Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 12:30 a.m. in "The City." Right now, the temperature is a brisk 35° as we drop to the overnight low of 32°. Around 5:00 a.m., the chance of rain increases to 65%. That percentage increases to 100% by 6:00 a.m. and then drops off to 20% by 11:00 a.m. The wind will be blowing strongly during that time. Alas, poor Sugar the Weather Dog. She won't be getting a morning walk even though the temperature will rise to 43° by late afternoon. If the forecast from the National Weather Service is accurate, we'll have to wait until a week from today to see temperatures in the 60s. That's a long way out to be able to forecast with any accuracy.

I mention that, because yesterday I was out in the vast gardens of the palatial estate raking some of the leaves from last fall. Since we had an early snowfall, a gray mold of some type had appeared on the lawns underneath the snow mounds. According to the folks on the Flowerland Show, all you have to do is give the moldy areas a light raking with a lawn rake and the mold will disappear. It does look better, so I think that their advice was on target. There are still some snow mounds out there, but they are fading and the rainfall should finish them off.

I also found time to play with the girls earlier yesterday. That always makes me happy. I finished my latest novel too after working on a couple of crossword puzzles. Sugar and I picked up the newspaper earlier in the morning. I never did get to the man-cave after the raking and bagging. But being retired, there's always tomorrow.

Mary made an excellent stir fry for lunch. Dinner was from a new cookbook she received yesterday, and it too was excellent. Good flavor atop linguine noodles. My contribution was making applesauce and emptying the dishwasher.

Late yesterday evening, I did a little train spotting. At 10:30 p.m., the southbound train rolled through. Two locomotives towing a lone box car, 14 covered hopper cars and three black tank cars. I hope to be asleep before the northbound run occurs.

Today, I'll probably make it to the man-cave and then play with the girls again. I may also start another novel. I have several to choose from and there is one at the library ready for pickup.

The sun will rise at 7:39 a.m., and set at 8:02 p.m. Ciao.