'S' Is For Snow

A typical heavy snowfall over night.

Here in our part of Kansas we don't get very much snow.

I think the most I've ever seen in one large snowfall here is

about 12 inches...at the most.

As many of you who follow me know...I moved here from a ski village in the mountains of British Columbia and each winter we got somewhere between 40-60 feet of snow.

During an El Nino winter we sometimes got a bit less snow and more rain but it was always a white winter.

Me shoveling the roof the first time that winter

The picture above and the two below show a particularly 

bad winter where we had to shovel our roof off 3 times.

See that large window? At the end of the snow season as I was laying on the living room floor (split level home with another large window under that one) my children

walked past the upper window on snow that was higher than the bottom of the windowsill. 

My two oldest boys made shoveling the roof

fun. They'd make chairs and TV's out of snow

and do flips off the roof or slide off. 

See that lower roof level in the above picture...that all had to be shoveled off before the upper roof was shoveled onto it. Then it all had to be shoveled off again.

The picture above shows our old deck that was 14X28. 

What you see is the snow from only 1/4 of the roof
that had been shoved off onto the deck. Before we could do that

the deck itself had to be shoveled off to make sure there

wasn't too much weight on it. 

THEN all the snow you see there had to be hand shoveled off

and paths had to be shoveled to the garage and wood shed.

We had a 10hp snow blower for the driveway and sidewalks.

The picture above was taken in 1975.

That shed looks short but it's not and 

the door handle is at regular door handle height. 

Yes that's me pulling my oldest son...wow 

I was skinny...probably from all that shoveling ;)

This picture above is my two youngest

taken years ago sitting on the snow bank

at their grandparents in MARCH!

This was another bad winter with lots of snow.

Last but not least is an old picture of my oldest 

daughter standing on the deck showing how much

snow we had gotten over the weekend. 

The snow had already packed down by this time!

It was truly a WINTER WONDERLAND until the middle

of February...by then 'cabin fever' was beginning to 

set in and we were all ready for the snow to quit.

Something that is pretty amazing is that school was 

seldom closed because of snow.

Even after 11 years of living here in Kansas it still

makes me laugh when I hear the schools are closed

because of a few inches of snow. 

I guess it's all in what you get used to.

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Maura :)

Happy Memories

Loved this house

If you've been following my blog for a while you already know that I live in a little farm cottage in the country in rural Kansas. 

Before I moved here I lived in the mountains of beautiful

British Columbia Canada.

For a time we lived in a lovely English Tudor home 

right across the road from the local ski hill.

I LOVED this house.

From the living room and the loft and one upstairs bedroom and the kitchen you could watch the skiers going up and down the slopes. 

My children just had to walk across the road to ski and snowboard and on the evenings when the ski hill was closed early...they could toboggan down the slopes.

I could sit in the loft and watch them catch the chairlift and ride up the hill until they disappeared.

It was a WONDERFUL place to live and 

raise the kids.

Springtime in the mountains.

The apple tree is starting to bloom and

if you look to the right you'll see our 

old snowmobile waiting to be tuned up and put away until the next winter.

This is where all the action happened.

The kids played volleyball and badminton 

and lawn darts and we had a fire pit to sit around on  

cool evenings. All evenings are cool in the mountains!  

Through these beautiful hand made leaded and stained glass doors we could see the skiers going up and down the 'bunny tow' on the hill. The upper window was my oldest 

daughters bedroom. She could lay in bed

and watch the skiers.

It was beautiful at night when they were 'grooming' the hill.

The grooming machines go up and down the steep slopes at night... they're so bright that you can see the snow falling in the lights during a heavy snow fall. Believe me...when you get 40-60 feet YES FEET of snow per winter...there's a LOT of grooming to be done on the hill. 

The apple tree ready for picking.

The apples were delicious but that tree and 

the plum tree in the back of the house brought around the bears. They would start coming in early 

fall to check the fruit for ripeness.

