The first snow here at Cockamamy Farm was picturesque—quiet, sparkly, thick, beautiful. And, it was the puppies’ first snow! They were pretty cute trying to figure it all out.

Fletcher and Okra were chasing each other and biting the snow, playing and rolling in it. You know—standard six-month-old puppy behavior.

And then, this.

Which is pretty much how it goes: play, eat, play, poop, sleep. Repeat. Ahh, what a life!

While the dogs were recovering from their morning in the white stuff, I decided it was time to add a little color to our super-brown stairwell.

As you can see, the stairs are very brown, and very worn. That’s what you get with a hundred year-old house! So I figured, what the heck? Why not? Ben plans to replace the stair treads (the part you stand on) with cottonwood to match the floors (you can see the light-color flooring butting up to the start of the stairs at the bottom of the photo above). So I decided there’s no time like the present to paint the risers (the vertical pieces that link the treads…some people refer to the risers as toe kicks) the very fun, bright turquoise of the back door.

Why now? Because now, while the treads and trim are old and imperfect I could drink wine (in the jelly jar on the bottom step in the photo below) and not worry about masking everything off for perfect corners and edges. Now, I can make a mess. And when Ben replaces the treads and trim, the risers will still be imperfect but the new pieces will create those perfect corners and edges.

But for the time being, I’m embracing the imperfection and just reveling in the color! When things are all white and brown outside, its lovely to have a vibrant hue greet you just inside the back door.

A few days after the snow, the temperature was back in the 50s and we harvested the season’s last gasp from the garden: beets, kale, spinach, lettuces (still!), carrots, and two of the ugliest radishes ever…

I mean really, really ugly.

Now I need to figure out what project the next snow day will bring…stay tuned to find out!