Snow Cover.

It's cold out there, and the moon on the crest of the newfallen snow sparkles about as it should—a fine way to ring January out and drag February in. I was ready for spring, was happy to see the pansies beginning to recover from the last snow, but this ought to set us back about to the right date, the right spot, ought to hold the pansies as they were and keep my way-too-late-planted daffodils and tulips from arriving too early. This is how it goes in January. You want for a sooner spring. You know you shouldn't want for it. You want for it anyway.

Rainfall totals coming. Busted rain gauge and the impossibility of converting six inches of snow plus two of sleet has held us up thus far. Doppler-estimated seems the way to go. More to come, more to come.

That woodstove works OK. I'm mired in chapter seven of book two, but I'm not cold.

Dog. Boots I bought in Boston. Split oak. Coffee. Sour mash. Snow shovel. Four or five layers of shirt. School on the edge of starting back up. This is a life about which one probably ought not lodge complaint.