A February Painting Challenge Update. . .

This is the sight that greeted us Thursday morning.  Time to fire up the snowblower.  We had about 12" on the ground before it was all over.

Well, sir. . .  We're down to the last couple of days in the current painting challenge, and I have just about finished those 22 Minden and RSM95 Prussian/Austrian musketeers except for the sword knots on two of the ensigns and, of course, the flags and finials, which I hope to address tonight and tomorrow (Sunday the 28th).  Naturally, my camera is not charged, and my phone is two floors above me in the bedroom at the moment, so be sure to check back here for some photographic updates later.  With any luck, glossing and basing will follow later in the week, and then it's onto several camp follower vignettes among which lurk a few surprises.

Right now, it's a waffle breakfast and then off to ski/toboggan with the Grand Duchess and the Young Master before all of our snow melts.  We had about a foot of the stuff Wednesday and into Thursday here at Totleigh-in-the-Wold, but, very sadly, the weather forecast predicts rapidly rising temperatures well above freezing for the next few days, which means that much will melt, and what remains will refreeze and become crunchy.  Hardly optimum for cross-country/Nordic skiing, so it's time to take advantage of what could be our last snow of the winter season.

-- Stokes

Still my little old '98 Corolla to dust off.  I attended to that later in the day once the snow had finally petered out.

 And I could hardly post photographs of our recent snowfall without documenting THE BEAST, shown here without its coating of snow before use that Thursday morning.  Almost as soon as we accepted these new jobs here in Michigan last spring, we looked at each other and said simultaneously, "We'll need to buy a snowblower!"

Skiing in Lower Michigan, Saturday, February 27th.  There is a park about five minutes from us with all kinds of trails and loops to explore.  I was out for about two hours and never repeated a trail.  Slow going at times, and I am definitely out of shape, but the glide wasn't bad for wet, ungroomed snow, the temperature was pleasant, and it was absolutely quiet except for the sound of my skis.  Delightful!