White Pre-Christmas

A winter storm has covered the Puget Sound region with snow. It may not look like much compared to what others typically experience in winter, but we are not very good at dealing with snow. We don't get it often enough or heavy enough to invest in millions of dollars of snow-removal equipment, and the hills that make up our communities make driving — and even walking — treacherous. Road travel, air travel, ferry travel and bus travel are heavily curtailed by common sense as well as blocked roads.

My backyard. Yes, I should have pruned the rose bushes a little more.

The boxes are new raised garden beds.

The good news is that being trapped at home for several days offers more knitting time and more time with our new cat, Mooch. Mooch started hanging around about two years ago. The neighbors named him Mooch because he regularly cadged meals from their house. Long story short: A neighbor three blocks away is involved with cat rescue. She rescued Mooch, recognizing that he is well adapted to living with people. We learned his story when she called after we gave him a collar with a name tag and phone number.

So Mooch is now part of the household. And he does not especially care for snow.