On The Road to my House...First Snow of 2016...

  Like a little girl,a rather old little girl, I can not wait for the first snow of the new year. Snow is white magic to me. It makes the world look clean, and new. The thick whiteness covers  piles of junk, pot holes and barren trees. Snow is winter's shot in the arm when the grayness of each day begins to sink into peoples bones with invisible pin pricks.

  In my part of the world, it started snowing before daylight and snowed most of the day on January 9, 2016. We had close to 5 inches of wet, pristine snow by mid afternoon. 

  We knew the snow was coming so we prepared as best we could. The wood we use in our wood stove was in the laundry room and completely dry. Bird feeders were filled, windshields were covered. A chocolate fudge cake sat on the kitchen counter. We had plenty of coffee to last for a month. Life was good at the Carter home.

 

 The clouds were thick and heavy for most of the day. In Missouri we call this kind of sky a 'snow bank sky'. The sun seldom peeked out during the morning. The afternoon fared better after the snow stopped falling. The birds and deer were feeding most of the day.

  Cardinals, doves, finches, sparrows, titmouse, juncos, and a small mixture of other birds that I call "fly by's" find the feeders. The "fly by's" are birds passing through making a pit stop. Tommy and I enjoy our window view of nature. As I am writing this blog, two small deer are eating in our front yard. The dogs are in the house so they have nothing to worry about. It never gets old to see deer in our yard.

  The next day we decided to go for a ride. I wanted to take a few photos while checking out the roads and scenery. 

  I love our backwoods road. It is every bus drivers nightmare but I enjoy it. I have also been its victim several times over the years. I have taken a few unscheduled trips through the woods. Once I dug a new ditch while trying to get to work. Another time, I hit ice and did a complete 180 on the road, facing my house instead of work. I saw no reason keeping me from driving home. That was the direction I was facing. I might as well proceed...and I did.   When this gravel road was made a designated right of way, I firmly believe the county thought no one would ever live down it. It would be a cut off to the next black top road... over the hills, through the valley, and around curves made for snakes. Several years later, we proved them wrong and bought our home. Then a few people from St. Louis bought property up and down the road. They are still considered 'outsiders'. They are a standoffish group as a rule.

                 

 

      
 Make a left turn out of our driveway and we are on our way to civilization. There was one tree down but someone cut it up and pulled it out of the way so they could get to where they needed to be.

                

  The top of Atterberry Hill is always a iffy drive. Country people all drive in the middle of the road... even up a hill. As a former 'city girl' I have never understood this mindset. After 30 years of country living, I still honk my horn...just in case. Usually, I am  the only one on the road but sometimes there are surprises causing one of us to get out of the way fast.

   
           
 This was one of those 'slip ups' that almost happened.

 Our road is no different than a hundred other country roads. It is our piece of the past, no matter how small it is. For a little while cell phones don't work. The traffic is minimal--crazy but minimal and the world has slowed down a notch or two. Life is good and that is the main thing on my 'what is important in life list'. Keeping life simple and fun are necessities at this stage in my life.