You could just about bet that a bear would be around every night the closer the fruit got to being ripe. 

We had one large old male and one female with cubs

come every year that we lived there.

Me sitting under the apple tree.

See that dark hair!

Huge stone steps down to the lower level from the apple tree.

The creek behind the house.

By the time we moved we had ivy growing up that short stone wall with the lamp post.

Those doors were beautiful especially in the mornings when the sun came streaming in.

Another look at the entry landing and those doors.

My dad and step Mom came to visit.

These are my youngest children.

Drew was born while we lived in this house.

This is the view from the kitchen breakfast table.

If you look closely you'll see the glacier on top of the mountain. In the fall when the leaves were off the trees you could just see a bit of the Columbia River.

We had lots of wildlife come into the yard...bear, deer, porcupines, coyotes  and after we moved the people told us they saw two young cougar (mountain lions) run through the yard towards the creek. I'm glad they weren't around when we lived there...our large dog probably kept them away.

Behind the deer where you see the children's playhouse 

is the trail down to the creek where we had a hammock overlooking the water.

Here's my youngest son Drew in front of those 

beautiful doors.

Can you tell where we had been?

Here's a glimpse of the living room during one of our parties. If you look up you can just see the beams and the railing in the loft.

There was a beautiful HUGE fireplace that went right up to the open ceiling with a massive rack of elk antlers.

The bricks came from the local train stations roundhouse that was built in the late 1800's. 

All the bricks were cleaned by hand before being laid but they still had some of the black from the soot and the light color from the old mortar.  

In this picture above (with my son and his girlfriend...later wife) you can see the spiral staircase to the loft/office which adjoined my oldest daughters bedroom and then the hall bath and another large bedroom.

There was also another set of wide stairs at the back of the house leading upstairs and down to the basement.

The bricks you see is an arched doorway leading to the breakfast room and kitchen. 

My sister Janet (you can read how we met for the first time)

http://lillyanna-lilaclanecottage.blogspot.com/2010/02/being-found-by-my-sister.html>HERE

is pointing to the scratches on the apple tree made by the bears.

They would come around every night when the fruit was close to being ripe and sometimes during the day if they were bold enough.

The were pretty desperate to eat as much as they could before going into hibernation.

We tried to pick all the fruit as high up as we could reach but the rest was their's for the taking.

We even had a squirrel who would pick the ripe fruit and leave it sit on the huge boulders along the side of the house to dry. Then it found an opening between the basement ceiling and the floor above and packed all that fruit in there above the patio doors. 

We didn't even know it until I could see fruit flies on the ceiling and smell rotting fruit.

We were able to find the hole and close it up and killed the fruit flies but we weren't about to tear the cedar ceiling down so we put up with the smell until eventually the fruit dried up and the smell disappeared! 

There was never a dull moment in that house. 

I have a lot of wonderful memories from living in this beautiful home and it was hard to eventually leave it.

But it was time to move on and we moved to a home closer to school and the in-laws.

We still had the bears and deer and even a cougar came around...so life was still exciting.

But I did miss watching the skiers in the winter.

Now I can sit under an apple tree (without bears) here on the farm and hopefully one day we'll have a pond with a windmill.

I may not be able to ski ...but maybe one day I'll be skating. Life is good.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Maura :)

Pasta Primavera With Italian Turkey Sausage

This is a recipe that I took with me up to British Columbia this summer when we visited my family.

We had had a wonderful day of tubing down the river and swimming and sitting on the beach.

When we got home we got busy and made this recipe for the gang. Everyone loved it. So I thought I'd share it with you.

Pasta Primavera With Italian Turkey Sausage

2 cups uncooked pasta

1 LB Italian Turkey Sausage

4 cloves garlic

1/2 onion chopped

2 small zucchini chopped

2 small yellow squash chopped

6 Roma tomatoes chopped

20 fresh basil leaves

2 tsp chicken boullion or 2 chicken broth cubes

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 Cup grated parmesan cheese

1) Bring lg pot of water to boil. Cook pasta El Dente. Drain.

