This is the coldest it's been in at least five years and we've got more snow on the ground even today than I can remember in so long. The family across the street, who are a smidge higher up than we are, made a HUGE snowman, about eight feet tall. (They have five grown sons, all of whom still live there--Afghani family--so feats of strength like that are common over there. ) It rained last night and both the snow giant and our little snowman lost their heads.

But mixed snow and rain are in the forecast for the next week and Sunday night apparently we're hopefully going to have a huge snowstorm or, less hopefully, a huge ice storm. Cross your fingers for the former, because if we get the latter we don't have a fireplace and if we lose electricity we lose heat, and the high's going to be around 20.

Lynn Siprelle, Editor