Black and White with a Splash of Color

We've been getting a bit of snow over the last few days which is finally starting to pile up and making it look like a real winter around here.  Yesterday we had that strange occurrence where it rained for a period of time with snow falling both before and after.  So, of course, we discovered when we went out for chores and clearing snow this morning that there was a coating of ice underneath the snow everywhere.

This is our back yard when we first started plowing this morning.

Our wood working area in the back is slowly being covered over with a blanket of snow.  Those maple logs are 16' long and many of them are a foot in diameter.  I'm encouraging Papa Pea not to order firewood again from the logger who delivered these.  (They were supposed to be "small" logs.)  Once the big logs are chainsawed into pieces, they have to be split, more than once, and most of them are so heavy we can't lift them up onto the splitter, but rather have to roll them up a plank.  Oooof.  Not looking forward to working up this pile in the spring.  The wood will eventually yield lots of BTUs, but it will take a bit of work to get it to that point.

I snapped this right after I had shoveled the deck and walkway.  You can see the frosty coating of ice I couldn't remove.

To add a little color to this post, last night I finished the second two pairs of mittens on a string for the twins.  They've gotten used to the mittens that "won't go away" and their auntie and nanny both love the way there's no more hunting for mittens for those four little hands when getting dressed to go outside.  I made these a little bigger than the first ones hoping they would still fit the two little munchkins next year.  Wishful thinking?