We got a little more snow during last night, but it only amounted to less than two inches.  I got the CoCoRaHS  newsletter today from Nolan Doesken who is affiliated with the Universtiy of Colorado.  He said they have been getting snow finally, so the skiers are very happy.  He actually has a farm in what I guess would be called the "foothills"and apparently they don't usually get a lot of snow there, but here's what he wrote:

After a slow start, one storm after another has been marching across the country 
lately.  Arizona and New Mexico finally got a good soaker (valley rains and mountain snows) over the weekend.   There were some storm totals of more than 2" of moisture in parts of AZ. One of our favorite (infamous)mountain passes in Colorado -- Wolf Creek Pass -- picked up four feet of fresh snow and it's still coming down now.  Cool rains and snow finally moistened the dry soils across the Plains states.   Portland and Seattle both saw a little snow today, and a large storm is moving across the Rockies tonight and will be spreading snow from here to the Great Lakes in the next couple of days.  Our streak of 38 straight days with no measurable precipitation just ended this evening as snow now covers our ground.

 
We know this storm is headed in our direction, but whether it will deliver significant snow to us is another question.  We can only hope we get some - but not four feet!!

Christmas is coming up fast now - seems like only a few days ago I was thinking how nice it was that I had a whole month ahead of me to plan for the holidays.  Now it's time to finalize plans, wrap a couple more packages, and be sure I have everything I'll need in the pantry.  I'm not doing the family meal this year (Bob and Theresa are), but we have a few guests coming for dinner on Christmas Day. 

We had a cute greeting from Pat and George Parizo by way of photos.  I'm sure they won't mind if I share them here.  The grands were making use of our recent wet snow . . .  

I think they did a really good job - but I'm not sure how many builders were involved or if the handiwork took place all the same day. It doesn't matter - we appreciate that George sent the photos.  Looks like the kids had a great time.

You may remember we have been and still are very interested in solar energy, even though right now it isn't quite the fit we're looking for.  But this is an interesting bit of information from SunCommon, who we contacted a while back:

Solar now employs more people than coal. New studies show that 119,000 Americans (including me) work in solar, while just

86,000 work for coal companies. And that gap’s only going to grow.

Want to talk about job creation? Then let’s talk about solar. Want to revive good paying solid work in local communities? Then let’s talk solar. This is big, and we couldn’t be prouder.

In our little corner of Vermont, SunCommon has created 46 new jobs this year alone.

We can all use such positive news these days.

Things are looking up!

Dan Conant

Solar Community Organizer

This seems like good news to us, too.  Certainly solar is better for the environment, but it takes energy to make the components for a solar installation - either coal or oil, I suppose.  That's something else to consider, I guess.