"The first of December was covered with snow.."

Funny that every 1st of December I wake up with James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James" in my head. It works especially well this morning with the covering of snow we have. And my son got up and turned on the news on which James Taylor is singing. Freaky. This stuff shuts us down here in Missouri. No one is equipped to drive on this or remove it. All 4 inches of it.

The Springfield public school superintendent just moved from Colorado to take this job. Needless to say when posed with the question of calling off school yesterday or not, he chose not to. This is nothing where he came from. Then 6 schools lost power from the storm and of course, all schools stayed in session till at least noon. Chaos ensued, parents were mad as hell, the super was apologetic. Thankfully, our school district made the choice at 5 a.m. to close school. We'll probably be out till the middle of next week since many bus routes are on hilly backroads that never get cleared. However we have sunshine in the forecast so it may clear sooner.
Enough of the weather and road report.


My son just got up and as he gazed outside, he told me he knew this was going to be a great day. He played outside in the wind and sleet yesterday almost all day. I think he'll be in shirtsleeves today with the sunshine.
My little birdies are in need of birdseed and water. We may have to trek to the store for some and mix up a bit of suet for them.















While we were in my home town for Thanksgiving, I took my daughter out on the backroads for a couple driving lessons. She does pretty good for only having a few lessons up to now.
You can see for miles on those roads so it's pretty safe.
I remember learning to drive on these roads when I was 14. My dad farmed with my brother so it was a '72 Ford automatic pickup first which was a breeze. I craved driving so much like most kids do. I got to help them move their equipment from field to field or run back to the shop to pick up this or that. Then it was time to learn to drive a standard heavy duty truck which was fun if it hadn't been for my snotty, "perfect" brother teaching me. And the bobtrucks or grain trucks, all standard and easy to shift but hard to steer full. Then I graduated to tractors. But that came to a screeching halt when I was turning at the end of a row, stepped on the wrong brake and ran the chemical barrel on the front into a tree in the fencerow, busting it open. Then I was demoted to chopping cotton by myself.
Anyhoo, E is going to get as much driving time as I can possibly manage between now and her driving permit. Next June she'll turn 15, which means getting her learner's permit. I need a designated driver as soon as possible. (Kidding)

A few weeks back E went to a state-wide leadership conference. I dropped a scared, timid girl at the hotel to come back and find a enlightened, energized emotional girl in her place four days later. I think the experience will stay with her but you know how it is to come back to your reality and lose some of the momentum you built up from a particularly special experience? I wanted her to go and see she had many tools at her disposal to not only live and work in a moral and ethical way toward beneficial worldly goals, that her ideas weren't really "out there" but there were many kids who have the same ideas and desires. Our town is small and I don't have to tell you there are many who don't care a hoot about where they are headed and make it hard on people who want to do things differently from them. A kid can get worn down from it. I want her to remember what she learned and not lose her steam.
(Well, blogger decided not to accept my pic upload demand of E driving. Later.)