Today has been cold and blustery, and it's getting colder.  I can't tell what the wind chill temperature is because my wind gauge is frozen.  It's high on the roof of our house, so not easy to get to, therefore it'll stay frozen for a while.  It doesn't make much difference - the wind is blowing hard enough so I'm pretty sure the wind chill is below zero even though the air temperature is 15 degrees.  It will be a cold night.
 
Fred just went to check Jamie and Marie's driveway - it was very slippery this morning when they went to work, but Marty Larrabee was coming to sand it, and Fred wanted to see if it had been done before Jamie and Marie got home.  It was well sanded and much better.  Fred got some pictures while he was out there - too bad cold doesn't show up in these, but you can see the sky was looking a bit threatening - those clouds have been scudding by along with swirls of snow most of the day.  We had some snow showers earlier, but later this afternoon the sun peeked through and the wind picked up even more.  It could be a wild night.  The top picture is looking southeast down West Shore Road.  The sky was pretty clear in that direction - all the storm clouds were coming from the northwest, as you can see looking in the opposite direction in the bottom shot.  In between is Jamie and Marie's driveway, nicely sanded.  Jamie said it was a little tricky getting down their steep driveway this morning.  Fred has a solution for ours, as you can see. He kept wheel tracks clear of snow and used salt when it started to freeze last night.  Now it's rough and crispy, but not glare ice, and the wheel tracks are down to the hardtop, so we're in fairly good shape.  Jamie and Marie's driveway is crushed rock and was snow packed when the rain came.  The snow pack turned to ice and not enough of the rock poked through to give much traction.  

Keep your animals inside and safe from the cold tonight, and if you have elderly neighbors, or know someone living alone, it's a good idea to just check in on them to be sure they are ok.  The forecast is for this weekend to be sunny and cold.  

According to my back yard measuring stick, we lost about half our snow pack in this last warm spell.  The stake shows 9.5 inches now, down from a high of 18 inches.  I have no doubt we'll replace it.  In the meantime, we're making ice.