Pretty as a Picture

Ice covers a tree on our road. On the ridge in the background if you click and enlarge the picture you can almost make out Moose Mountain Lodge on the ridge. (Click it twice to super-size.)
The bright blue sky at the old farm on the end of our road is in contrast to yesterday's storm.
Icicles dangle from a power line to an out building near the end of our road. The small log cabin home that this building goes with was built with logs from trees blown down during the famed 1938 Hurricane.

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Greetings from the Howe Library in Hanover ;-)

Well, thanks to the hard-working town crew and their chainsaws our road is open again. No such luck with the electricity. The telephone worked until early afternoon yesterday and then gave up the ghost.

I'm not sure we'd want to do this for an extended period, but landlocked at our house yesterday without heat, electricity or running water, we passed time playing a lot of Scrabble and reading and even cat-napped a bit while the temperature gradually dropped and dropped. It was good family time.

I've been reading a book called The Meadow by James Galvin and it was interesting to break out a lantern in a cold house last night to read his "ragged sketches of ranch life along the Wyoming-Colorado border (that) depict Galvin's neighbors--hardscrabble folk--in wry, stoic stories of skill, survival and loss that flash back and forth across 100 years of the high meadow's history."

As this space said last night, we dodged the "road closed" signs and made it into town early last evening so I could file a couple of stories due this morning, get some coldcuts to tide us over and buy some drinking water. We made it home without incident although when we pulled into the driveway we found pushing our way through the low-hanging trees opened up the ski rack atop our car!

The outside temperature dropped to 13 degrees overnight but it wasn't all that bad sleeping. (Gotta admit I broke out my new down sleeping bag.)

The, ahem, "brisk" temperature this morning put a premium on getting dressed and out the door quickly for Mrs. BGA (who had an early meeting at Dartmouth's Baker Library) and That Certain Hanover High Junior, who had no choice but to hitch a ride with her because our school bus route was shut down.

With the library not opening until 10, I threw on my heavy winter coat and a pair of gloves, lined a couple of solar-powered lanterns up with the sun and puttered around until coming down off the mountain.

There's a band concert in town this evening and a Dartmouth women's basketball game, so we won't be heading back up the mountain until 9 or so. Hopefully the power will be on by then but only time will tell.

Check back in a couple of hour for a regular blog.