"Snowflakes whisper neath my window, covering trees, misty lights, velvet breeze round my doorstep, gently softly silent snowfall." Ruth Thornhill

Here is the view from my front door.
I'm glad we have enough wood to get us through this storm. Below that you see Our Lady Of The Snow.

In the wee hours of the morning while the world was still dark, Dennis and I began our day working together in the kitchen. By the light of five candles, he washed dishes while I made what we have now named Candlelight Key Lime Pie. As I squeezed the juice from the limes I thought about how much sunlight they must have absorbed in whatever tropical local they grew. I envisioned that we would all get enough sunlight and vitamin C from eating this pie to ward off colds and flu.

As this is the first day of winter, I did not want to turn on any lights. It felt important that we wait to greet the sun and work without artificial light.
Dennis really wanted to see how much snow we had gotten over night, so he turned on the light outside. I tried not to look, but could not help myself. We got a lot of snow, at least a foot, and it was beautiful to watch it falling in the dark.

It is our custom to feed the birds on the first day of winter. This year we filled the hollowed out shells of the limes from the pie with a peanut butter bird seed mixture, adding some Matzo crackers to the mix. Dennis skewered the limes and hung them throughout the yard.

We got so much snow that they canceled church.
I found this upsetting because I rarely get to attend a service and was looking forward to today, a Sunday when I neither have to work or teach Religous Education.
Harrison was elated to hear that church was cancelled. He was supposed to be in the Festival of Lights Pageant today at both the 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. services. He dreaded the thought. He was to play a person in the crowd, and he was to play a candle. He thought this was quite lame. Candles don't even get a costume, they just stand there, bodies perfectly still, holding their hands clasped above their heads and swaying their arms to indicate the flickering flame.

I thought this sounded cool, but I am lame. Harrison hates going to church and he hates Religious Education, but even more than the service and RE, he hates being a candle. At ten, he is not old enough to be with the really cool kids, but he is not happy being with the little kids. He is certainly not happy being a candle.

Snowball fights are much more fun than church.
Eden decorated cookies all morning and I made sea salt caramels from the recipe in the latest edition of my favorite magazine, Mary Jane's Farm.

I have never made candy before, and being over confident, I doubled the recipe. I had no idea how much the milk and sugar mixture would expand as it was transformed from innocent dairy products into an evil vat of dangerous molten lava.

It scared the bejeezus out of me as it bubbled all the way up to the top of the pot and climbed over the edges, so I stood there holding the candy thermometer in one hand while stirring furiously with the other and shouting out sing song soprano curses of terror at the entire operation, my pitch getting higher and higher the faster I stirred "holyshitholyshitholyshitmuthashitshitshit
itsgoingovertheedgeshitshitshtishit!"
I was trying to turn down the heat then turn up the heat then wondering if there was not some container somewhere within reach I could just somehow transfer half of the mixture into. Then I remembered that earlier in the morning we had tossed the pot holders into the washing machine, which was a really absurd thing to do.

It was a terrifying culinary adventure.
What was once just sugar and milk had taken on a life of its own, and it wanted to kill me.
And it was taking a long time. The evil death juice stayed at 225 degrees for about 25 excruciating minutes of frantic insanity before finally making the leap to 245 just as I was about to toss the whole evil mess. I really would have tossed the whole thing, if I had a place to move it or pour it. I was really afraid of it.

I had to get it to 245 degrees before I could stop stirring, remove it from the heat and add the vanilla. I was a nervous wreck as I poured this scalding goo into the parchment lined dishes, terrified that I was going to splash it onto me or Violet or one of the kids. Violet of course had to lay at my feet no matter how much I screamed at her and kicked and the kids were trying to be helpful, but Eden was in a trance-like state as she first backed away, then was drawn in close by the spectacle of this bubbly vat of sugar. I just knew that at any moment one of us was going to be covered in exploding caramel goo and then our skin would peel off and we would suffer in great agony on the way to the burn unit.

Thankfully, none of that happened and the caramel, after cooling a few hours, is delicious. I think our most serious injury might be if Dennis loses a filling chewing on it, but after cooling, the once evil stuff has taken on a new form. It became a slab of fresh, soft, chewy, buttery deliciousness. The sea salt lightly sprinkled on top makes it just right. Maybe the salt purified it.

I won't be making caramel again, at least not for a very long time, and only if I have an exorcist on hand to assist if need be during the production.