FRIEND OR FOE: The Snow Blower

OK, time to face my enemy, the snow blower. My husband walks me out to the barn for a quick tour of his little snow Hummer.

"This switch turns it on, this switch gases it up. This is the choke. Hold down this handle to move it forward, use this handle to direct the chute that ejects the snow," he intones like an audio instruction manual. "Roger?" says he. Who's Roger?," say I.

I am clothed in head gear, snow gear and foot gear. Nothing is going to come between me and my snow blower. I step behind the machine. I squeeze the handle bar. I step behind the machine. I squeeze the handle bar. "Practice makes perfect," I am told.

"Fire up the engine!," I command. In less than 30 seconds, I'm an inch away from the barn wall before I can shut the thing down. The experience is similar to the time my husband took me to a driving range and handed me a left-handed club. Funny to him. Not funny to me.

For the record, I did not move one cubic inch of snow with that blower. If you ask me, a shovel in hand is worth two blowers in the barn. However, if you must, our Snapper works like a charm for those charmed enough to know how to drive it!

- The Feed Lot - I Just Can't Go This Local ....

The Times tries to explain the Hunt-a-Grey-to-Save-a-Red phenomenon, though there's little gastronomically persuasive argument, methinks:

Nichola Fletcher, a food writer and co-owner of a venison farm, held a squirrel tasting for Britain’s Guild of Food Writers, finding “their lovely flavor tasted of the nuts they nibbled.” At a later event, however, she found the flavor disappointing, with “a greasy texture and unpleasant taste,” presumably reflecting these squirrels’ diet.

Think there's a morsel of potential delicacy in eating a tree rat? eHow explains how to skilfully skin, clean and cook squirrel. (No photos, natch.)

testing Polyvore... what sort of heading might this go under?

Fact-O-Rama: Doing battle with the Ice

The first ice storm always catches me off guard, as it did today. In order to get from my house to the driveway I must navigate a slippery path-actually a path of solid, treacherous, ice. I haven't loaded up on sand yet so what's a country girl to do when there's no sand on hand? Kitty Litter is a suitable alternative, hopefully you have the unscented variety ( much less objectionable) or use the cold ashes from the wood stove. 

The downside: The kitty-litter is great outside but you want to avoid tracking it into the house, same for the ash. But in an emergency it's better to deal with a little dirt then to be calling out to neighbors "help I've fallen and I can't get up". 

-toolshed- Floral 2.0

How delicious is this Hewlett-Packard Mini 1000 Vivienne Tam edition? Even the keyboard is petal-red. And an in-body webcam and mic make for some stylish Skype-ing.

Hay Seeds: Something warm

Bad cold. Bad, bad, cold. The floorboards are chilled though the woodstove is on, and I can feel it through my heaviest socks. No amount of Dayquil is lifting the feeling that someone stuffed my Eustachian tubes full of steel wool.

I'm thinking about knitting. (By thinking, I mean just surfing for amazing hand-spun yarn. Not, you know, actually casting anything on.)

~Hay seeds: Chartreuse, I heart you

The flowers from Thanksgiving are looking less than vibrant these days, and that runner was caked in mushroom gravy when I moved the bouquet this morning, so it's off now, too. But wow, if I wouldn't like a fall sweater in each of these colors.