My Life, my photography, my passions
The view down my street in Elmwood, Nebraska. A small community (technically a village), population 687, give or take a few. This was a few days after a snow and the sun had finally come out. I know compared to my Connecticut friends this snow is nothing. But, last year we can get 8-10 foot drifts with just a foot of snow, so this year we’ve been given a break.
In Nebraska snow plus wind equals amazing snowdrifts. I love how the wind creates works of art. The wind travels across miles of empty fields collecting snow and deposits the very dry fine snow into very high drifts. It only takes a few inches to create several feet worth of drifts. This last storm was only six inches but resulted in a few 4-6 foot drifts.
Nothing you want to be out in while it’s blowing, white out conditions with zero visibility created black ice this time and resulted in hundreds of accidents in Omaha and Lincoln. The interstate was closed for a short time. The Elmwood-Murdock school district, and other surrounding towns were closed for two days, one day for the storm, the next to open the many miles of country roads so the buses could get through.
The sun finally came out after three days cold winter weather and this cat took full advantage to sun bathe in the middle of the street. Took several of them, but I liked this one the best. There was something that I like about the back of the cat’s head rather than her looking at me.
I’m not sure of this her name, it’s my neighbors cat and just another photo opp on the way to the mailbox.
There is nothing better than hot chocolate on a cold winter day. Ok, hot chocolate with Reddi-Whip, that makes it better. Tell you a little secret, I will often sneak a squirt of it right on my fingers, but I always get caught, last week by my son. All I could do was give him a guilty look and a smirk.
Anyhow, back to the hot chocolate. My kids like Ovaltine, and I normally have it in the cabinet. But, this year I was given two bags of instant milk. I thought, what in the world am I going to do with all this powdered milk? So I put it in the freezer until I could think of something. It didn’t take long. As Christmas approached and I was thinking of what I could make as gifts an idea came to me.
Hot Chocolate mix! Perfect. Not only did I have lots of powdered milk, but I had three tins of Herseys cocoa. Every Christmas I buy a new container for holiday baking, totally forgetting I had some from last year. Perfect! I looked on my favorite recipe site Allrecipes.com and found the recipe below. It was a hit in my gift bags.
Ingredients
In a large mixing bowl, combine milk powder, confectioner’s sugar, cocoa powder and creamer. Stir thoroughly.
For one serving place 1/3 cup cocoa mixture in a coffee cup or mug, add 3/4 cup boiling water (or milk for a richer taste). Stir to dissolve.
Although the recipe doesn’t call for it I would definitely sift the mixture. Almost all the ingredients have little itty bitty tiny chunks that don’t dissolve well and will sometimes give the final product “texture”.
Not too much to say about this, except it just gives the impression of the cold, barren winter. Just a picture coming back from my mailbox. I wonder how long it will take before I run out of photo opportunities between the house and the mailbox.
