Sunshine Again

I'm still amazed how quickly the weather is changing here. Yesterday grey sky and hours of snowfall, today bright sunshine, blue sky and a white winter wonderland:

Diverted to Bangor

It's snowing - about 5 inches in just a few hours. My husband didn't make it back from San Diego in time before Logan airport was closing. Their flight got diverted to Bangor, Maine.

At least, the passengers were allowed to leave the plane. It didn't look like this at the beginning. The crew told the passengers that they would try to go to Boston in a few hours. Until then all passengers had to remain in the airplane. Later this changed and passengers could leave.

My husband and his colleague decided to drive home from Bangor. It's a four hours ride in good conditions - only the conditions are not good right now. They have already rented a car and are now looking for a hotel for the night.

Again, I'm experiencing that weather impacts the daily life here much more than we are used to it from Europe. It's only five inches of snow, and the schools closed early, and we have a snow emergency ....

Getting ready

...for the next big storm. While here in Massachusetts thousands of people are still without power one week after the big ice storm last Thursday/Friday, we are getting ready for a new winter storm. According to the forecast, about a foot of snow within a few hours with wind and blizzard like conditions can be expected. School will end tomorrow already at 11:15 am, so that the kids can get home safely.

My husband is currently in San Diego and was supposed to fly back tomorrow. He is now trying to get a flight tonight because Logan airport will probably be closed tomorrow if the weather gets as bad as forecasted. Unfortunately, many other people had the same idea and he doesn't know yet whether he can reschedule. If not, he may be stuck in Houston for many hours. I keep my fingers crossed that he can get a flight tonight.

The weather today was just beautiful - the calm before the storm. This morning I enjoyed watching a spectacular sunrise over the lake in our neighborhood:

Halloween

My neighbors are ready for Halloween. Many houses are decorated, occasionally with a certain overlap with politics:

Fall Foliage Trip/ New Hampshire

Last weekend, we went leaf peeping in New Hampshire. It was a gorgeous day and hundreds of people had the same idea. We still enjoyed the trip to Kancamagus highway and Flume gorge. Originally we had planned to stay for one night in a motel, however everything was sold out. Columbus day weekend seems not to be a good time for sponaneuos ideas....

If you want to go on a fall foliage trip, check the weather.com website for the best places.

Pumpkin Thief

PYO-Season

It's again PYO-season in New England and recently I have been to an orchard with a few prunes trees for picking.


I was so happy because this is a rare treat in Massachusetts. In Austria we had about 15 prune trees in our garden and didn't know what to do with the hundreds of pounds of prunes every year aside from making our own "schnapps". Here, I'm paying $4/pound of prunes, if I find them in a store at all. I don't know why this is, because they are really easy to grow and the trees are not very sensitive to heat or cold.

I picked more than 10 lbs and first thing after coming home was for me to bake a delicious prune cake based on a traditional Austrian recipe:

Late summer garden

Many people here in New England complain quite often about the weather: It's either too cold,too hot, too humid, too windy....For my part, I just love the weather here. I don't mind the cold and snow in winter and the hot summers, but what tops everything is the long Indian summer. Last year, I picked the last tomatoes in my garden at the end of October! Right now, my garden spoils me with an anbundance of flowers, fruits and vegetables: