We are feeling as if winter is already here. All week we've had lower than usual temperatures and several nights have been in the teens. Today there's snow in the air - again! - and the wind is whipping snow off the trees and roofs and sending clouds racing sometimes ahead of the cars as they go down West Shore Road past our house. We don't have a wind sock, but our flag indicates the wind is strong out of the north northwest. I took a picture from our living room window at around eight o'clock this morning. You can see that the marsh is frozen over and snow covered and if you look closely you can see that there's also ice on the channel and creeping out from the shoreline in back of the islands. The first pond at West Danville is closed in. We used to think having the lake frozen over by Thanksgiving was normal; but it has remained open longer in the last few years. This year could be different, but it's really hard to tell. Right now it looks and feels like winter.

We went to Goldie's Gathering in Cabot Village last night with Bill and Diane Rossi. It was fun, but unfortunately it was "Family Night" when they have only one entree choice, served family style. We had looked at their web site and each of us was looking forward to a different item from the menu, so on that score we were a little disappointed. We enjoyed the evening, though and saw many people we knew so Goldie's is, indeed, a gathering place. Our waitress was very pleasant and we enjoyed seeing owners Delores and Rolfe Muench. We've been told breakfasts at Goldie's is very good, and on the first Sunday of each month they have a brunch, according to the web site, so there are still possibilities to explore there.

We learned last night that the Joe's Pond Country Store was robbed Wednesday evening. The robber was wielding a knife and had his face covered, but was described in the papers as being in his 20's, medium height and weight with dark brown hair. According to the report he got an unknown amount of money. We heard this morning a store in Calis was robbed last night - makes one wonder. As times get tougher economically, there will probably be more of this sort of goings on. It's too bad young kids ruin their future by doing these awful things.