It's getting late,  but I wanted to let those of you who are not here at Joe's Pond know that our January thaw is over, at least for the moment. The weather is being very strange this year, but I've heard from lots of others in various parts of the country expressing the same comments. I heard from Karen Cobb earlier this week and they have had snow one day and nearly 70 degrees the next where they are in Virginia. Butch and Susan Bouchard are heading to the southwest to get away from New England weather for a while. We heard from relatives in Florida today and weather has been pretty nice there after a rocky start earlier in the winter.

We're in for some cold and snowy weather by the end of the week, but nothing really unusual for January. We had just a skimming of snow last night - it was hardly enough to measure this morning. We were at Don and Diane Sherwood's last evening for dinner and although Old Homestead road is a bit on the slippery side, it is well plowed and we had no trouble at all. 

We had a very nice evening with Don and Diane. Diane Rossi went over with us and Tom Beattie and John Dauteuil were there. I see John from time to time at the Danville Historical Society where his is doing accessions - a very important task and one that has been neglected for a while. John is making a big dent in the boxes and stacks of papers and photos that have been donated. Now people going there to search for relatives or events will be able to find whatever there is in the collections.

We hadn't seen Tom for a while and it was great to see him doing so much better. It's been a long road back for him, but he's made very good progress. We had a great meal (Diane is a really good cook) and fun conversation. Anyone who knows Don knows conversation never gets dull when he's around. It was really good to see everyone. We haven't seen many Joe's Pond folks recently - we missed out on a Christmas gathering at the Crosby's early in December because we were both coming down with something, and although we see our neighbors walking by from time to time and sometimes bump into them as we are coming or going, we haven't been very social so far this winter. By choice, really, since I'm working on the book and Fred has been taking a computer course, so we are both kept very busy. There are always the usual doctor appointments and meetings, but they don't count as something enjoyable, so it was especially nice to just be with friends last night.

I had intended to take some ham and cheese roll-ups to Diane's for appetizers. I had some phyllo sheets in the freezer and had taken them out the night before - didn't bother to check the date on them, and when I started to unroll the dough, it was like shredded paper. Completely dried out and useless. I tried to recover a few sheets by covering them with a damp towel, and was successful in getting a few rolled up and baked. But when I tried one, it was really bad. Not the buttery, cheese and ham morsel I'd hoped for, but fortunately, I had subconsciously anticipated such a disaster (I've learned over the years!) and had fresh crackers and Cabot cheese on hand - just in case.

I threw the phyllo stuff out. I do hate to throw anything away, and Fred constantly reminds me about checking dates on whatever is in our cupboards. I should have paid attention. I have a mindset left over from my childhood when my mother used to can most of our food - filling Ball glass jars - the kind with red rubber gaskets that formed the seal between the jar and the cover - with fruit, vegetables and meat every year to last us through the winter. Everything went into a hot water bath and got the air expelled and was tightly sealed. Sometimes, if it didn't seal quite right, the food would spoil, but the rule we went by was that if it didn't hiss at you when you opened the jar, it was ok. I know that rule worked well for store-bought canned goods, too. Occasionally we'd open something that would hiss as soon as a hole was punched to begin opening it. Or if the ends of the can were rounded instead of flat, that was a distinct warning it had gone bad. Best to handle those cans with extreme care - there was a lot of pressure in there!

I didn't make any New Years Resolutions, but I think I will make at least two belatedly: to be sure to use items up before the expiration dates, and also to always date packages of leftovers I'm putting into the freezer. Maybe another would be to not try to save every single little bit of anything leftover. Either eat it right away or toss it.