A hole in the snow

Look what I found today - a hole in the snow! A peek at what is underneath, a preview of future colors.





I decided it was finally time for me to go down to our ponds and then up to our pasture to see if any of the fences are down from fallen branches. It was really hard walking down there. The snow was coming up over my knee high boots, and falling inside them too - so unpleasant! (In the picture that thing drooping down is the electric wire. I never knew how much snow could stick to a 6mm wide electric rope.)

Baasha had an easier time than I did navigating that hill. He had to wait for me to find my feet every few seconds.

When we got to the field, I let him go and started banging the ice out of the water trough. He took off running in snow over his knees, which made it really hard to run. It was icy heavy snow. He got to the middle, and dropped and rolled. Then he ran some more. I went to the far corner and checked the fences, and amazingly they are all still good.

I'm amazed our roof didn't cave in on us last week. I'm surprised nothing was destroyed under all that weight.









We had an end cap come off of one of the gutters on the barn, and that is it! It's gonna be a while before I can see how our bushes fared. I did knock snow off of them a few times. (This is a pic of the shield I made for Baasha's window because the wind was blowing so much snow inside his stall. Can you tell I made it out of a shower curtain liner? It worked beautifully! (But looks trashy, so it's down now.))

Our field looks like the patterns of the ocean floor. The undisturbed snow is comprised of ripples from the wind. It's really pretty. But I really miss the color of grass.

Finally Baasha was exhausted and wanted to come back up to the barn. I forced him to stay out a few hours, a little worried about him going snow blind. I was squinting like crazy and there was no sunlight. It was just blaring white everywhere today.

Concert

I finally went to a concert in Germany - a real rock concert where they stamp your wrist. It was my Christmas present from my man, as I've been dreaming of seeing this band forever. It's been years for me since I'd been to a concert, and I was really nervous I'm too old, but thankfully everyone there was our age.

I noticed on the way that both Cologne and Duesseldorf don't have snow. Leverkusen has a little bit remaining. All of the clouds "held it" until they got to our city, and then let go, I guess.

Anyway that concert was incredible. It was a band called Wolfsheim (Peter Heppner) and to be honest, the first time I heard a Wolfsheim song (2001?) I had this mad desire to learn German. It sounded so beautiful, the way he sings it, I became obsessed with learning German. I'm not really obsessed anymore, but I feel I am on my way to becoming bilingual. If I can accomplish that at my age, I will be very pleased.

The concert was in a castle full of stone walled chambers with curling iron candelabras and the furniture was right out of Lord of the Rings. With all the crazy scary art in there, it looked like they should film a movie in there.




There was some animal (pig?) turning on a spit, and you could have dinner there! That's never happened at any concert I'd been to in Seattle.

A sign posted by the entrance said "No Moshing" (in German) and we laughed. Like people would mosh to this music!?

The concert hall ceiling was fashioned to look like a cave with stalagtites hanging down. This was definitely the coolest venue I've ever been in.

I noticed also how quiet Germans are - while my man ate, I told him to close his eyes and estimate how many people were in the room. It sounded like about 5, speaking in low tones, but it was full of people.

Although there were lots of goths, there were also lots of normals and I was glad cuz although I had some silk and lace on at first, it is way to cold out for that so I switched to comfy cotton. (I should have known that the concert hall would not be cold!)

The opening band was Melotron, another band that sings in German, and one of my very favorites. He looks and acts a lot like Dave Gahan (Depeche Mode). They played my favorite song, Der Anfang. Another song I heard in the early 00s and wanted to learn German so badly.

Wolfsheim also played my favorite, and their radio hit, and near the end, I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if they did The Sparrows and the Nightengales (he also sings in english) as the final song?" and they did! I danced and sang, so happy! I was also impressed cuz the lead singer looks so vain on his website, but in RL, he is humble and after every song, he would smile at us and say a heartfelt "Danke Schoen." He'd even kind of duck his head sheepishly like he couldn't believe how happy we all were to be there.

Although they don't know what cranberry vodka well drinks are in Duisburg, I can forgive them based on the coolness of that venue. I feel like I don't need to go to any more concerts now, nothing could top that: )

On the way home we re-entered the Snow Zone, our town, and immediately there were huge drifts on either side of the road.

They say we will get more snow soon. But they also say that this is not normal, that perhaps every 10 years there is an "Unwetter" like this.

Now Playing: The Sparrows and the Nightengales

"and God is on your side, dividing cruelty from tenderness.

watching all the time, dividing fiction from reality"