Mostly Maple

The Maple must be one of the most photographed trees in the fall.

It goes through such beautiful change.

A display of color ranging from light greens to yellows,

oranges and the deepest of reds.

This fall, here in New England,

we got to see the trees fully dressed with green leaves

-and covered in snow.

At the same time!

Their branches were not strong enough

to hold the weight of the heavy snow that their grand leaves caught.

As you can see from the left picture below,

the Maples turned to "weeping" Maples.

Many deciduous trees lost branches in the October snow storm.

Some trees even split in half.

(100s of thousands lost their power due to trees falling on to power lines.)

We have a Norwegian Maple in our front yard

that my husband planted about five years ago.

Several times during the snow storm,

we went outside to shake the branches off.

Our work paid off.

I am happy to say that the Maple didn't loose a single limb.

And neither did our beautiful birch.

Phew!

Also during that crazy October weather weekend,

my husband left the house early one morning

and came back with a puppy.

My question to you is...

Can you guess what kind of puppy dog we now are happy (and tired) owners to?

One hint, the bread has a New England city as part of its name.

Facing my fear

Early this morning I faced my fear.

With some challenging digging out to do

I traded

This shovel above

For this intimidating and scary snow blower

It wasn't voluntary, I was kind of forced in to it.

My neighbor knocked on the door this morning as I was peacefully sipping my coffee and making breakfast for my boys. He said I better get out there soon, the snow was turning in to sleet and it was getting heavy.

I hurried to get dressed and went outside ready to shovel.

And there it was, the snow blower.

My neighbor had taken the cover off and started it.

"You know how to use this, right?"

"Ehh, not really."

"Here, I'll show you."

"But, I can shovel. I like to."

"It's getting heavy and the piles are high, you're better off with this. Come on, it's easy."

And so it happened. Four years I have managed to avoid this monster with various excuses.

For example, it's better environmentally to shovel.

And, the exercise and fresh air that comes with shoveling is great.

Plus, S always seem to find his way out there first (I wonder why) after heavy snow falls.

I could actually make the excuse-list fairly long. If I don't want to to something, I'm the master of excuses. But I won't bore you.

S is going to be so surprised when I tell him I used the snow blower. And so proud.

Unless... Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Or am I unusually suspicious?

I will be listening carefully to his reaction when I call him at work and tell him.

He couldn't have planned this with my neighbor.

He's not that clever, is he?