We're close to the end of a blustery day, but I doubt tonight will show much improvement.  Right now my thermometer is reading zero and there's a strong gusty wind blustering down the valley from Walden direction.  The snow has been swirling off our roof all day, making it look worse than it really is outside, but even so, it's mighty cold in that wind.  I opted not to walk today.  Fred went as usual.  Perhaps the weather will be a little better tomorrow.  I've found it isn't good to miss more than a day or so, otherwise, it's really hard for me to make it up the hill without stopping.  As it is, I sometimes go so slowly it's hard to keep my balance - it's called barely moving.  It reminds me of when I was taking some skiing lessons years ago and the instructor kept telling me if I would only go a little faster, I could make my turns better and wouldn't risk falling down as much.  I always liked to feel I was in control, and not at the mercy of the skis.

This morning we saw a couple little beagles in our back yard.  Pretty soon a carload of men dressed in hunting gear showed up, and we learned the dogs had gone to Jamie and Marie's and they were able to find a phone number on the little female's collar, so called the owner and they came to get the dogs.  Marie said the female seemed cold and was glad to get inside, but the male wouldn't go in.  He stayed around, though, so they are both back home now, I imagine.

Otto, Jamie and Marie's dog, got into a porcupine on Friday.  Fortunately, the quills were small ones, so he may have found some remains rather than connecting with a live one.  If he'd been hit with a tail, the quills would have been big and much harder to get out.  As it was, Jamie and Marie were able to get them all out right away, and when we saw him a few hours later, he didn't even seem to have a fat lip.

Yesterday we had a very pleasant surprise when Monika and the girls stopped by on their way home from a basketball game at Harwood Union in Hardwick.  They had lunch with us and we had a great time watching Tangeni interact with Woody - or maybe it was the other way around.  She chased, he avoided, but he seemed to like the attention and let her pat him.  He was wary when she screamed with excitement, and kept just out of her reach when she chased him, but he hung out pretty much all the time they were here.  Tangeni gave him a good workout, and he had a long nap after they left.

Did you know winter storms get named, too?  I hadn't realized that.  This one is Plato.  Check it out.  Looks like Cape Cod got really socked with lots of snow.  Sounds like there's another big storm forming on the west coast that will be heading in our direction later this week.  Winter isn't over yet, for sure, and we still have March ahead of us.

We are excited that we're getting some customers buying Ice Out Contest tickets with the new PayPal arrangement.  It's pretty easy, but they do have to buy ten tickets in order to have the convenience of paying on line.  People who don't want that many tickets can still go to the printable page and fill out whatever number of tickets they want and send them to us with the money by regular mail.

Now I'm going to go into the living room and put up the window quilts.  When the temperature gets down in the zero range, there's a lot of cold air that comes off all that glass, even though it's double paned.  The window quilts have proven to be effective in stopping that draft.  Since we both sit near the windows, we feel the difference, and even though I miss being able to watch the lights across the pond and cars on West Shore Road, it makes sense to use them.  We had an oil delivery this week and Fred figures we've saved perhaps as much as 40% less oil this year compared to a comparable period before we did the winterization and installed the new boiler.  We've made many changes, so it's impossible to know what exactly has made the difference, but we're happy that what we've done seems to be paying off.