and icicles and pine cones) tree I did one year.  It shed.

I think this is a genetic thing inherited from my mother.  At Christmas time she decorated so much that you couldn't find a flat surface available to set down your cup of eggnog.

So far I've only put up, um, four.  And I'm going to show them to you now.

On the day after Thanksgiving came the Real Tree, which goes in the living room.  I realize that's much too early and it will soon be very dry, but daughter Eleni and her brand new husband Emilio, with some other elves, insisted on dragging it home and putting on the lights as soon as the turkey was digested and the cranberry sauce was gone.  I usually pick a color scheme, and this year went with silver and white, with the only color coming from some crazy peacock ornaments I got from Pier One (which has great ornaments!  Have you seen the under-the-sea collection?  Squid and fish and lobsters and crayfish and mermaids.  Now there's a theme I haven't tried.)

With the peacocks, I also used lots of white butterflies (from the Dollar Store) and white birds and angel wings, so I guess the theme of the wonderful-smelling Real Tree this year would be wings.

In the dining room I always put a wire tree to show off my antique ornaments.  And I put a wire from the tree to the window latch so that it (hopefully) can't get knocked over.  You can see that we don't have snow yet in Massachusetts, unlike Minnesota, but we will soon.

Some of these ornaments are reproductions, but most are the real thing.  My grandmother had a whole tree decorated with blown-glass birds with those spun glass tails and often a metal clip to hold it on the tree.  I still have a few of hers.  I really love the fragile teapots once sold at every Woolworth's for pennies. They cost a lot more now.  The blown-glass ornaments usually say "West Germany" on the metal cap.  The  glass ornaments that were once screw-in lights were made in Japan between 1930 and 1950 and are a lot less likely to break.

In the library I always put my Shoe Tree, which started when the Metropolitan Museum in New York first started selling ornaments based on shoes in their collections.  

This became a kind of mania and now I can't afford to buy the newest ones from the Museum, but I've added lots of cunning real (baby-sized) shoes, and people keep giving me more.  My favorites on this tree are the Chinese baby shoes that look like cats and the fur-lined baby moccasins and the tiny Adidas sneakers.

On the porch I've put the  Kitchen Tree, or Cookie & Candy Tree.  This was inspired by some friends who live in a tiny apartment and decorate their tree only with cookies and candy and pretzels and candy canes.  Then, when Christmas is over, they put it all outside for the birds and other New York fauna to enjoy.

As you can see, I've cheated quite a bit--adding ornaments that look like kitchen utensils and non-edible gingerbread men and peppermints.  An authentic Kitchen Tree should have chains of real popcorn and cranberries (which we did back when I had children small enough to enjoy stringing them.)

Last year  Trader Joe's sold little gingerbread men with holes already punched in their heads so I could string them on the tree, but this year the gingerbread men are frosted but the holes are missing, so I just  stabbed them with the wire hooks and it worked fine (and any that broke, I ate, of course. They taste better frosted.)

That's four trees so far and counting--I still haven't started decorating the tree in my studio that holds my stash of ornaments from Mexico and India, but that will come soon, and I haven't  shown you my Santa Claus collection and the miniature town in the bay window in the kitchen and the many creches we have from around the world....But let's face it, I have to get back to those Christmas cards.

Snowed Under

You folks in the Midwest  are hunkering down right now for the Big One—a storm that will drop maybe two feet of snow on you.  Cry me a river.  Here in Massachusetts we’ve received four feet of snow in the past month and that is just 2.5 inches short of the all-time record of 50.9 inches in January 2005.

And now they’re predicting 15 inches or more in the next three days. We’ll be watching those dirty frozen mountains in the parking lots melting far past Easter.

So here are some photos I want to share with you.

Up on top is our street sign—Nelson St—where it connects at our corner with Route 140.  (We’re just on the Grafton side of the Shrewsbury line.)  As on every other street in Massachusetts, you have to creep fearfully forward in your car onto the highway because you can’t see around the drifts if a monster truck is hurtling toward you.

This is how our swimming pool looks.  There’s a tiny fish pond at the far end of it.  I wonder if the fish are surviving in there under all that snow.

This is the picket fence that divides our front yard from the lower back  field where the pool is located.

I would like to offer the icicle coming off our roof (below)  to the Guinness Book of Records as the largest icicle in the world.  It reached the ground long ago, and, as you can see, it incorporates several phone lines and such. Has anybody out there got a bigger icicle than this one?

I keep waiting for it to fall and take out our electricity but so far we still have lights—and the Christmas lights on the front-door wreath and the lighted family of geese on the front lawn are still lighted because no one can get to the outdoor electric plug, so the geese are burning brightly under the snow.  Today I saw a spot of green emerge that is the mother goose’s hat.

Here is my car as it looked when I started cleaning it after the last storm.  The young man with the snow blower is from the father-son team who come around and plow our driveways. (Upper and lower driveways.) They’re making a whole lot of money this year and whenever there’s a snow holiday, the teenage son goes skiing.  He really likes snow.  During the last storm, his father’s truck and plow got stuck while clearing our driveway and they spent nearly an hour getting it unstuck.

I grew up in Minnesota and tend to scorn the complaints of  Massachusetts natives with the comment, “You Yankees  don’t know what a snowstorm is.  Back in Minnesota we sometimes had to get out of our house through the second floor window.”

But I sure can’t remember an icicle back in Minnesota to compare with this one.