Well, it looks like we had our "blizzard" of the year...about one inch of snow that fell late last night, after having rained for almost the whole week. We don't get much snow in this area, usually about one or two inches each winter, but it pretty much sends people into a state of major preparedness, with schools either starting on a two hour delay, or not being opened at all. And that decision is made the night before the snow even starts to fall. I am told that this is because we live in a rural area, and they don't want to take unnecessary chances with the school buses. It sometimes seems funny to me, though, because even though my adult life was spend in the South (Florida for 28 years before NC), I did grow up in NY and can remember looking out the front door the evening of a blizzard just HOPING that school would be canceled the next day, and then having to listen to the radio the next morning for the final list of schools that would be closed (even after two feet of snow had just fallen!). But, I guess that its better to be safe than sorry in this area.
Here are a few pictures of the Homestead taken this morning (if I can get the dang things to download...still having fits with Blogger on this).
The garden shed...
The gazebo...
Some statuary...
The house...
And, here is a recipe for Shrimp and Corn Chowder that I tried the other night. This appeared in the February, 2013 issue of Family Circle. Once you get the dicing and shrimp-cleaning done, it is pretty easy to make. The changes that I made was to use only 1.5 tsp of Old Bay seasoning, as Mr. Perch and I do not like stuff too spicy, and to cut out the hot sauce and the lemon juice (which I do not like with anything that is cream-based). I imagine that you could also add a hunk of Cod, or even replace the shrimp with it altogether. We thought it was really good. (I hope you can read the scan of this recipe)
