Our car wearing its snow blanket (to keep it warm?) from the last snow storm

the master of the house removing the snow blanket

 An example of an afterthought house.  Note all the additions to the original building.  I am pretty sure they did not start with the front sunroom and then add the rest.  It looks like they built the main house, added the front enclosed porch/sunroom then the side room and then the back piece that connects the main house to the garage.

 Pristine snow and Camelot bare road on Sunday Afternoon.

 This is a pond on the other side of these trees.  It is completely frozen.

This cemetery monument place is right across the road from our apartment.  If we decide to ditch mortality, we will not have to go far to get a memorial slab................

Camelot is a place where it never rains until after sundown and by  9pm the moonlight must appear according to the song.  Well it is somewhat like Camelot today with ideal conditions.  The sun was shining, it was fairly cool but not unbearably cold, the roads are dry and clear of snow and ice and the ice and snow is where it should be – on the rooftops, on the fields, and not bothering anyone.  I even went walking on Riverside Drive.  The snowplow did a wonderful job leaving a swath of road for people to walk or run and early this morning there were many runners out jogging in the early morning sun and when I was out this afternoon, there were runners still out there passing me up.  I cannot jog or run because my balance is not as good as it used to be and it is easy for me to fall over. 

Some of the fields have been tracked up by the snowmobiles and others have been crisscrossed by the cross country skiers.  It really is much nicer if there are no tracks in the snow.  When we lived in Pennsylvania David and Sara loved to track up the snow.  David made paths in the snow with the snow shovel in hopes that the newspaper boy would enjoy the twists and turns as he followed the maze made by David.  In reality, the newspaper boy was late in getting out and had to deliver the papers quickly so that he could then go to school and to follow the maze made by David would really have slowed his delivery.  Making the maze kept David busy and busy is good.  The field mice made little runs under the snow and as it melted, these runs became visible and the grass was lovely and green, just as if the field mice had been farming the runs so that they could have fresh greens to eat during the winter.  Always there was a rabbit or two that decided to test the pristine snow and leave tracks.  There are not too many rabbits left where we live in Arizona compared to when we first moved there so in recent winters there have not been too many rabbit tracks in our snow there.  Don’t know if their numbers have dwindled due to housing encroachment on their environment or if the population is controlled by the coyote packs that hunt in the area.

Today while I was walking I heard the waterfowl down on the river.  They sounded like Canada Geese calling to each other.  The river is not a solid white sheet of ice these days because we have had quite a run of above freezing temperatures and the little breaks give the appearance of crackle glaze.  I wanted to see the ice houses where people are hoping to do some ice fishing, but the locals say that the river ice is not thick enough in Gardiner to go out on the ice and fish.  I guess the warm temperatures had a lot to do with whether or not people go ice fishing this far south.  Up in the northern part of Maine the newspaper has shown pictures of ice fishermen setting fish traps.

It is amazing what appears in this local newspaper.  They had an article on Jack Brabham of Australia.  In my memory bank, I had given him the fame of being gelignite Jack of the Round Australia Trials but my friend Graham in Australia emailed me and said that Gelignite Jack was Jack Murray.  I am glad that Graham has a better memory than I do.  This week they had a picture of the Australian Prime Minister being escorted from a meeting.  The article said that an angry crowd had gathered outside the building where she had been and she needed an escort to get her out safely.  That same day there appeared a political cartoon in the paper showing the events surrounding Congresswoman Ms. Gabriel Giffords (D) of Tucson, Arizona, who was shot by a mentally unstable person named Jared Loftner.  Ms. Giffords survived and after extensive surgery and rehab she is now able to walk and talk etc. and she appeared on Capitol Hill in Washington DC to announce that even though she has survived the attack, she is stepping aside so that she can continue with her recovery.  The political cartoon drew the events of Ms. Giffords journey from shooting victim to appearing on Capitol Hill and the caption underneath quipped “The only time both sides of the house joined together to honor an event.”

It is now the end of January.  I wonder if the weather patterns here in Maine follow the same course they did in Pennsylvania?  Groundhog day signals 6 more weeks of ice and snow in Pa. so I wonder if it will be the same here.  The locals say that this winter has been the strangest one they have had in a long time.  The forecast says we are to have snow for the next two days.  Guess  I won’t be out walking on Riverside Drive but walking in the YMCA with the hardbody 20 somethings in their Nike spandex and Vibram shoes.  You just have to dress for success these days.