We now have 13 inches of snow at the stake in our back yard.  The trees are trimmed with mounds of snow and at about 18 degrees, it was really very nice when we walked/ran Jamie and Marie's hill earlier this morning.  I say walked/ran because I walk it, Fred runs.  This morning he did it four times, walking down to catch his breath each time; I do it once and congratulate myself that I made it at all.  We used to do that routine every other day, but now we do it every day, although Fred runs it only twice on alternate days.    It's really a pull up that hill and gets the heart pumping pretty good.

The view above is from our living room window that faces northeast; the next one is the view facing southeast.  That corner with the two big windows is a wonderful place to sit and read or just watch the landscape.  It does change - sometimes within minutes when there's a storm coming down the valley from Walden or when the sun is rising over West Danville.

Fred's brother, Tom, sent this picture of the walking trail near where they live in Colorado.  They plow the trail and he says as far as he knows, snow machines are not allowed - only walkers and bikers.  It is along the Eagle River, and is six or seven miles long, running between Avon and Edwards, Colorado.  It looks like they have about the same amount of snow as we have here right now, but of course on the mountains there is much more.  

I Googled for snowmobile trails in that area and found there are trails connecting Avon, Vail and Beaver Creek, where Tom works.

Now we are expecting another storm in the northeast that is probably going to dump a fair amount of snow along the coast from Providence north to Boston.  All the cities that really don't need another hit of winter on top of the flooding, wind and snow they've already had.  We could get another six inches or so over several days.  Or not.  It's hard to tell where the snow is going to pile up.  Usually the mountains get most, but in our last storm, some higher areas were "shadowed" and didn't get as much as expected.  Mt. Mansfield is reporting 43 inches at their stake now, a bit higher than average for this time of year.

We're hoping air travel will not be disrupted this weekend.  Floriana, Monika's mother, will be leaving us on Sunday to return to Namibia.  She will fly to Washington DC on the first leg of her flight.  I believe she will then go from Washington to Johannesburg, which takes about 17 hours, and the third leg will be from Johannesburg to Windhoek, in Namibia, about a two hour flight.  Family will meet her there and then take her to Oshakati, where her home is, a grueling eight or nine hour trip by auto.  That is a long and difficult trip, and we are hoping she gets to DC and on her way without being impacted by the weather.  We will all miss her, but she will be reunited with her family, including her elderly mother, after having been away for six months, so I know there will be lots of happiness at her arrival.

Some of you may be thinking about New Year's Resolutions, but if you're like me, you won't waste time on something you know you aren't going to follow through on.  I resolved after Christmas Eve dinner to get back to our "regular" diet - immediately - no waiting until the new year, I got down to business starting with breakfast Christmas Morning, and that's not difficult because we generally eat much less and healthier than we did during the holidays, Thanksgiving included.  However, my thoughts as 2012 comes to a close are mainly about all the disasters that have happened this year and the violence that has shocked and unnerved our whole nation.  I heard a report on WCAX recently about Vermont's crimes from 2006 to 2010, showing unexpected information as to who is committing those crimes.  I then went to another site to get more recent information about crime statistics in Vermont.  Over all, Vermont is a pretty darned safe place to live, and probably that's why we are so shocked when it happens here.

We can't do much to control or avoid the weather, but I think the exceptional coverage by the media, bringing sordid details into our homes quickly, candidly and immediately saturates us with too much information sometimes, and we begin to believe there are murderers, robbers and rapists and even Mother Nature out to get us.  Perhaps, in a way, that is good because we become more aware of our surroundings, more suspicious and perhaps better prepared to fend off the perpetrators and prepare for natural disasters.  

My wish for the coming year is that somehow we get to the root, the cause, at least of what makes some people go berserk and try to find ways to help and control them so they don't harm others.  I know people much smarter than I are working on these problems, and that gives me hope.  Perhaps 2013 will be a calmer, more-love-than-hate year, and that's what I'll be wishing for instead of making hollow resolutions.

By the way, Diane Rossi wrote that one night this week when the sky was clear, there was a beautiful shot of the rising moon at about 5 o'clock on the webcam.  I didn't happen to see it, but perhaps some of you did.  Because there isn't much happening on the ice right now, you need to time your visits to the webcam to early morning sunrises and early evening moon rises.  Later on, daytime visits may reveal ice fishermen, snowmobilers, cross-country skiers, and of course almost any day, blowing snow.  You'll find a link to the web cam on home page, but be sure you are using the Internet Explorer browser.