What’s worse, the snow or the cold?

I’ve yet to venture outside this Sunday morning, choosing instead to work on my blogs. Here’s why. At 10:25 a.m., the crawl on “CBS Sunday Morning” proclaimed the temperature in Syracuse, N.Y., to be -4 F. My peering out the side at 8 allowed me the vision of Good Neighbor Tim and Wonderful Wife Lorraine…

Slap a couple steaks on the grill

I hear the boasts here and there from the toughies who claim they’re always ready to burn up a couple of sirloins for dinner out there in their backyard no matter the season. Yeah, buddy, you master of your own universe, captain of the propane flame, king and queen of coal, grillmeister extraordinary. Not me.…

A drive 70 miles north of Syracuse finds real cold and snow

I had the opportunity to head the Chevy Cruze north Tuesday morning for a 70-mile drive up Interstate 81 to the city of Watertown. It was a rather pleasant 20 degrees F when I pulled out of the driveway of the beloved Little Bitty my dear wife Karen and I share in the Syracuse city…

Snow in the Syracuse backyard? Ellie B digs it

As I’ve written about the snow piling up around our Little Bitty the past few days here in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood, somebody asked me in a comment about the reaction of Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle. Well, Diana, I do believe you will be able to see for yourself. Not one of…

The saga of snow and Syracuse city living Part II

So you know what happens when you get to the bottom of your driveway in the Syracuse city neighorhood of Eastwood all cleared from the night’s worth of snow, including the big pile deposited by the snow plow at the bottom, right? Inevitably? I still had my shovel in hand and was attacking the middle…

Take it to the (snow) bank

The plow came through our Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood last night. I call that good news and bad news. Yes, we live at the foot of a rather sharp grade for an urban setting — remember my Syracuse half-marathon photos of runners careening down past our house the past two winters? — so that…

More than a dusting, less than a Nor’easter

The snow the weather folks had been talking about for days — Nor’easter was their fright word I shared with in yesterday’s post direct from my wait in the car dealer’s service waiting room — finally showed up at our house in the Syracuse city nieghborhood of Syracuse after 10 last night. My verdict this…

Keep your head high and your eyes wide

Snow kisses my backyard in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood as we stir on this Thanksgiving morn. It covers the ground and the shed, and hangs on the boughs of those towering pines in the neighbor’s house behind. Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle welcomes the sight and the feel of it. She’s ready for…

Now and then

Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle and I passed this pretty little corner of a neighbor’s front yard this April 19 in our morning walk through the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. Nice looking pine backed by a lawn yearning to turn green. Rather unassuming, though, right? But does it look vaguely familiar? The last time…

A snowy spring hiccup

That is not the sight I wanted to wake up to on April 16 in Syracuse, N.Y. Not when just a day ago when I took a good, long look at this garden in our city neighborhood of Eastwood front yard, I was noting the yellow flowers of this forsythia that’s the cornerstone of the…