Good early morning GH, It is just past 3:30 a.m. in "The City," and the current temperature is 36° as we head down to today's high of 25°. We won't see the 40s again until Friday, and then only for one day. It looks like we may have dodged a bullet that is called Vulcan. The snowfall that is forecast to hit the East Coast and points south, won't hit us, for once. That means that Mary can make it to her dental appointment later this morning, and I can make it to my P/T appointment later this afternoon.

I am currently looking out the Weather Window and there is no sign of that snow. Indoors, our temperature is 72 digitally reported degrees. I am tempted to quote from that old song, What a Difference a Day Made, wherein the lyrics state that, "What a difference a day made, twenty-four little hours." I almost used that lyric yesterday. When the outdoor temperature goes up, the indoor temperature in this old house, (pardon my pun), goes up too. I can look forward to another change by tomorrow morning.

Yesterday, Mary and I journeyed to the medium-box grocery store to pick up those things that we didn't get at the larger store the day before. The experiences were 180° apart. Pleasant engaged people, we easily found all of the items we wanted, and we didn't have to walk for what seemed like miles in a store too hot for comfort. In short, everything that a store can be. There are only one or two items that we have to get at that big-box store that we can't get at the medium sized store. We may have to adapt. We also traded in that smaller bag of food that we had picked up for Sugar the Weather Dog while we were out. Instead we got the larger bag that did offer a significant economy of scale.

In the later afternoon yesterday, we made a decision to take the older bag of food to the local shelter. They are always in need of food for the shelter dogs, and both Mary and I have a soft spot for shelters and their dogs. Sugar couldn't understand why we were taking away her food, but she was okay when she found that a replacement was on hand. You'll find a picture at the end that helps to explain.

Last night at 9:55 p.m. to 10:05 p.m., the train went by heading south. In order for the train to move any slower, it would have to stop. 28 cars and two locomotives took 10 full minutes to cross the nearby railroad crossing. Several impatient drivers were held up by the slow train. Twin locomotives, and their tow, moved so slowly that the wheels on the rails sounded like a Chicago elevated train. What an eclectic collection of cars. One box car, 20 covered hopper cars, one older, graffiti covered hopper car, and then a mix of five black, one white and two black tank cars brought up the rear.

Earlier this morning, at 2:15 a.m., the same locomotives headed north pulling a long string of covered hopper cars. That train took only a couple of minutes to pass. That means that all of the train traffic should be over for the night/morning.

Today, I plan to work on our puzzle more before I go to that P/T appointment. Yesterday, Mary reminded me to get out of the chair and walk around a bit, lest my back start aching again. She was right. However, while she was using my computer to do her twice weekly chat with her work group, my little box of chips became infected with multiple pieces of spyware. I spent several tedious minutes trying to get this machine to respond before I gave up, rebooted, and ran the scanners. I often wonder why I have an Internet security service when the service never seems to secure anything.

I did take some pictures for my winter chronology just in case the storm hit us. I'll share a couple at the end.

That looks like enough for now. Sunrise will be at 8:01 and sunset at 7:45 p.m. Ciao

Why these dogs? Because they were lifesavers when I was in the hospital a few years back.

What Ragus can see from her spot on the porch

Here too. 

Our trees have taken a beating this winter, with branches pinned in the snow.

We were almost there by late yesterday afternoon, you can see the grass in the middle .

Our hose is peeking out from beneath the snow covering the outdoor entrance to the "Man-Cave."

By way of perspective,  man vs. snow.  Note the relatively cleaner driveway.