We awoke to a beautifully bright, sunny day this morning. The forecast is for temperatures in the 20's, which will be a far cry from last night's readings of about -8 degrees with the wind making it feel like -25 degrees. The wind was still howling when I turned in around 11 o'clock, but there's not even a breeze this morning. It's still only 5 above, though. This picture is looking towards West Danville from our living room window. You can just barely see the White Mountains in the distance.

Woody can't seem to believe it's always so cold when he goes outside. He hasn't really accepted winter yet, and asks to go out several times in the mornings, but never stays more than five minutes or so before he's knocking to come in again. He will eventually crash on top of the kitchen cupboards until late afternoon when he begins the in and out routine again. He watches the chickadees intently from his perch on the window sill in the living room, and sometimes spots a squirrel and that sets him in motion regardless of the weather. After he's been out, he comes dashing into the living room, and if I'm in my chair, hops up on my lap to warm his feet. If I'm not there, he settles in front of the wood stove.

This is a picture of the path where I go each morning to read my weather gauges. I'm very fortunate that Fred keeps it shoveled for me. We aren't sure how long we can keep it open, or even how long before the snow will creep up to cover my measuring tube, but I'm sure I'll need to reposition things soon. With another storm brewing, the tube that is only about 24 inches off the ground, will be covered. The snow board is about 36 inches high, so may be okay. I measured only 12 inches of snow at the stake this morning, though. Whatever snow we got yesterday was traveling horizontally and not much of it stayed on the ground.

I had an e-mail from Bill this morning. They were heading out on a tour of the Lion Park and Soweto today. They have been rescheduled to a January 5th appointment at the embassy, and that should complete the paper work for Jo-Ann to come to this country. They may not be able to change their flight to leave Africa earlier than they'd planned, but they will make good use of their time there, I'm sure.