We haven't quite reached "winter mode" again after all the rain, but today was a step in the right direction.  Fortunately, the rain stopped, last night temperatures went below freezing and stopped the runoff, and today the sun came out for a little while.  We are still lacking snow but have plenty of ice.  I took these pictures when I walked today.  The top one is from the road, looking into the woods where there isn't much snow, but what there is is not crusty like the snow in the open.  The bottom picture is the bank next to the road where the water was coming off the hillsides into the ditch.  There's lots of ice still on the back roads, under the sand, and it can be a bit dicey if you get too far to the side as there are spots where it's glare ice into the ditch - so that's where you'll wind up, in the ditch.  There are no snowbanks to catch you and keep your car from sliding off the road.

We were a bit surprised Saturday to see a truck on the ice by the fishing shanty in back of the islands.  I haven't heard how thick the ice is, but apparently all that below-zero weather we had manufactured plenty of it.  

Our newspaper, the Caledonian Record, wasn't delivered to us today.  It happens sometimes.  No, we don't have an errant paper boy - but occasionally it just simply doesn't arrive in our mail box the way it's supposed to.  We could go on line to read it, but that isn't nearly as satisfying for me as being comfortable in my chair, TV on and Woody in my lap, holding the newspaper in my hands, and trying not to rustle it too much so Woody gets disturbed and leaves.  I clip articles sometimes - obituaries and occasional photos, and always the Sudoko puzzle.  I don't clip the crossword puzzles out very often - I don't always do the crosswords, but if I do, it's usually with the paper folded.  I try not to leave it too riddled with holes, at least until Fred has had a chance to read it.  Because we didn't get the paper, today has seemed like Sunday.  We don't get a Sunday paper.  Fred called the Cabot post office, but they said the papers came as usual and went with the mail carrier for delivery; they didn't have a clue where ours went.  Then Fred called the newspaper office - they will leave one at the desk for us so we can pick it up when we go into town in a few days.  They don't like to mail another one - I suppose it costs them extra postage.  Of course, it could show up in our mail box tomorrow, but that is unlikely.  By the time we get it, we'll have heard the important news on TV, but I'll still enjoy perusing the classified ads and scanning through the advertising.  Then there's Dear Abby, the comics, Sudoku and the crossword . . . I'll have lots to catch up on.  We sometimes get other people's mail, but we always leave it in the box and the mail person delivers it to the right person eventually, I suppose; and I have to believe other people on the mail route sometimes get mail meant for us and do the same.  But that never seems to happen with the paper.  Oh, well.  There could be worse problems.  If mail deliveries are cut to five days a week, then I'll have to adjust to having two "Sundays". . . that will be confusing.