Jessica Graduates!!

Our lovely Granddaughter, Jessica, has accomplished a milestone in her life. Last night she graduated from Presque Isle High School. You can see the excitement in her face. It makes us feel very old to realize that this little girl has grown up and is entering the adult world. Where have the years gone?

No one in the family will ever forget Jessica and her movies. Here she is as Molly Schumacker, detective. Jessica Saves Christmas will always be in our memories! What an amazing little girl!

How the years have flown by!

From a sweet little girl to an accomplished young lady, Jessica poses here with her father, Andrew.
She has been a special member of the family. Here she is at a younger age with her cousin, Meghan.

They were a cute pair! She also formed a special tie with her younger cousin, Bridget.

Jessica played softball and we have a photo here from several years ago.

She also rode on the Salmon Brook Historical Society float in the August Festival parade.

Skipping a few years, she is at her senior prom a couple of weeks ago, radiant and all grown up.

The glow on her face last night says it all as she marches in to graduation.

We are proud of her and her accomplishments, and love her dearly. We wish her the absolute best in life, and the achievement of her dreams. Way to go, Jess!!

Memorial Day Snow

Yes,  it is May 24, 2015, the start of Memorial Day Weekend. Yes, that is snow. We awoke this morning to steady, heavy snow.

This is the lettuce bed, after the snow had stopped, but here is a picture of it at the height of the "storm."

That is hard to believe!

There was enough snow to turn things white, leave footprints, and cover the flowers.

Meanwhile, the frost warning caused Gary to move the greenhouse plants inside last night.

It is now 10:00 AM, the plants are back in the greenhouse, and the snow has melted, except for clumps falling off the roof. But this is part of the tale of the never ending winter!

SPRING!!!!!

At long last we have a blog post that is not about winter! It has not rained since last Friday. The temperatures have been in the 60s and the sun has returned. It's amazing how great the sun makes the day. Before we bid all of winter farewell, we have a picture of the very last bit of snow in the yard. This is beside the garage where there isn't much sun.

We have enjoyed the sun with a new greenhouse. This is just a little plastic one, but it reaches 90 degrees in  short time. We have a picture here of Ryan and Gary working on it. Ryan and Matt assembled most of it.

In fact, this greenhouse works so well that we baked our plants the first day that we used it. Many of the tomato plants are a total loss as the leaves turned white and the plants collapsed. There are lessons to be learned in using this, and the first one was to buy a thermometer. After an initial burst of sun and heat we went into a solid week of cold, wet weather and had to keep the plants inside, where they did not thrive. We bought some lettuce plants at Lowe's that fit right into the weather we were having.

Today these plants went into the raised bed, so we actually have something green growing outside!

Isn't this a sight for sore eyes? There have sure been days when we couldn't imagine seeing plants growing again.

Today we took a ride up to the lake to check the camp.  As we drove to Portage we saw people all along the way doing work in their yards. It was warm enough to shed the jackets, and raking and cleaning was the task of the day. Gary and Andy did this work yesterday as you can see.

In one weekend Gary has cleaned up the flower beds and the back lawn, so we are ready for spring.

The lake still has ice in it down by our camp. The upper part of the lake is ice free. Here you can see that the water is high and an area of ice fills the middle of it.

Despite the ice, at least two ducks have returned and are enjoying the water where it is open.

Finally we are seeing signs of spring and a little color. Our new tulip bed is full of buds.

We have pansies in blossom outside the door.

And one lonely daffodil is in blossom.

The camp has made it through the winter, and enjoying the sun this afternoon at the lake was just the beginning of another season long awaited!

April Days

Do you suppose that this will be the last entry in the blog this spring with pictures of snow? As April is nearly at the half-way mark, perhaps it will be. However,  there is plenty of snow in today's photos. We got out of the house and took a ride to the camp. We were really disappointed that we couldn't get in because the snow was too deep. Here is what we saw:

Driving down the lake further, we could see that the ice was getting soft in this picture from the boat landing.

It does still look like winter out there! We had hoped to see some deer, but we only spotted a couple off in the distance on the way to Ashland.
The snow is finally melting, but the raised beds are still hidden. The snow is half-way down the fence now.

Our back yard has turned into a lake as the fields behind us melt.

And we found a waterfall today, as we could hear the water trickling down the garden steps.

The encouraging note is that the temperature was 52 this afternoon, one of the very few warm, sunny days we have seen. We still have a fire in the fireplace.
The tomatoes that we planted a few weeks ago have been transplanted into individual pots. Someday they will go in the garden!

And spring moves along, at a slow pace!

Visiting the Grandchildren

Finally we left Aroostook for a few days! We went to visit Emily, Bridget, and Alex at their homes. Despite the fact that it is almost April, we traveled both ways in constant snow.

This was the scene in Massachusetts on Saturday when we arrived. It snowed all the way home yesterday.
First we went to visit Jon, Erin, & Emily. She is cuter every time we see her! We enjoyed our visit!

Here are Grampy and Emily working away.

Just look at those curls!
On Saturday we moved on to Massachusetts to visit Bob, Gina, Bridget, and Alex.

Alex is looking very serious in this picture, but he is a happy, laughing little boy.

Bridget and Grammy did a little coloring, adding glitter to the final product.

Grampy and Bridget found something interesting to study at the restaurant.

Here are the two of them sharing a ride in a red wagon.
We had a good time getting away from the routine of a long winter, but we were a little disappointed that winter stayed with us the whole time. Is this the spring that will never come?

It Will Never End!!

This has been the most stubborn winter anyone has seen in years. Spring is a few days away and today we will share with you the depth of the snow and our weather. It was white when we woke up this morning, and it hasn't stopped snowing for a moment.

This picture, taken through the window, is looking across the street through the snow.

The driveway was blown out at lunch time, but you can see the depth of what is there.

This is looking over the fence at our neighbor's garage. The snow is almost to the top of the fence.

It is snowing so hard that the houses across the street are barely visible.

Gary has filled the bird feeders today, and entire flocks of birds have eaten half of what he put in already. They are just wild for some food.

 

When will this winter end?? We are sick of it! It is time to plant the tomatoes!

February

The Coles are housebound and have been for a couple of days. We do not have nearly the snow that people to the south have, but we have plenty!

The back of the house is getting the drifts, so Gary has headed out to snow blow. The wind is incredible as it blows the snow around in white outs. This has been some winter for sure! We had hopes of getting out of here and going south to visit the family this week, but their weather is worse than ours. It is certainly a winter to be remembered.

We have been chasing doctors and hospitals much of the winter as Louise tries to deal with a heart condition. Last week was spent in Bangor, and things are looking good at the moment.

We all seem to have one thing in common - a desire for this winter to be over.  Meanwhile we knit, cook, watch television, and dream of other places and times, such as these.

Won't it be great when the grass is green, the trees have leaves, the lawn needs mowing, and we're complaining that it is hot? Right now it is hard to imagine. More storms on the way.