I sort of took the day off yesterday and tried to put some order into my office space. I have files scattered everywhere and needed to put them in their proper corners. Literally. One corner is for historical society stuff, one of Ice-Out, another stack is Joe's Pond Association and then there are "pockets" of stashed information that I need for when someone e-mails me asking where their Aunt Tilly is buried or what year great uncle Ben died. I have my own files, of course, and those include a few "to-do" files and a bunch marked "WHAT to do?" that I have no idea where to put them so I could ever find them again. And that's only my office. My computer is another much larger filing system and I spent considerable time yesterday sorting out photos so I will be able to find them if/when someone asks for them. And then there are boxes stored in the hallway and in the basement . . . I'll get to them someday.

It's good to go through things every so often just so you know what you have on hand. It's like my spice cupboard. I go through that from time to time. I heard some expert on TV the other day telling how long to keep spices around. I have some in my cupboard I think my grandmother had. They would have been passed down to my mother, who also never threw anything away - she was Scotch - and now I have them. I don't use them, I just don't want to throw them away. Then I have the duplicates that I've bought recently because I forgot I bought some just a few weeks ago. The memory that I need something often precludes the memory that I already bought it. So I won't open the second container of cinnamon - unless I forget that I've already opened one. It's not that I have a real problem with memory - it's more that I'm usually in a hurry and when I don't find what I want right away, I grab whatever's handy. That's how sometimes a recipe comes out with a surprisingly different taste than the last time I made it. No cinnamon? Use nutmeg! No fresh lemon to grate? Grab the little bottle of lemon peel that's been in the cupboard since Billy was a kid.

Today I can get going on pressing projects, having accomplished my housecleaning exercises yesterday. It's a good day to stay inside, too. We have alternating freezing rain and snow flurries going on. The thermometer is steady at 26 degrees and there a gusty wind out of the south, as near as I can tell. I measured another inch of snow this morning, but I didn't go out on my snowshoes to get a measurement of what's on the ground. I'll wait another week to do that. The forecast doesn't look good for all this week. It's going to be cold and then another storm coming in next weekend. It'll be more interesting then.

Bill Rossi just sent us a picture of the pileated woodpecker at their house. Looks like he's got a good start on mutilating that tree. Bill didn't say if the tree belongs to them or one of their neighbors. These guys make huge holes in trees. We've heard of them attacking houses, too. In fact, soon after Ned and Carolyn Hamilton redid their cottage next door to us when we lived at camp, there was a pileated that routinely banged away on their new building. I don't know if he did much damage, but he certainly kept at it for a while. Fred's brother had one working on his house, too, I think. I read somewhere they get confused, especially during mating season, and since sometimes they find something that makes an unusual noise when they peck away at it, they consider it sort of a mating call or something. Like the wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the oil, maybe. We see them up in the woods sometimes, and in the spring and summer when the windows are open, it's fun to hear them and others like the red-headed and downey woodpeckers rapping away - and then they have a distinctive call when they fly. Here's some information if you're interested: Pilleated Woodpecker

The scanner is unusually quiet today. I just checked to see if it's working and if maybe the volume got turned way down, but it seems to be ok. Just not much going on. With this weather, perhaps people are wisely staying at home, if they can. Some schools are still closed until after tomorrow's town meeting, and those that aren't closed for today because of the weather.

That reminds me - the son of a woman who grew up on a farm in Cabot recently asked me for information, and then sent me one of his poems. I liked it and asked if I could use it on the Cabot history website; to which he agreed, so I'm sure he won't mind if I include it here, too:

Cabot Snow, 1938

Wooden snow roller
on Hollister Hill
drawn by a four-horse team.

Smith-hammered rivets rattle holes
in steel straps clasping hand-hewn oaks.
Each slab creaking in recollection
of hillside woods' blizzard-twisted anarchy
whilst underneath,
the dry compacted snow-fall
squeaks
and squeaks
and squeaks
and squeaks.

Cattle wake with milk-distended udders.
Dairy breath rises from thirty cuds
to paint a crystalline forest dawn
on Will Walker's dusty, doomed and mullioned window panes.

The Walker barn, one of a few round barns in existence then, was severely damaged in the hurricane of 1938, thus the reference to "doomed." Walker's farm was on Whittier Hill in Cabot, but the author said there were also family connections to Hollister Hill in Plainfield.