2) Cook onions and galic in small amount of olive oil. Add sausage and cook till done. Drain (I just start cooking the meat and then throw the onions and garlic in)

3) Add squash, tomatoes, basil, pepper, boullion or cubes. Stir well 

Cook covered for about 15 minutes then remove lid. Cook uncovered until squash is tender but not over-cooked. (about 15 min. more)

Remove from heat and add parmesan cheese.

Stir.

Enjoy!

Use your own judgment on when your squash is done as it may take more or less time. We added more squash to this recipe and we doubled it for our crowd. It's an easy one to play with and add things to and it's really good warmed up the next day. If there's any leftovers that is!

It's a great way to use up your squash and tomatoes and basil if you have a garden!

Me steaming up my daughters kitchen

Beach hair day...don't look too close as we just got back from the beach!

Youngest daughter Caity helping.

Lots of laughs

Nearly ready for the cheese

Caity's adding the cheese

Smells SO good

CHEERS!

This is Growers Apple Cider and I can only get it when we go up to BC.

It's SO GOOD!

I hope you enjoy this recipe. It's SO easy and fast and certainly helps you keep up with your garden veggies.

Have a wonderful day!

Maura :)

Sights Of Beautiful British Columbia

I thought I'd share a few more photo's with you from our trip to the Province of British Columbia in Canada.

This was my home for over 30 years.

Most of my children still live there and this is where we go for our summer vacation.

I hope one day you'll get the chance to visit this beautiful Province. It has many faces but these are just a few of the areas these pictures are taken from... Okanagan Valley and the Rogers Pass , Eagle Valley and the Spallumcheen Valley.

I'm linking up with Mary from Little Red House for Mosaic Monday I hope you will pop over and visit Mary and see all the other beautiful mosaics from fellow Bloggers. I know you'll have a wonderful time and you may even make some new friends.

Have a wonderful week!

Maura :)

Goats Flowers and Being A Tourist

While we were up in British Columbia visiting my family we did a lot of fun things. On this day we decided to visit a tourist attraction that wasn't there when my kids were little. Good thing or we would have been begged to stop there every trip to the city!

It looks as though the owners moved in an antique barn and then just built onto it as the business grew. This is in a beautiful open valley between the mountains and right along side of the highway that runs through the Okanagan Valley. The place is filled with beautiful flowers and antique wagons and the smell of homemade goodies.

Years ago it started out as just a tiny fruit stand. Now they have a nice goat petting area (very clean and neat) with places to wash up after visiting the critters and a tall bridge that the goats can climb up. The older and wiser ones know that if they wait up there eventually someone will pay for some tastey morsels...put them in the cup and then crank them up to where they are waiting. I don't know why but I never did get a picture of that!

There are 3 buildings that you can wander around in that are filled with neat things...a bit touristy but quite different too.

The best part is the food area...oh my!

There was homemade pies and sausage and cheese and baked goods that you can take out and eat in the shade. Homemade apple cider and icecream was very tempting too.

I wish I had gotten pictures of the food but there were way too many people to get a good shot not to mention the fact that my hands were full of food and other goodies as I stood in line....forever!

We ate our fresh made sausage rolls outside and enjoyed the beautiful day. There were over 300 forest fires in BC at the time but this was the first day we had seen any smoke. It got so bad that you couldn't see the mountains at all but after a couple of hours of rain it cleared up and stayed that way for the rest of our vacation.

The flowers were beautiful and HUGE.

I guess it was all that goat manure!

They had some wonderful displays of antiques. You know...I just realized now that I never did check to see if some of those items were for sale.

I guess I figured since we flew up that there wasn't any use in checking anyway.

If you look closely at these last pictures you'll see it was a little smokey this day.

Tractors and nummy sausage rolls was all it took to keep our little Kash happy.

A good time was had by all.

I hope you have a wonderful day!

Maura :)